Food pairing
Beer with sauerkraut
Fermented cabbage — sharply sour, salty and funky.
Fermented cabbage is sour, salty and faintly funky. The sourness is lactic rather than vinegary — softer and rounder than a pickle's — and it comes with a savoury depth that raw cabbage has none of.
Malt sweetness balances lactic acidity better than bitterness does, which is why the German answer is usually a malty lager rather than anything hoppy. Sauerkraut also almost always arrives with pork or sausage, and that combination of fat plus acid is easier to pair than either part alone.
Sauerkraut rules a lot of beer out, but several beers do the job it needs equally well. Pick between them on preference — the reasons matter more than the order. The attribute doing most of the work is acidity.
What to drink
Dark mild — strong
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
Kentucky Common — strong
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
Berliner Weisse — strong
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
Fruit lambic — strong
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
Lichtenhainer — strong
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
Ordinary bitter — strong
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
Alcohol-free pale lager — good
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
Alcohol-free wheat beer — good
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
What not to drink
- Helles Bock — Delicate food needs a beer that stays out of its way.
- Dry stout — Acidity in the dish is doing what bitterness would otherwise do. A beer with its own acidity, or one with enough residual sweetness to sit under it, is the safer direction.
- Bock — Something lighter will let the food lead. This pairing works only if you want the beer to be the main event.