What Beer do Foodies Prefer?

I usually drink beer with my meals at restaurants. I think that it enhances the flavor of the food. All of my best remembered meals were taken with beer. Am I wrong?

Foodies consider themselves a discerning lot I think. While most certainly appreciate simple flavors, they seem to revel in consuming the exotic; that which is as far from the ordinary as Ga Ga is to Mary Tyler Moore. If a mundane staple is good, roll it in bone marrow powder, fry it in duck fat, and top it with spoonbill egg crème fraiche (locally sourced) and it will be sublime! So why not drink something equally as flavorful as your food with your food?

I'm not asking whether foodies prefer “domestic” macro to craft beer. I'm just going to assume that anyone who seeks out and appreciates flavor, automatically prefers beer with flavor. This rules out “domestic” especially lite/light commodities as their very nature is flavorless. I want to know - do foodies think that beer with a lot of taste (bitter/malty/smoked/sour) interferes with the taste of their food? Perhaps beer with little flavor is itself desirable because it will not clash with the flavors in the food. Maybe, selecting the proper beer will have just the opposite effect.

Obviously, foodies select their wine to specifically accompany their food choice. Do they also consider what type of beer may also complement their food selections? Robin often identifies what beer he selected with his meal and on occasion even mentions how it paired. I would appreciate more detail in this area as it would help me in my own deliberations. As it is, I often just select the the most bitter beer under 7% abv. This is because bitter beer is my preference and I can have a few and still drive away from the place. This may not always be the best choice. It would be nice if someone informed me that I would be better served.

Wouldn't it be nice if servers at restaurants that provided a selection of flavorful beers would offer advice about how their beers paired with the food menu. My eyes were opened after attending a couple of beer dinners where the beer interacted with the food in a way that made both better. So now I know what I'm probably missing. Do I have to read a book or engage in trial and error at five dollars a glass until I'm better informed?

So tell me you foodies who drink beer. Do you consider what beer to drink in light of your menu selection or do you just order your favorite available beer without regard to what your eating? If you do make informed decisions – please share your preferences. Slightly inebriated minds want to know? Cheers!

The examples in this article might help answer some of your questions.

http://www.craftbeer.com/pages/beer-and-food/features/show?title=greg-koch-uncensoredmdash-the-great-myth-of-wine-amp-cheese

Greg Koch Uncensored—The Great Myth of Wine & Cheese

By Greg Koch

12:35:22March 2011

OK, I’ll come right out of the gate swinging with this one. The great myth of wine and cheese MUST die. Now.

Yes, it’s possible to actually have wonderful wine complement artisan cheeses, but it’s a crapshoot. Every time. Ask a cheese expert, and they’ll tell you; the ultimate companion to cheese is great beer. The wine experts, even the most knowledgeable, will warn you, “Don’t try this at home,” when it comes to creating harmonious match-ups with fromage.

Hell, even the large-format coffee table books on wine that wax ad nauseam about terroir, winemaking skills, and little-known grape varietals from the south-facing side of that one hill—you know the one I mean; in that one part of Piedmont, with that 300-year-old storied family plot, named after their great-grandfather’s favorite hunting dog?—even those viticultural filibusters rarely include more than a perfunctory page or two dedicated to the subject of cheese pairing.

gregTEXTAnd no, it’s not that it’s impossible to have a great cheese and wine pairing. But, I’d venture an educated guess that 99.9 percent of the time, you can find a far superior craft beer pairing that will have you swearing off Chardonnay in no time. And yet, the myth persists… mostly driven by the oh-so-desperate-to-be-sophisticated housewives of Orange County I’m guessing.

Beer and cheese often have complementary flavor profiles—toasty, bready, grassy, herbal, caramelly—which certainly helps when pairing. Carbonation also cleanses your palate, helping you taste each bite as if it were the first. True, you can drink Champagne, but do you want to compare price tags here? Plus, the acidity pair-up is all wrong, IMO. Then, there are hops; their bittering components add to the overall mouthfeel, and can accent certain flavors in many aged cheeses that no amount of grapes ever could.

Sorry pseudo-wine experts; the jig is up. Beer is, and always will be, the supreme cheese pairing beverage.
Pairing Guidelines

When pairing beer with cheese, there are a few simple guidelines you can follow. Most importantly, don't be afraid! This isn’t the snobby, stuffy world of wine here. There are no real rules or conventions you have to follow. Experiment until you find what works for you.

Check your temperature. You know better than to drink your craft beer straight outta the fridge, don’t you? Well, the same rule applies for cheese. Take it out of the icebox at least 30 minutes before enjoying.
Beer balances the contrast of malty sweetness with hoppy bitterness. Implementing the same thought process of complementary contrasts in your beers and cheese can often produce the best pairings.
Don’t overdo it. A smoked Cheddar or smoked Gouda paired with a smoked porter or Rauchbier might seem like a no-brainer, but they end up essentially canceling each other out, muddling many of the nuances and complexities of each.
Think strength and match intensities. Big cheeses need big beers. Lighter cheeses call for lighter beers. But, never resort to the travesty of a so-called “light” beer!
Excellent cheese pairing suggestions can be found on the Brewers Association's Craft Beer and Food Pairing Chart.

