Pair award-winning dark beers with our delicious recipes

Stout, porter and other malt-driven dark beers are such versatile food partners. They are long-time companions for oysters – the sweet malt notes offsetting the briny sharpness of the shellfish — but equally they can be matched with desserts.

However, don’t have a chocolate-y beer with a chocolate dessert as they will cancel out each other and the beer will taste too bitter. Ditto, with smoky beers — pair them with smoked foods and the effects get cancelled out.

So, with 8 Wired's Baltic Smoke, it’s best to match it with a dish that’s got deep, rich, earthy flavours the smoke can play against and slice through, such as juicy steak with mushroom sauce. It would also cut through the juicy richness of slow-cooked lamb shoulder.

Burkes Brewing Unforgiven Porter, with its dark chocolate and roast coffee flavour, is an ideal food match on so many levels, but it’s especially good with fried food such as lamb chops or grilled halloumi.

At at the other end of the porter spectrum Sprig & Fern’s Norty Porter is so light and chocolately sweet it can handle something as delicate as raspberry cheesecake, which allows the chocolate and berries to complement each other.