Pairing Craft Beer With Bar Food

Most of what I know about pairing beer with food I learned by watching plates come back to the bar. A table orders a round of double IPAs and the hottest wings on the list, and twenty minutes later half the wings are still sitting there and someone is at the rail asking for a glass of milk. The next table orders the same wings with a pitcher of amber lager and sends back nothing but clean bones. Nobody at either table was thinking about pairing. One of them just got lucky.

This piece is about taking the luck out of it. None of it is fussy. You don't need a cheese knife or a tasting mat, only a rough sense of what beer does in your mouth and what bar food does back.

Four principles that cover most of it

1. Match intensity. Delicate food with a delicate beer, big food with a big beer. A light helles disappears next to a smoked brisket sandwich, and an imperial stout flattens a plate of lemon pepper wings. Get the weight roughly right and you are most of the way there.
2. Cut. Carbonation, bitterness and acidity all slice through fat and salt and reset your palate for the next bite. This is why fried food and fizzy beer have been together for as long as there have been fryers.
3. Complement. Find a shared flavour and let it echo: roasted malt with charred meat, caramel malt with barbecue glaze, citrusy hops with lime and cilantro.
4. Contrast. Opposites can work too: a sweet, rich stout against salty blue cheese, a tart sour against a fatty fried snack. Contrast is harder to land, but when it works it is the pairing people remember.

The science you can actually taste

Carbonation and fat

Fat coats your tongue. Each sip of a lively, well-carbonated beer scrubs some of that coating away, so the next bite tastes like the first one did. The fizziest styles (pilsner, saison, wheat beer, gose) do this best. Nitro stouts and cask ales are softer and less bubbly, so they suit food that is rich without being greasy.

Hops, heat and why your IPA is hurting you

Capsaicin, the compound behind chili heat, and hop bitterness gang up on you. Bitterness makes heat feel hotter, and heat makes bitterness taste harsher. Alcohol adds to the burn as well. So a strong, bitter IPA next to very hot food is about the most painful combination you can order, which is fine if that is what you are after and miserable if it isn't.

For real heat, go the other way: lower bitterness, some malt sweetness, moderate alcohol. Mexican-style lager, Vienna lager, helles, hefeweizen and milk stout all calm things down. Sweetness and body soothe, and cold bubbles refresh.

Malt and char

When meat browns on a grill, the Maillard reaction builds the same family of toasty, roasty flavours that kilning builds in malt. Amber lagers, brown ales, porters and stouts all carry some of that. Put them next to a charred burger or the dark bark on smoked brisket and the flavours line up. Of all the "complement" pairings, this is the most reliable.

Salt and malt

Salt softens bitterness and makes malt taste sweeter and rounder. That is why a salty soft pretzel and a malty German lager work so well together, and why a very dry beer next to very salty food can taste thin.

Dish by dish

Wings, by sauce

Wings are where most game-day pairing decisions get made, and the sauce matters more than the chicken. If you are still choosing how to cook them, the comparison of fried, baked and smoked wings covers that side of it.

• Mild or medium Buffalo: the classic butter and vinegar hot sauce. A pilsner is ideal. Bitterness and bubbles cut the butter, and the heat is low enough not to fight the hops. A pale ale works too.
• Hot and extra hot: drop the bitterness. Mexican-style lager, helles or a Vienna lager. A milk stout sounds odd, but its sweetness and body put out fires.
• Honey garlic: sweet and sticky, so meet it with something malty and soft. Hefeweizen or an amber ale.
• Lemon pepper: bright and peppery. Witbier is close to perfect, with its own citrus peel and spice. Pilsner if there is no wit on.
• Barbecue: smoky and sweet. Brown ale, porter or Vienna lager, which all echo the caramelized sauce.
• Salt and pepper or dry rub: no sugar, no wet heat. This is where a West Coast IPA earns its spot, because the hops have room to talk.
• Sweet chili: fruity heat with sugar. A hazy IPA, with its tropical smell and low bitterness, fits well. So does a witbier.
• Parmesan garlic: rich and savoury. A crisp pilsner, or a gose whose salt and tartness cut the cheese.