Pale Ale or IPA with everything other than dessert. For dessert I'll either switch to a stout or porter.



Pretty detailed chart on pairing tips and a video that talks about pairing.

http://www.craftbeer.com/pages/beer-and ... ring-chart

Sorry, I am a foodie, and I love wine, but I hate beer. Never developed a taste for it. I tried, went through the entire list at the late, lamented Fat Cats, but it never took.

[Robin Garr]

I like quality beer, not industrial swill, and although I'm a wine geek, I enjoy a good beer with dinner at home about as often as wine.

I'm not a real geek when it comes to beer, though. I don't really care for the high-gravity stuff, sorry, but I'm happy to taste through a range of pale ales, wheat beers and good pilsner/lagers, all of which I find compatible with food (or, beyond compatible, synergistic with food) but that don't get in the way.

Recent favorite house beers, for instance, have included Bell's Oberon, Schlafly Wheat, Upland Wheat, Bell's Two Hearted Ale and Sierra Nevada Hefeweizen. I expect that I'll look at some good Oktoberfest - probably a few from Germany and the US - as fall gets here. Stuff like that.

I've been reading this forum for years . . . and I'm pretty sure it is Bud Light . . . cold as possible . . . served in a glass of solid ice.

[Robin Garr]

I've been reading this forum for years . . . and I'm pretty sure it is Bud Light . . . cold as possible . . . served in a glass of solid ice.

Troll!

I like quality beer, not industrial swill, and although I'm a wine geek, I enjoy a good beer with dinner at home about as often as wine.

I'm not a real geek when it comes to beer, though. I don't really care for the high-gravity stuff, sorry, but I'm happy to taste through a range of pale ales, wheat beers and good pilsner/lagers, all of which I find compatible with food (or, beyond compatible, synergistic with food) but that don't get in the way.

Recent favorite house beers, for instance, have included Bell's Oberon, Schlafly Wheat, Upland Wheat, Bell's Two Hearted Ale and Sierra Nevada Hefeweizen. I expect that I'll look at some good Oktoberfest - probably a few from Germany and the US - as fall gets here. Stuff like that.

Ok, but here's the thing. Let's say you're about to order an Italian dish. Something with a tomato based sauce. What beer would you choose? White sauce, What beer?

Your going to have a grilled salmon on wild rice with a dill sauce. What beer? Deep fried cod. What beer?

Pulled pork, a burger, fried chicken.......what beer?

Does it really matter. Before the beer diners I would have just ordered a bitter beer no matter what I was eating. Now, I'm thinking I'm missing out sometimes.

The beer chart, that Ray and Justin both referred to, indicate that a lot of beers go with the same foods. It appears to be quite useless to me. Just pick a term such as roasted food as indicated for the porter. Is that all roasted food such as chicken, beef, and pork? Dark lager is good with roast meat. British style bitter is goes nicely with roasted chicken. Scotch Ale with roasted beef, Abbey Tripel with roasted turkey, Strong Ale with roasted beef etc. These are all roasted food! Oh the Doppelbock is nice with Rich roasty foods. What?????

So what am I really looking for here? Bitter with sweet, bitter with savory, sweet with salty or smoked?

Maybe I'm looking for a simple answer to a complicated question. So in that case, what I need is someone like the chef or the in house sommelier or cicerone to guide me during my visit. Put it on the menu or special printout. There are a few places that do this already. I'm thinking that if a restaurant has a sophisticated beer menu, then it needs to be prepared to assist guests with how their beers best pair with the food they are serving.

Or I could just order the bitter.

Howdy Shane,

First I'm pretty sure you know the answer to your questions. Your beer palate is superb and vast, you just need to utilize your inner beer Jedi.
Yes, if all else fails, just order the bitter.

I've found that both complimentary and contrasting flavors work well when pairing beers with particular foods.
My advice is to start with the basics - ingredients and terroir.

Beer is essentially: water, grain, yeast, & hops - each which impart key flavors to the beer.
The educated beer drinker (such as yourself) can usually pick out the differences in these ingredients easily (even if they aren't aware of it consciously).
For instance: Fuller's ESB's particular flavor is derived from the English malts (usually roasted or dried with coke), the water from Chiswick, the particular strain of yeast used by the brewers, and the varietals of hops utilized.
You already know these flavors well and what foods pair best with them. The key is to remember the basics.
Examples: The malty, nutty nature of dopplebocks work very well with nutty cheeses (Celebrator with Gruyere); dark, chocolate malts of stouts pair well with dark, rich flavors (like chocolate) or sweet contrasting flavors (Founder's Breakfast with cheesecake);... etc

There are very crazy flavors though in certain beer styles though that disregard any applicable rules and some beers are not "food friendly" in my opinion.

