Chechil – The Perfect Snack To Pair With Great Beer

I love the holidays.  Not only do we get to enjoy some great seasonal beers, but we also get bombarded with some of the more amazing seasonal foods of the year.  I love sweets, but I tend to really love the salty and savory snacks…….enter A Beer’s Best Friend…. Chechil.

If you know me, you’ll know I don’t use the “P” word lightly, but I simply can’t think of a better headline to describe this unique and tasty snack, and a better word to use to describe how well it pairs with beer.

For year’s I’ve matched up all sorts of cheeses with all sorts of beers.  I can tell you it’s one of my favorite beer pairings, and while I love the creamy & sweet cheeses, Chechil take the beer pairing up a notch.

If you were like me when I first sampled Chechil, you may be asking what exactly is it….and to say it’s a “cheese snack” doesn’t do it any justice.  In it’s simplest form, Chechil is a braided, smoked, salty cheese snack, but it’s way more than that.  Chechil originated in Armenia and it is now one of the more popular bar snacks in Europe…but the really good news is that thanks to a group of New York cheese-makers, Chechil is available in the U.S.

If you’ve heard enough already…here’s the link where you can check it out and try it for yourself.  If not…please read on.

As you can see Chechil arrives braided and in a vacuum-sealed pack.  While I will tell you the flavor is WAY better than string cheese, Chechil makes eating the cheese itself fun (even more fun than your generic string cheese).  Just unbraiding the cheese was a lot of fun for me.  We found it best to unbraid the cheese and allow it spread out and dry a little, but I dare you to try NOT to eat it while you unravel it.

Chechil is really tasty with a pleasant smoked cheese quality.  The texture is slightly chewy which only makes me want another bite even more, and when you taste it with beer, you’ll see that salty savory, smokey flavor pairs well with just about any brew.

We started out this year pairing Chechil with Sierra Nevada Celebration.  This hoppy non-tradition holiday seasonal really plays nicely with Chechil.  While the balance of malty sweetness and resinous hops of the beer cut nicely through the flavors of Chechil, you’ll still fine that the Chechil shines on it’s own.  The only downside I can find in this pairing is that it made us want to drink, then chew some Chechil, then drink and then chew some Chechil….you get the idea.

To finish up, we paired up Chechil with a sweeter Rogue Chocolate Stout.  This isn’t a pairing I’d normally try with most cheeses, but with Chechil I had a feeling it would be really good….and I was right.  Chechil played a nice savory counterpart to the sweet Chocolate stout.  The smokey and salty flavors shined right through and really complimented the stout.  We equated it to chocolate-dipped potato chips, but picture the chips being smokey, salty AND cheesy too. In the end I liked this pairing the best, but please be sure to experiment with Chechil on your own and let me know what you think

Chechil is available on-line at http://chechilusa.com/ and I suspect we’ll be seeing more of it in craft beer bars and brewpubs.  A big thank you to Sergy for sending the Chechil and allowing me to add it to my holiday food/beer pairings. 

In the end, I consider Chechil to be the perfect beer snack and while I almost never pick favorites, this had to be my favorite beer pairing of the year….so be sure to try Chechil for yourself!