Top Tips for Beer and Food Matching

Craft beer is one of the biggest recent success stories of Irish food and drink. This month, in the first of a series which will show how to get the best from some specific food and wine pairings, our expert columnist and food blogger Kristin Jensen gives her top tips for beer and food matching in general.

Here’s something that might surprise you – beer is a better match with food than wine. I like a glass of white wine with seafood or a full-bodied red with a steak as much as the next person, but beer simply ticks more boxes and shines where wine falls short.

For instance, the bubbly, cleansing carbonation in beer gives a refreshing lift to your palate, leaving you ready to taste each bite fresh. This is especially true for rich, fatty foods and cheese. Plus beer has a greater range of flavours than wine. Wine is restricted by its single ingredient – grapes – but beer can play with different variations of barley, hops, yeast and even spices, chocolate, nuts, fruit and vegetables (pumpkin beer, anyone?).

The range of flavours and the versatility of craft beer mean there’s a match for just about any food, from chilli to chocolate. Here are a few general tips to get you started with matching beer and food.

• Complement or contrast? This is the first thing to decide when matching beer with food. Do you want to highlight the similar flavours in the beer and food or do you want to use their differences to contrast them instead? For example, a hoppy IPA can both complement a spicy curry or contrast rich, smoked meat, while an earthy stout complements chocolate but is also a classic contrast to the delicate sweetness of oysters.

• Pair like with like. A good rule of thumb is that delicate beers go well with delicate foods – think wheat beers and blonde ales with seafood. A strong, dark beer would overwhelm light flavours. Those same strong beers are a natural match for heartier dishes though, such as stout and red ales with roasts and stews.

• Drink seasonally. You’ll naturally want a crisp, delicate pilsner as a refreshing lift on a hot summer’s day, while an earthy porter is just the thing for sipping by a crackling fire in the pub. It follows, then, that those same styles are often a good match for seasonal dishes – a lager is great with a barbecue, while a porter is perfect for autumn game.

• Pace your flavours. If you’ll be matching different beers to different courses of a meal, start with the lighter-flavoured beers and progress to the bigger, bolder beers, not the other way around, otherwise the stronger beers will overpower the lighter styles.

• Translate your favourite wine style into beer. If you already know what wine styles you like or what wines you like with food, you can roughly translate them into a beer style. If you like light-body wines such as Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio, go for a lager, pilsner or wheat beer; if you would have served a medium-body wine like Merlot, Zinfandel or Syrah, opt for an ale or IPA; or if you prefer Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec, try a stout or porter.

And here are some general guidelines for matching specific foods to common styles of Irish craft beer:

• BBQ: Lager, red ale
• Burgers: Pale ale, IPA, red ale
• Chicken: Pale ale, red ale
• Chocolate: Stout
• Chowder: Pilsner
• Indian food: Wheat beer, pilsner, pale ale (mild); IPA, pilsner (spicy)
• Game: Ale, stout, dubbel
• Lamb: Stout, red ale
• Pizza: Lager, red ale
• Seafood: Lager, wheat beer, blonde ale
• Smoked fish and meat: IPA
• Spicy food: Lager, IPA
• Steak: Red ale, stout, dubbel
• Stews: Ale, stout

Now that you have a few basic tips and pairings under your belt, where can you buy craft beer? BradleysOffLicence.ie, Drinkstore.ie and TheBeerClub.ie all carry a wide range of Irish and international craft beers that you can buy online and they deliver nationwide. Or talk to your local grocery store or off license manager to ask them to stock beers from your favourite craft brewery.

Sláinte!

Kristin Jensen is a freelance editor specialising in cookery and food books and has worked with many of Ireland's top food writers and chefs. She writes the Edible Ireland blog and is a co-founder of the Irish Food Bloggers Association