There is more to consider than just wine when deciding on what to drink with a meal
No, I am not changing allegiance, wine was, is and always will be my favourite tipple. But a good quality beer can be equally exciting as a good wine. For about 8,000 years, beer has been an important, nourishing beverage. Across the world there are at least 50 major styles of beer. Such diversity has created a serious fan club for serious beer.
Some suggest that real beer is a far more versatile beverage than wine, bringing a wide range of flavours and aromas to the table. Wine, simply, doesn’t go with everything. For instance, we are eating much more spicy food than we did 20 years ago. Traditional beer is now available almost everywhere and it seems to complement the new type of cuisine.
But how to match them? First, pay attention to the strength of the beer’s impression on your palate. Belgian witbier, which is light and spritzy, would be an example of low impact beer, while imperial stout, which is roasty and powerful, would be a high impact beer. To have a successful match, you’ll want to match the impact of the beer to the impact of the food. Wheat beer, kölsh or helles may match that delicate fish perfectly, while brown ale with stand up to ribs. Go for light bitterness for more delicate dishes, and save bitter beers for richer dishes, hops slice cleanly through oils and fats refreshing the palate.
The flavour part is the part of the beer’s taste and aroma that matches, harmonises and accentuates the flavours in food. When the flavours meet on your tongue they ‘recognise’ each other and this creates harmony. Beer can have flavours of caramel, coffee, chocolate, bread, bananas, lime, herbs, smoke or raspberries – there is a lot here to work with.
Let us take caramel. Anything that is roast, grilled, fried or sautéed develops some sweetness and flavour of caramel. Everyone loves the crunchy bits on roast meats and no-one would happily choose a boiled chicken over a roast one. If you roast your chicken well, it should have a golden brown skin, and that is where a lot of the flavour is concentrated. In this case we want to find a beer with similar caramel flavours. Amber ales, amber lagers, bockbiers, brown ales and light porters all have caramel flavours that match the chicken beautifully.
Citrus flavours can also come from the hops, especially the limey, grapefruit Cascade hop, or from actual fruit. Most pale ales have some citrus character and that can be used to match Mexican, Thai and Vietnamese dishes.
Roast malts provide another great flavour for a wide variety of dishes, from a charbroiled steak to chocolate mud cake. Any dish that has flavours of char, coffee or chocolate is a good candidate to match brown ales, porter and stouts. Grilled ribs, burgers and steaks are obvious matches; these beers are so powerful that they can even match roast peppers.
Matching desserts is one of the greatest talents of big stouts and porters. Strong stouts, especially imperial stouts, can provide perfect matches to chocolate desserts. Classic, dry Irish stouts such as Guinness won’t work here because they don’t have the needed intensity; instead go for something bigger.
The chocolate and coffee flavours in strong stouts also provide a pleasant contrasting flavour to work with other desserts. For example, imperial stouts are excellent with vanilla ice cream, fruit tart, cheesecake and panna cotta, even pecan pie. These beers work just like strong coffee on the palate. Oddly, fruit beers are not the best choice for fruit-based desserts. The flavours of the beer and the dessert seem to compete and finally cancel each other out.
For sheer versatility, wheat beers are hard to beat. A glass of weissbier provides the perfect match for eggs Benedicit using its high carbonation to burst through hollandaise sauce and then providing a slightly sweet contrast to the saltiness of bacon. Belgian witbier will do just as well, the sunny orange flavours are perfect with egg dishes, the more ascetic of these beers can even use their own acidity and fruit flavours to much a bowl of fruit with yoghurt. Unfiltered wheat beers are chock full of vitamins too. For similar reasons, they are also great accompaniments to fish and shellfish. With fish preparations choose Belgian witbier for the most delicate and citric preparations. When the preparation is earthier then go for the earthy, slightly smokey flavour of Bavarian weissbier. Unlike wine, beer can also offer harmonies with cheese flavours as well as contrasts.
These days there is no excuse for dull meals. The availability of fine beer almost everywhere means that you can enjoy affordable culinary luxury for less than the price of a cup of Starbucks. And if that isn’t living large, I don’t know what it is.
BEERS OF THE WEEK
Castelain Ch’Ti Blonde abv 4.5%, 250ml
This beer is a golden straw colour, with bubbly, fine, reasonably long-leaved head. A nose of soft, socky, grassy vegetal hops is evident. The hop flavours continue in the mouth with a flowery, vegetal grassy, almost pilsner-like character. The malt is slightly grainy, with a little touch of caramel sweetness. A slight residual sweetness is also evident in the happy finish with perhaps a sharp citrus note.
Ch’Ti Ambrée abv 6%, 250ml
Rubyish in colour, very dark amber, this beer has a smooth but short-lived head. The aroma starts deliciously yeasty but then develops fruity and distinctly sherryish notes. The palate is very malty and has, again, a distinctly sherryish character with a slight hint of wood. It also has a certain syrupy brown sugar texture; rapidly lifted by very dry, smooth and slightly ashy hops with a mere hint of coffee grounds in a good, long, tangy finish. Somewhere in there is also a hint of marmite. For a bottom-fermented beer it is notably complex and is very drinkable.
Castelain Ch’Ti Triple abv 7.5%, 250ml
It pours a rich golden colour with a quickly dissipating white head. On the nose there is a soft blanket of honey and biscuit malt, but a nice cut of hops too and a certain floral, confectionary, aromatic quality. On the palate there is a noticeable sweetness; a slightly cloying saccharine quality that is joined by much more bitter hoppy notes and a fruity, ripe apple and pear character. This is quite a sticky, thick beer on the palate that has a syrupy finish and is certainly quite complex.
Castelain, Ch’Ti Blanche abv 4.5%, 250ml
This bottle is closed with a cork and wire topping. A cloudy beer, Ch’Ti Blanche pours a pale yellow/white with a moderate white head. The nose is nettly and pungent with a grassy character and rather modest hints of coriander and clove spice. There’s a slight smokiness, and hints of banana. On the palate it is quite full with a clean, under ripe white fruit and lemony style. There’s a subdued spicy quality in a beer that is easy to drink, but not terribly distinctive.
Available at Au Bon Plaisir at €4.80. Tel: 22 755111
