Howdy!
Once again, shamelessly lifting from Eater's National Burger Week (by the way happy National Burger Month everyone...) they decide to ask some folk what would be a good adult beverage to accompany some very specific burgers. I might just have to 'borrow' that idea in the future...
In the meantime:
At Longman & Eagle in Chicago, Jim McCann suggests either a "dry but fruit forward" Sicilian white wine, a slightly bitter pale ale or a "wheated bourbon... on the sweet side." - Wouldn't you be looking for the same qualities in a beverage instead of completely different flavors?
At the Heirloom Café in San Francisco, Matt Straus suggests an $85 half bottle of vin jaune or a $120 American Cabernet Sauvignon to go with a $12 burger. - If the burger was $30, perhaps. But you have to be kidding. And on top of it a vin jaune and a burger is like pedal powered Lamborghini aka a joke.
Over at Father's Office in Los Angeles Sang Yoon suggests a wine that has a "bloody, iron ore like character" or a beer that has a "tannic hop finish, [and a...] slick caramel like maltiness." to go with a hamburger that has both blue cheese and Gruyere. Again, why would you suggest two completely different flavor profiles for your beverages? And with a good blue cheese on a burger, I would suggest water. There are just going to be too many extremely strong flavors happening for a beverage to compete.
At Burger & Barrel in New York Natalie Tapken recommends a wine with "tobacco and herbaceous qualities... crushed floral and cherry notes." A beer that is "quite complex" with "malt and strawberry qualities [that] compliment the bitter backbone to the beer." Or a cocktail with Gin, Aperol, Lemon, Grapefruit and Sparkling Wine because it is "refreshing." To her credit they are to be paired with a lamb burger. All my previous comments apply here as well.
