Counterweight “Weisses and Virtues” Berliner Weisse and Classic Sugar Cookies

Berliner Weiss and Sugar Cookie

The recent renaissance of the craft beer world has been centered in the world of sours. A group of styles that it took me a while to come around to, not only are they a great addition to beer as a whole, but they also present many opportunities for cookie pairings.

This pairing came about spontaneously, making batter for Christmas cookies with my 2 year old on a snowy day. Once the batter was mixed we were, ehm, tasting it for balance of flavors (as all great chefs do) and I had a random thought that the flavor of the flour in the dough tasted like an unfiltered wheat beer. I originally contemplated an obvious pairing with a hefeweizen, it would go with a sugar cookie but would end up like bread with plain pasta. I then thought about a recently acquired berliner weisse.

The beer: One of the central characteristics of the style is a sharply sour aroma and this comes through in spades. One of the barriers on sours for many (including myself) is the very un-beerlike smell that you get right at the start, but pushing past that yields great rewards. Beyond the sour smell you get a sense of a hefeweizen and mild stone fruit. All of this is mirrored in the taste of the beer with a sour front, fruity notes of apricot in the middle and finishing like an unfiltered wheat beer. Light body and sourness make this a very refreshing beer and at 4% abv, very session-able.

The cookie: This is about as basic as you can get. A thin, crisp sugar cookie with no bells and whistles, it is decently sweet with noticeable butter on the back end and, though much less than the uncooked dough, hints of that flour/wheat flavor. Also, due to its simplicity there is a distinguishable “baked cookie” taste that I love. Very satisfying, especially when cut into the shape of pine trees or jolly old elves.

The pairing: Overall the two went decently well together. The beer provided sour and fruity high notes that the cookie lacked (similar to adding lemon to a sugar cookie recipe, or a lemon icing) and the cookie provided a solid buttery backbone to the light bodied beer. This was an odd circumstance in which each component simultaneously overpowered the other. On some sips, all I could taste was the bite of the beer, on others the sweetness of the sugar cookie dominated. Either way, definitely a bite-and-sip pairing.