Baird & spicy pizza

Today on the blog I pair a few beers from Baird Brewing with a spicy pizza. The phenomenon of how spice and beer interact has really intrigued me ever since I had some great mexican and a bottle of 90min IPA. So after getting some great hot sauce from a friend back in the states I promptly decided to use it on some pizza.

Beer and pizza are a fantastic match up for many reasons. First off roasted malt and pizza have similar flavors, baked bread, a slight sweetness. Then you have the spices in the pizza playing with the hops in the beer. Finally pizza can get a bit heavy, and beer is happy to wash away those heavy flavors with its carbonation. This is not complicated, most college students already know this simply by instinct.

My thinking was that I would try two beers from Baird Brewing. Their flagship, Rising Sun Pale Ale and a favorite Angry Boy Brown Ale. American brown ales are usually thought of as a good counterpart to pizza and I figured that since it was a fairly light pizza (just cheese, and a light sauce of tomatoes, onion, garlic, and mushrooms) the Pale Ale might also work well (BA Review). I also thought that the hot sauce would be fairly mild and work well with the bitterness, especially in the brown ale.

Unfortunately, the hot sauce was really far too hot. The heat was tasty, and not without depth, however it was a bit much for the beers. To be honest I am not sure if anything could have paired with hot sauce this hot, maybe a very malty and very bitter DIPA. What I ended up with was two beers who's subtitles were washed out by the heat. Oh well, lesson learned next time less hot sauce.