Burgers

A classic cheeseburger is the most forgiving dish in pub food. An American pale ale is the default for good reason: enough bitterness to cut the cheese and beef fat, enough malt to meet the char, and not so strong that you are done after one. A Vienna lager or an amber ale is the gentler option.

Bacon and smoked cheese push the burger toward porter. A blue cheese burger is where you can try contrast: a West Coast IPA meets the funk head on, or a small pour of barleywine plays sweet against salty. Mushroom and Swiss loves a brown ale, earthy against earthy. For builds worth pairing, the burger section of the game-day food guide has a few that suit each of these beers.

Pizza

Match the beer to the toppings, not the crust.

• Margherita or plain cheese: helles or pilsner. Tomato acidity and fresh mozzarella want something clean.
• Pepperoni: pale ale or amber. The spice and the orange grease like hops and a bit of caramel.
• Sausage and peppers: Vienna lager or a malty Märzen.
• Mushroom, or anything earthy: brown ale or a Belgian dubbel.
• Ham and pineapple: witbier or a hazy IPA, fruit with fruit. Argue about the topping all you like. The pairing works.

Nachos

Cheese, salt, jalapeños, sour cream, salsa: nachos hit every part of your mouth at once. Mexican-style lager is the easy answer, and it is easy because it is right. The light body and fizz handle the cheese, and the low bitterness leaves the jalapeños alone. A Vienna lager adds a toasty note that suits beef or chorizo toppings. Skip big IPAs here unless you enjoy the burn. The layering method for nachos that stay crisp builds a tray that holds up through a full quarter, which gives the beer something worth pairing with.

Soft pretzels and cheese dip

A Märzen or Oktoberfest-style lager is the old pairing and still the best: toasty malt, a clean finish and enough body to stand up to the cheese. The coarse salt on the pretzel makes the malt taste even rounder. If the dip is sharp cheddar, a pale ale's bitterness cuts through it nicely. For a hot pretzel with grainy mustard and no dip at all, a German pilsner.

Smoked meat

• Brisket: porter or dry stout, roast against bark. An amber lager if it is a hot afternoon.
• Pulled pork with a vinegar sauce: saison or pilsner. The acid in the sauce wants a dry, spritzy partner.
• Ribs with a sweet glaze: brown ale, Vienna lager, or a smoked lager if you want to double down. Smoked beers are an acquired taste, so start with a half pint.
• Smoked sausage: hefeweizen or Märzen, a German pairing that has lasted for good reason.

Desserts

One rule borrowed from wine holds up: the beer should be at least as sweet as the dessert. If it isn't, the dessert makes the beer taste thin and sour.

• Chocolate brownie or cake: imperial stout or milk stout. Chocolate on chocolate.
• Cheesecake: a fruited sour or a raspberry wheat beer. The tartness cuts the cream cheese.
• Apple crisp: a brown ale or a Scotch ale, both heavy on caramel.
• Vanilla ice cream: pour a little imperial stout over a scoop and call it a float. A little, because these beers are strong.

The pairing table

Alcohol-free pairings

Some of the friendliest partners for hot food have no alcohol in them at all, since alcohol itself adds to the burn. Take it away and the heat is easier to enjoy.

Non-alcoholic beer has improved a great deal, and the same principles apply. A non-alcoholic pilsner or lager does the same scrubbing job on wings and anything fried. A non-alcoholic IPA, usually less bitter than its full-strength cousin, suits burgers and dry rub wings. Non-alcoholic stouts are often the strongest of the bunch, because roasted malt carries so much flavour, and they work with brisket, ribs and anything chocolate. The guide to beer styles on game day describes the full-strength originals these are modelled on, which makes it easier to know what to expect.

Outside of beer:

• Ginger beer with very hot wings. Its sweetness calms the heat and its own gentle spice keeps up.
• Root beer with barbecue ribs. The vanilla and molasses notes sit right on top of the glaze.
• Sparkling water with a big squeeze of lime alongside nachos. It does the scrubbing job without any sugar.
• Unsweetened iced tea with a lemon wedge next to a burger or smoked meat. The tannins grip fat the way hop bitterness does.

If you try one experiment this season, make it this: order the same hot wings two ways, once with a pilsner and once with a strong IPA, and alternate bites and sips. Your mouth will settle the argument within three wings.