Finale's Craft Beer and Dessert Pairing Menu

Last night, I was lucky enough to attend a special evening at Finale Desserterie & Bakery at their Brookline location.  The kind folks at Finale invited me and a guest to attend their craft beer event featuring a sampling of five flavored craft beers paired with some of Finale's desserts.  My friend Kristen happily accepted my invitation to be my plus one and we indulged in both desserts and beers last evening.

Executive Pastry Chef Nicole Coady carefully selected the desserts of the evening.  Chef Nicole advised us to try the dessert first and then the beer; and then to try the beer first and then the dessert. 

Erika Soucy from Great Brewers described the craft beers.  You can tell how passionate she is about beer and I loved hearing her vivid descriptions!







The craft beer and dessert pairings included:

• Lindeman's Peche with a Fresh Fruit Tart - I loved this fruity and floral peach beer.  It was so light and perfect for summer.  I've had the fruit tart before and loved the Tahitian vanilla in the Bavarian cream filling of the tart.
• Bosteel's Tripel Larmelier with Creme Brulee - This Belgian beer was rich and creamy.  While I liked the beer and creme brulee each separately, I didn't actually like the two paired together.  While sweet on its own, the beer tasted a bit bitter to me when followed by the creme brulee.
• Wells Banana Bread with Boston Cream - This beer was by far my favorite!  The nutty banana bread aroma was so strong and the flavor of the beer didn't disappoint!  The Boston Cream was also my favorite dessert!  Again, there was Bavarian cream with Tahitian vanilla, which was extremely flavorful.  I loved the yellow cake in the Boston Creme, which used both sour cream and buttermilk.  The use of these ingredients made the yellow cake less sweet, which I definitely enjoyed.
• Schneider Aventinus Eisbock with Chocolate Symphony  - I really liked this German beer which had a nice hint of cloves.  But the dessert stole the show in this pairing.  There were three layers of chocolate sandwiched between layers of chocolate cake - dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate mousse.  There was a subtle crunch at the bottom of the cake and Chef Nicole explained that it was just a bit of granulated sugar baked into the bottom of the cake for some texture.  I loved it!
• Atwater Vanilla Java Porter with Dark Chocolate Decadence - This was the only domestic beer this evening.  This porter is made with chocolate malts but it was surprisingly and unexpectedly light and not heavy at all.  This was a wonderful contrast to the dense dark chocolate dessert it was paired with.  The Dark Chocolate Decadence has a strong bittersweet cocoa flavor with subtle espresso notes.  Because I'm not the biggest fan of dense chocolate desserts, I'd have to say that I enjoyed the beer a bit more than the dessert in this pairing.

I had such a lovely time at Finale last night and I must thank Mindy Valone for inviting me to this craft beer and dessert tasting event!  Finale has some more fun events coming up this summer, like their sorbet and gelato tasting and their summer drinks tasting.  You can learn more about this fun events on their page here.

Full disclosure: The craft beer and dessert pairing menu was complimentary, but as always, my opinion is honest and completely my own.

Finale Desserterie & Bakery has three locations in the Boston area but I dined at the Coolidge Corner location at 1306 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA.