Beer & Food Go Together

You might be drinking the wrong beer with your food. Here’s how to fix that.

Pairing craft beer with food can be quite subjective. There are three principals that can help you think about what brew to pair with your meal, Compliment, Contrast and Cutting.

COMPLIMENT

Compliment is when your beer's flavors match the flavor profile of your food. For example a meal with a smoky and roasty flavors would be paired with a smoked porter style brew in a complimentary paring.

CONTRAST

To contrast the pairing means to find a brew that differs in flavor profile but enhances or suppresses the flavors of your meals. Think sweet versus sour or bitter versus sweet.

CUTTING

A cutting paring means to use the brew to wash away the flavors of a meal, effectively clearing your palate for the next bite. Certain components of beer can have a palate cleansing effect. Hops are bitter and can erase the flavor of many things you eat. The carbonation in beer can have a scrubbing effect as the bubbles diffuse the richness of a more robustly flavored or fatty dish. Other components of beer can have a cutting effect. Malt sweetness, alcohol and sourness all can have this effect depending on the meal.