I've already extolled the awesomeness of Pyramid's Apricot Weizen [1], but something I've recently realized is how much better it is when paired with salt and vinegar chips. Salt and vinegar is the most delectable of all of the chip flavors. A close second would have to be sour cream & onion, with ranch (cool or otherwise) taking home the bronze. Back in the days before Whole Foods, I stuck mostly to your basic Lay's salt and vinegar chips. These are just your average thin chips with a different flavoring, nothing too exciting. They were still good, but not great. In college I discovered Poore Brother's chips, which are the kettle style thicker chips. Kinda like double stuff oreos except they are potato chips.
Poore Brother's makes a salt and vinegar style chip that is a little different. These were sea salt and vinegar, which doesn't sound like a big difference but they did taste better. Sea salt chips tend to have larger grains of salt and are just generally... saltier. Once I started shopping at Whole Foods I tried the Boulder Canyon salt and vinegar chips. These are a lot like Poore Brother's in style. They are kettle chips and officially they are "sea salt and malt vinegar," which again just sounds like marketing semantics. There really is a big taste difference, the Boulder Canyon chips are a lot tangier and sweeter, they are the ultimate in salt and vinegar technology as far as I am concerned.
For me the pairing of chips and beer was a no brainer. I think potato chips are a better compliment than pretzels, maybe it's just the type of beer I drink. Anything salty seems to go well with most beers, the exception being stouts. I prefer fried foods with my stouts. Anyways, I had a few bags of Boulder Canyon Sea Salt & Malt Vinegar chips this weekend so I decided to sit down with a few Apricot Weizens and see what happened. The pairing was fantastic. The Apricot Weizen is sweet and mellow which is nice when you're snacking on something extreme and salty like salt and vinegar chips. I had tried this before with a Blue Moon, which is a basic unfiltered wheat - it markets itself as 'Belgian style' and spiced with coriander and orange but don't be fooled, it's just a straight wheat. The Blue Moon, like any plain wheat has a tangy almost sour taste. This combination works fairly well but as a matter of personal preference I'd rather have an Apricot Weizen with my bag of salt and vinegar chips.
Variations on a Theme
Another combination that I've found to work out well together would be Salt & Cracked Pepper chips with Shiner Hefeweizen. The salt and cracked pepper chips are rather spicy which goes well with the light, sweet Hefeweizen. The cracked pepper chips can be pretty harsh though, eating a whole bag can be like emptying a pepper mill in your mouth. They're good in moderation though.
Lay's and a Pilsner: This one is obvious. Kinda like peanut butter and jelly, they were meant to be together.
The only other combo I've tried worth mentioning is Feta Cheese and Olive flavored chips and Fäßla. This is something I tried in Germany and, while I don't regret it, I won't be looking for olive flavored chips anytime soon. The Fäßla is a pilsner which was fairly sour, and the chips were well, cheesy and full of sodium... Imagine taking a bag of Cheetos and dunking them in the juice that comes in a can of olives before eating them. Then wash it all down with a beer. It just wasn't meant to be.