What is the best beer with lobster? If you’re planning a summer lobster bake – or even just looking to indulge in a lobster roll – we’ll give you a few pointers on the best drinks to serve alongside this summer treat. Lobster’s sweet, succulent, and briny taste pairs well with various beers, but it also pairs well with certain wines and liquors. You can check our earlier beer pairing recommendations for starters, but we’ve added a few more to the list, along with a handful of Maine wineries and distillers.
Best Beer with Lobster
Lagers like a pilsner, pale ales, and wheat beers pair well with lobster, but so do IPAs and Belgian-style tripels. Here are four Maine craft brews that surely complement the taste of lobster and will enhance your dining experience.
- Belfast Bay Brewing’s Lobster Ale is a dark copper-colored red ale with a distinctive yet smooth taste. Of its many qualities, the balanced medium hop flavor and roasted caramel character are perfect and yield a rich, white, foamy head. This red ale pairs very well with your favorite lobster dish.
- Bissell Brothers Precept Lager is a fresh take on German-style pilsner. Brewed with a Maine pilsner malt base and Saaz and Mittelfruh hops, Precept will pair well with your favorite lobster dish any day of the week.
- Rock Harbor Brewing Company’s Twin Screw Pale Ale is flavourful but not overbearing. Its light hop and malt characteristics pair well with Maine lobster. Located in Rockland and offering a variety of craft brews, there are plenty of other delicious options to check out, too!
- Maine Brewing Company’s Lunch IPA has been dubbed an “East Coast version of a West Coast-style IPA.” Its intense hoppy flavor, tropical citrus fruits, and pine aromas are combined with a subtle malt sweetness to bring this brew into balance. It pairs exceptionally well with lobster dishes—boiled, broiled, baked, or grilled.
Best Wines with Lobster
Wine can’t be made anywhere; certainly, Maine is not well known for its vineyards. But, along the mid-coast, the state’s moderate ocean climate combined with the fertile soil there has yielded a number of varietals over the past several decades. Merlot, Shiraz, chardonnay, and sauvignon blanc have all been successfully developed by mid-coast wineries, with two prominent ones: Cellardoor Winery in Lincolnville and Bar Harbor Cellars Winery.
- Lincolnville’s Cellardoor Winery, nestled in a valley between Levenseller and Cameron Mountains, offers a wide range of palatable wines for all and any occasion. Their multi-gold-winning Chardonnay offers a rich, distinct, and expressive flavor and goes well with grilled lobster in butter sauce. Their award-winning, richly concentrated Merlot is dark and powerful and pairs well with spicy lobster tacos.
- Bar Harbor Cellars Winery offers an incredible Sharada Chardonnay. This white Burgundy is a lightly oaked wine with notes of crisp apple and ripe pear, which gives way to a citrus finish that pairs very well with Maine lobster. Next up is their Rising Tide Riesling. Offering the aroma of citrus and honey, it is punctuated with a dry, crisp finish. If you’re grilling your lobster, the Riesling pairs nicely. For a red wine to sample with your lobster, try the Sieur des Monts Sangiovese with its art cherry, plum earthiness, and spice overtones.
Best Liquors with Lobster
Lobster’s sweet and briny flavor makes it a perfect pairing with cocktails and spirits that complement its taste and preparation. A neutral spirit like gin can be paired with a buttery lobster dish to add a citrusy flavor, balancing the sweetness and cutting through the fat. A lobster linguini with vodka cream sauce is perfect for any occasion, but vodka cocktails also go well with lobster dishes.
- New England Distillery Ingenium is a Genever-styled dry gin produced in Portland. Distilled from a mash of local barley and rye, and blended with traditional and non-traditional gin botanicals, that includes kaffir lime leaf, rose flower, and lemongrass. Ingenium creates a nicely balanced, citrusy, herbal flavor with a smooth finish. Cocktails like Negroni or martinis made with Ingenium pair very well with lobster dishes.
- Newcastle’s Split Rock Distillery’s Organic Horseradish Vodka or their traditional Organic Vodka makes an excellent Bloody Mary for your lobster pairing.
- Cognac, distilled from wine, also pairs very well with shellfish and lobster. If you’re planning surf and turf, cognac is an excellent spirit for the dinner table.
Whether you’re looking for the best beer with lobster or local Maine wine and liquor pairings, one fact remains: look to Klenda Seafood to order the highest quality fresh Maine lobster for your cookouts or lobster bakes this summer. We deliver fresh, live Maine lobster directly to your door, or if you’re in the area, stop by our South Portland location!