Food? Good. Beer? Gooood.

So I left you last time with the impression that I might be spending my summer downing beer at festival after festival.  In truth, it involved a lot of science but more on that later.  Today I want to talk about two of my favourite things: beer and food.  There has been a lot of attention paid to combining the two in recent years and not just in the cooking pot though I love that too.  Brewmaster dinners and beer and food pairing or even "beer vs. wine" food pairing events.  A great book on the subject is The Brewmaster's Table by Garrett Oliver. Now as you can likely tell I am partial to beer and so please take anything I say about its superiority to wine with a grain of salt.  That being said, I am also learning about wine in Sensory Evaluation class so I am not completely in the dark.


Most people are familiar with the concept of wine and cheese so logically assume that the two go together like rock and roll.  Recently however, I learned that the two are often paired because  cheese has a tendency to coat the mouth and actually reduces your ability to taste things.  Less scrupulous hosts would therefore present it so that they could get away with serving lower quality wine after the initial course.  Most beers actually have the ability to cut through that mouth coating and refresh the palette, a function that is aided by beer's carbonation.  So the question of whether wine or beer is better with cheese is actually dependant on if you are the host or the guest.

Mmmmm. Beer cake.

A lot of people dismiss beer as a lower class alternative to wine, especially at the dinner table.  Admittedly, there are some pretty unexciting and low-brow beers out there but the same can be said for a lot of cheap wines.  If you take the same care and consideration to choose your beer as you do with wine then you open yourself to a whole world of delicious and sophisticated flavours.  Beer isn't just the beverage of appetizers and dinner.  You might be surprised at how great a beer can be for dessert.  One of my favourites is to have bold, citrusy, IPA with a key lime pie or a lemon meringue.  A stout or porter style beer with nice, roast malt flavours like chocolate makes a brilliant match for all kinds of  rich desserts and of course with chocolate.  Last night I prepared a chocolate cake that had a coconut porter added to both the batter and the icing.  Like most foods prepared with beer, serving that same beer with the meal works wonderful.

Other ways to match your beer and food are to consider the flavours and choose ones that either compliment each other or contrast each other.   Regional matches like pairing bratwurst with an Octoberfest Marzen beer makes sense but these don't always work out.  The real secret is to choose a beer you like because it doesn't matter how well the flavours go together, if you don't care for the food or the beer then it's just not as fun.  The main point is to try something new and enjoy yourself so next time you are entertaining, why not pick up a bottle of beer and impress your guests.

If it tastes good, do it. Don't be scared.

Until next time, Cheers!