This is an interesting and pleasant dish. Essentially a combination of a very basic tomato sauce, pesto, and cream. It sounds strange but it works swimmingly. A beautiful pairing for this is Belgian Tripel, specifically Westmalle Tripel.  

Why does it work?

So first let’s talk about beer and pasta. Obvious exceptions aside, like maybe gose, most beers with a decent malt backbone will work with most pasta on a fundamental level. Think Scarpetta, the ritual of using bread to wipe up the last remnants of pasta sauce from the plate. Beyond the basics, we want to start thinking about some of the more complex interactions between the beer and the pasta sauce. First off the alcohol and carbonation will scrub away the fat from the cream and the oil from the pesto, leaving the palate refreshed. Now let us look at the possible complementary aromas and flavours.

The tomato sauce in this dish is basic and barely cooked, in fact it’s just tomatoes and salt. This allows it to remain fresh and bright. The pesto, of course, is fresh, bright and fragrant. The cream adds some texture, a bit of richness, and some body, but the sauce succeeds at shying from heavy. The bitterness of the beer will contrast nicely with the slight umami from the tomatoes without completely annihilating it. I will also mention that the bitterness in the beer can integrate well with the sweetness of both the cream and the tomatoes. 

The shining star here though, is the basil. Specifically Genovese basil, which matters. Some major aromatic volatiles in this basil are linalool, major terpene alcohol also found in hops, limonene, a monoterpene and the major aromatic component of citrus fruits, and both eugenol and methyl cinnamate which contribute to that slight clove quality.  Moving over to the beer. The yeast derived aromas in tripels are typically clove and black pepper like phenols, and citrus fruit esters.  Floral herbal hop aromas are often light, but present and couple nicely with the basil. 

So not only are we matching a medium bodied beer with a medium bodied dish, scrubbing and refreshing our palate, and cutting through some of the sweetness.  We have a heavenly match of citrus with citrus, clove with clove, floral with floral, and herbal with herbal.  If you choose to add fresh parmesan, the added umami will still be contained by the beer’s bitterness. And to finish, remember those black pepper phenols?  I dare you not to crack fresh black pepper on your pasta.