Best Beer and Food Pairings to Enjoy in the Summer Season

At least if you’re on your vacation, there should be plenty of time to put effort on the dinner table. But how to choose the right kind of beer as a pairing for food? We’ve collected together a simple advice on how to combine different kinds of tastes and flavours.

Why even try to find a perfect drink with a meal? The most important thing about combining drink and food is to make the meal taste better. In the best case, you’ll be able to find even from the beer some new dimensions when paired with a good meal.

Drink can serve as a companion to food or highlight its characteristic features. In addition to the flavour, the drink may also increase the mouthfeel and the feeling of fullness.

You can try to find harmony between a beer and a meal or then try to collide different taste worlds and bring out the opposition between different kinds of flavours.

The simplest kind of advice is to combine opposites. A salty meal goes well with a malty and sweet beer. With a greasy and full meal goes a dry and light lager, for example.

Another alternative is to comply with the flavours of the meal. For instance, a chocolate dessert could be made even smoother with coconut or caramel flavoured stout.

In the following you’ll find some typical beer-with-a-meal-pairings.

Asian 

Asian restaurants normally serve their local lager style beers as a drink with a meal. A bitter lager cuts well a meal with spicy, aromatic and rich flavours.

Still, a taste pair of Asian food may as well be a fruity spiced beer. Try out a traditional ginger beer or more eccentric sour beers flavoured with tropical fruits, for example.

Sweet and Sour

In a sweet and sour meal the sweetness is more likely highlighted which is good to be balanced with a fruity beer. For instance, with a sweet and sour wok goes well a more bitter style West Coast IPA, or a rich and cloudy NEIPA, depending which you prefer.

Creamy 

Creamy meals such as pastas and risottos are served with fresh pairings which in the world of beer are, of course, well-cooled lagers. Instead of a normal pale lager, try this time a well-hopped modern lager style or a Cold IPA.

Light 

With light salads and other fat-free meals or vegetable-based dishes a great choice is a mildly acidic and fresh beer. Prefer a lower alcohol content and try out a mild pale ale or fruity and tasty sour beers.

Sweet

With desserts the pairings may vary widely. Creativity is an advantage, so try out different ideas without any prejudices! Would a perfect pairing for a chocolate fondant be a bitter and citrusy IPA or a cherry-flavoured Kriek?

Umami

With red meat, mushrooms and pot meals it’s essential to find a beer that cuts the juiciness of the meat and also goes well with the umami flavour. To that purpose we would recommend a refreshing pale ale which with its softness and fruitiness forms a perfect combination also with a heavy and substantial meal.

On the other hand, the umami flavour could be intensified with a dark beer that has a lot of taste in it. To this purpose could work a full Trappist ale or more acidic dark lager or a sharpy Bock.

Greasy

A greasy meal can be cut easily with a traditional pale lager or a bitter citrus-flavoured IPA. A light and crisp lager balanced the greasy mouthfeel as well as the citrus-flavour of an IPA gives a nice pairing to the flavours of the meal. An intense bitterness is highlighted in both.

Smoky

With food that has been spiced with smoke aroma or with barbecue you may like to choose a smoky beer, but a more secure choice would be to try out a caramel-flavoured red or amber ale. Smoke also needs a little bitterness as a pairing.

A wilder choice would be to combine barbecue with a sour beer, for instance, with pineapple-flavoured Berliner Weisse.

Salty

With the usual salty food you don’t need to use any tricks. For example, with white meat and fish goes simply a light pale lager which is also easy to drink if the saltiness gives a thirst.

Hot and spicy

A hot and spicy meal graves for something soft and smooth to balance the burning flavours. A nice unfiltered wheat beer offers a perfect pairing to ease the spiciness.

But remember that alcohol isn’t the best remedy to get rid of the burning feeling in the mouth. For that purpose we recommend rice, pasta or white bread.