The nature of the beast though is subjective at the core.

I do suggest reading The Brewmaster's Table by Garrett Oliver.

Shawn

The chart sez Oktoberfestbier pairs well with Mexican or other spicy foods.


How about......no!

Yesterday for dinner at Eiderdown I had their Kentucky Country Ham sandwich (which is great) with two glasses of Triple Karmeleit. So delicious. Though I'm sort of disappointed that they don't serve North Coast's Brother Thelonious on tap any more, which in my opinion is not only one of the few credible American Belgian-style ales, but also pairs well with lots of food.

I don't understand the affinity for hoppy, or even over-hoppy, beers with most food. Sometimes a snappy, hoppy ale is great with, say, a reuben, but otherwise they just destroy my palette.

I do suggest reading The Brewmaster's Table by Garrett Oliver.

This.

And the pairings suggested in it are more extensive than in the link above.

Lets see what it says about some of Shane's food suggestions above:

Tomato sauce...no real suggestion, but pasta w/ meat sauce he suggests American amber lager or Belgian pale ale.
Pasta w/Alfredo...Tripel, Biere de garde, Doppelbock
Salmon...Hefeweizen, witbier, saison - not sure if dill would change that

Roast chicken...a long list, but at to is Biere de garde, dunkel, bock, British bitter.
Roast pork...dunkel, dubbel, doppelbock, altbier.
Roast beef...British bitter, altbier.

Some overlap there, but some differences too.

I think the chicken vs pork difference is big...similar flavor profiles, but doppelbock v bock shows that pork could handle stronger beers better and the chicken can handle subtler beers like the Biere de garde.

The chart sez Oktoberfestbier pairs well with Mexican or other spicy foods.


How about......no!

Well, the better mexican beers are vienna style lagers, which are very similar to Ofests, so I can see that.

Yesterday for dinner at Eiderdown I had their Kentucky Country Ham sandwich (which is great) with two glasses of Triple Karmeleit. So delicious. Though I'm sort of disappointed that they don't serve North Coast's Brother Thelonious on tap any more, which in my opinion is not only one of the few credible American Belgian-style ales, but also pairs well with lots of food.

I don't understand the affinity for hoppy, or even over-hoppy, beers with most food. Sometimes a snappy, hoppy ale is great with, say, a reuben, but otherwise they just destroy my palette.

I like hoppy with spicy. Otherwise, generally not so much with food. I think the hops cuts thru the spice really well. Cleanses the palate. A Thai restaurant without an IPA on tap is doing it wrong.

Howdy Shane,

First I'm pretty sure you know the answer to your questions......
I do suggest reading The Brewmaster's Table by Garrett Oliver.

Shawn

I do suggest reading The Brewmaster's Table by Garrett Oliver.

This.

And the pairings suggested in it are more extensive than in the link above.

First, Thanks Shawn for the props but you give me way too much credit. Believe me, I wouldn't be asking if I already knew the answers. I've been drinking real beer for some time it's true but I've never really made an effort to understand how food and beer interact.

Places like the CPC, NABC, Louisville Beer Store etc have made it possible to drink beers from around the world now. So, I've been drinking them and I'm having a great time doing it. Beer pairings at Majid's and Louis Le Francais gave me my first exposure to how much more enjoyable a dinning experience can be if the beer and the food complement each other. Why wouldn't I want this at every meal?

Still, I haven't taken much onus on myself to incorporate those experiences into my dining habits. It seems a bit burdensome if you have to study it. Others already have and I believe that it may be as simple as a footnote at the bottom of the menu entry to identify what beers in house at the time would be most suitable for that food item. Of course menus are not so easy to change in their current form. So maybe the answer is a different kind of menu. A digital one? Well it looks like we are moving that way. Beer tablets at several locations and embedded tablets at some new restaurants may be a harbinger for what is to come. It could even be simpler than that.

I could see an app like “Menus and Hours” updating itself when you enter the restaurant and log onto their server with your chosen mobile device. An up-to-date menu with the day's specials, beer and wine list. Each food entry would include recommended wine and beer pairings. You know what would be even better?

I'm a specials kind of guy. When the server does a good job of describing the special to me, I almost always order it. Why? Well because it's special! Also, because I've just visualized the dish and can almost smell and taste it already if the server has done a good job. If the server then says, we recommend the “XYZ” beer for this dish as it's “XYZ” character will enhance the dish's own “XYZ” flavor, well then I'm sold!

Until that is a regular occurrence, I've ordered Mr Oliver's book. Reviews indicate that it is a good read. So, I thank you all for your informed responses. Cheers!