Beer and food: Because it’s worth it
There is something so effortlessly natural about the combination of beer and food. Yet sadly this often means a floppy slice of pizza in one hand and a bottle of lager in another. Or worse, a handful of peanuts. Or cheese coated nachos. Not that there’s anything wrong with pizza, peanuts or cheese covered nachos, of course, it’s just that, well, beer deserves more.
Pairing your beer glass with your lunch is easy and fun. Don’t be afraid to get it wrong; just eat your lunch and then finish your beer. Nothing wrong with that. For the basics, look through a few books: Garrett Oliver’s Brewmaster’s Table is the bible on this stuff, Sam Calagione and Marnie Old’s He Said Beer She Said Wine is really comprehensive and fun, Ben McFarland’s World’s Best Beers has a great food section and Randy Mosher’s Tasting Beer has some great advice. This post is an over view of why beer is great with food. It looks at the particular qualities of beer and why it works so well.
I won’t open up a ‘beer vs wine at the dinner table’ debate because I think we all know who would win. It’s simple. Beer kicks wine’s ass. For the pure depth and spectrum of flavour, the range of styles and the range of alcohol strength, beer is the winner. Beer is the perfect partner for literally anything, and it’s not just because it tastes great; it does specific jobs and it plays tricks that wine can’t do…
Carbonation lifts the palate, it can sweep in, lift the flavour off your tongue and leave you refreshed and ready for the next mouthful. Think spicy food, think fatty or fried food, think heavy and rich desserts.
Hops provide a kick of bitterness to match bitterness in food. They also slide through richness and help to balance flavours. Vegetables and charred meat are great with earthy-fruity hops; look at stouts or hearty Belgian dubbels. Bitterness also enhances and pronounces other flavours. But different types of hops and bitterness work with different types of spice and fragrance. A lot of people cheer on chili or curry and IPA but heed this warning: hops amplify heat. That sizzling hot curry is leaving a tingle on your lips so don’t refresh yourself with a rip-roaring IPA, it’s like rubbing a grazed knee with salt. Some IPAs are very good with spice, it just takes a little care to get it right: Worthington White Shield with medium curries is super, zesty pale ales like Stone’s and Sierra Nevada’s are great with Thai food, hoppy brown ales or dark lager with chili is fantastic. If you are a bit delicate on the spice-front then don’t pair a pant-tearing chili with a tongue-splitting IPA or the explosion will knock your socks off.
Wine is acidic, but not sour. Beer can be both. The sourness in beer is made by yeasts which are wine’s kryptonite. Add this sharpness to the savoury and rustic edge of lambics, krieks and gueuze and you get something perfect for many foods. Rich food, seafood, pates, goats’ cheese, chocolate with sweetened krieks… The sour fizz is also similar to Champagne so it’s a perfect palate arouser.
Roasted flavours are something you won’t find in wine. At least not to the same level and depth as in beer. These compliment the char of grilled meat, they soften sharpness (particularly if the beer is smoky), they contrast the salinity and caress the sweetness of rich fish. Big-up the roastiness into an Imperial-sized stout and it’s dessert time. A glass of wine can’t do any of this.
But it’s the simple things that work best. Pizza and lager? No. You can do better than that. Try pizza with dark lager. Spaghetti with tomato-based sauce with a smoky porter or a dubbel. A hoppy, fruity pale ale with fish and chips. Pretty much anything you damn well like with a fat, juicy burger. A cold, crisp lager with spicy food (nothing cuts richness and spice like a good lager). Barley wine and blue cheese, in-your-face IPA with mature cheddar, spicy Belgian blondes with soft, creamy cheese. Imperial stout or sweet cherry beer with chocolate.
It’s also an ingredient, if you don’t mind opening a bottle and not drinking it. Stout ice cream is awesome, beer cakes, panna cotta is great, stews, carbonnades, breads, salad dressings (just put a couple of drops in with oil and vinegar), moules mariniere. Plus using beer as an ingredient is a natural bridge for the flavours to work together when you want to drink while eating.
I hope this serves as a basic look at how and why beer works with different foods. Cook some food, think about what with provide great balance (this could be a complimentary flavour or a contrasting one) and find a beer which offers that. If you aren’t sure then open a couple of bottles and try them both. There are no rules, just give it a whirl. Beer and food are natural accomplices and it’s great fun trying to find good matches (it’s often the unplanned ones which work best, too!). So next time you sit down to eat, and think to yourself, ‘I’ll have a beer when I’m finished’, re-wind a little, go to the fridge and open something up.
And I’m always interested in new beer and food pairings, so if you’ve got anything great that I really must try then let me know!
4 Comments to “Beer and food: Because it’s worth it”
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Neat exposition of this, Mark. I reckon chapter 3 of the Garrett Oliver should be mandatory reading for anybody running a restaurant.
But the problem we face with restaurant owners and wine vs beer (apart from ignorance) is how much of their profit is dependent on the money they make on selling wine.
Oh please!
“I won’t open up a ‘beer vs wine at the dinner table’ debate because I think we all know who would win. It’s simple. Beer kicks wine’s ass.”
In case you didn’t notice you just did shoot the shot across the bow in the beer vs wine debate. There is a place for all the drinks beer, wine, and whiskey. Your coming across like a boor. Preaching to the choir.
Cheers,
Richard Brown
maltjerry, I think Garrett Oliver’s book should be mandatory reading for EVERYBODY! It’s a great read. The money side of things is a difficult one when it comes to beer vs wine as it’s perhaps not so financially viable to sell beer as the mark-up can’t be so high (there are upper limits as to what people will pay for beer). So few restaurants serve decent beer and it’s a great shame especially when beer and food go so well together.
saazhopper, there is definitely a place for all drinks, I completely agree, but talking about great wine and food pairings here is not exactly the aim of this blog… Preaching to the choir, maybe, but so do all the great beer books out there with food chapters in it and it’s an important part of beer drinking and enjoyment, I think.
Augustiner Dunkel with sausages and pie; De Struise Panaepot or Mikkeller Black with steak, Rochefort 10 with lamb and beef. Thomas O’Hardy’s with any strong cheese preferably stilton.
Stone Russian Imperial Stout with duck and Goose Island IPA with pasta and meatballs but I reckon Torpedo by Sierra Nevada will go down a storm. Chocolate gateaux with Cantillon Kriek.