When enjoying beer with a meal, there are some basic guidelines you should keep in mind. First, try and match the intensity of flavors. A big bold beer like an IPA or a barleywine will overshadow light flavors. Instead, try to keep your beers roughly as flavorful as the food you’re enjoying. It’s also a good idea to progress toward heavier, more intense beers as the meal progresses and not the other way around. A more delicate beer like a wit bier could seem off if you have it following an intense brew like a stout. The different food courses work the same way; this is why you begin a meal with lighter fare like salad and finish it with rich desserts like chocolate. For a more detailed primer on the art of pairing food and beer, take a look at our pairing guide.

For the Whole Meal - Biere de Garde – This rare French style is smooth and slightly buttery. It’s seen a recent resurgence from American craft brewers like The Lost Abbey and Jolly Pumpkin with their Avant Garde and Oro De Calabaza beers. 3 Monts from Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre is the classic French version.

Poultry – Oktoberfest (Paulaner), Biere de Garde (3 Monts), Bock (Anchor Bock).

Red meat – ESB/English Bitter (Fullers).

Pork – Belgian Wit (Hoegaarden), Saison (Foret).

Sweet potato – Brown Ale (Newcastle), Pumpkin Beer (Dogfish Head Punkin).

Potatoes – Belgian Tripel (Chimay), Cream Ale (Sam Adams).

Stuffing – Rye Ale (Founder’s Red Rye).

Pie – Dunkelweiss (Weihenstephaner Dunkel), Dopplebock (Ayinger), Cream Ale (Sam Adams).

Green beans/veggies – Pale Ale (Sam Smith).

Cranberry sauce – Lambic (Lindemans Framboise).

Dessert – Christmas beers (Anchor Christmas, Affligem Noel) – We’ll have more on this style Monday.

What are your favorite beers to pair with food? Let us know in the comments or by tweeting your beer next time you enjoy it and adding the #mybeer hashtag.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

On Tuesday we introduced the wonderful world of pairing beer with food. Today we’re going to delve deeper into the topic by exploring the beers that compliment a traditional meal many of us are preparing to have next week- Thanksgiving.

Beer with Thanksgiving isn’t anything new. It was a daily staple for the Pilgrims, as it was for most people in the 17th century. The Pilgrims had planned to sail all the way down to Virginia but were forced to make their home in Plymouth, Massachusetts because they ran out of beer. We think they had the right idea, so join us next Thursday in toasting Thanksgiving with your favorite brew.

When picking beer to pair with Thanksgiving, you can either choose one brew to enjoy throughout the meal, or you can go all out and pick a different beer for each course. If you are going with one beer for the whole meal, you want to pick one that’s versatile enough to cover all the flavors and aromas of Thanksgiving while keeping in mind what the dominant tastes are going to be. In my experience, the rich, savory and slightly sweet flavors of Turkey with gravy, stuffing, sweet potato casserole and pumpkin pie all go great with balanced beers like bock, Oktoberfest and a little known French style, Biere de Garde. All of these beers are somewhat malty but still crisp and refreshing, which is what makes them great with Thanksgiving. Here are some recommendations for each of these styles:

Biere de Garde – This rare French style is smooth and slightly buttery. It’s seen a recent resurgence from American craft brewers like The Lost Abbey and Jolly Pumpkin with their Avant Garde and Oro De Calabaza beers, respectively. 3 Monts from Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre is the classic French version.

Bock – Although it might be a bit too sweet, Sam Adams Winter Lager is a great bock to try. If you can’t find that, try Anchor Bock from Anchor Steam.

Oktoberfest – If you can still find it this time of year, Paulaner’s a great choice. See are our article on this style for more details.

If you choose this second option – pairing different beers with each course – it’s a good idea to progress toward heavier, more intense beers and not the other way around. A more delicate beer like a wit could seem off if you have it following an intense brew like a barleywine. The different food courses work the same way; you begin a meal with lighter fare like salad and finish it with rich desserts like chocolate. Here’s a list of common Thanksgiving items and some beers that go well with them:

Turkey – Oktoberfest (Paulaner), Biere de Garde (3 Monts), Bock (Anchor Bock).

Sweet potato – Brown Ale (Newcastle), ESB/English Bitter (Fullers), Pumpkin Beer (Dogfish Head Punkin).

Stuffing – Rye Ale (Founder’s Red Rye).

Pumpkin pie – Dunkelweiss (Weihenstephaner Dunkel), Dopplebock (Ayinger), Cream Ale (Sam Adams), Pumpkin Beer (Dogfish Head Punkin).

Green beans/veggies – Pale Ale (Sam Smith).

Cranberry sauce – Lambic (Lindemans Framboise).

Of course, these are just suggestions. The best beer and food pairing is the one you like the most. What are you planning to drink with Thanksgiving? Let us know in the comments.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Beeriety team!

For too long, wine has been the sole companion to fine dining, while beer has been relegated to tailgates and parties. Don’t get me wrong, nothing beats a beer on its own when you’re relaxing with your friends, but that’s not all beer can do. Beer pairs amazingly well with a variety of foods. Enjoying a great meal with the proper beer can enhance them both, making a good dining experience into a great dining experience. Today we’re going to look at the basics of how to pair beer with food.

When pairing food with beer, there are two basic approaches. The first is to match the flavors of your food with similar flavors in your beer, and the second is to contrast the flavors of your meal with a beer on the flip side of the palate. To better illustrate these ideas, let’s take a look at an example- pairing beer with Indian cuisine.

Spicy Indian dishes like chana masala or chicken korma are delicious, but they don’t always go well with wine. Hot and spicy foods are notoriously difficult to pair with wine, but beer makes a great companion. The spicy hops in an India Pale Ale can match the spices and the herbs in the food perfectly. The similar flavors from both are blended together on your palate to create a fusion of spicy goodness; this is what matching flavors is all about. A great IPA to pair with Indian food is Hazed & Infused from Boulder Beer Co., which has some wonderfully bitter Crystal and Centennial hops in it.

Instead of pairing a meal with a beer that will match the flavors of the food, you can pick a beer that will offer a contrast in flavor, something that will balance out the spiciness of Indian cuisine and refresh the palate. The fruity, crisp flavors of a hefeweizen like Paulaner make a great counterpoint to curry and other intense Indian flavors.  It cleans the taste buds with its intense carbonation and cools them down with flavors of banana and cloves.

Even if Indian food’s not your thing, this example should give a basic idea of how food pairing works. Once you understand the concept of matching and contrasting different flavors it’s time to experiment with the pairings you like best. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do it. One thing to keep in mind though is to keep the intensity of the food flavors consistent with the intensity of the beer flavors.

Don’t let your beer overpower your meal (or vicea versa.) A big hoppy and malty barleywine like Big Foot from Sierra Nevada can certainly offer a contrast to many different meals, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to pair it with a subtle dish like lobster. If enjoyed together the barleywine will undoubtedly dominate your palate, drowning out the lobster’s delicate flavors and hurting the meal. A more subtle and nuanced beer like Chimay’s Belgian Triple would help bring out the complicated flavors in seafood. A beer as bold as Big Foot would properly do well against a meal with a similar level of intensity such as barbecue pork, which matches the sweet and spicy flavors of the beer. This is just a suggestion though, to discover what you like you should explore as many beer and food pairings as you can.

What are some of your favorite beer and food pairings? Let us know next time you try it by tweeting what you drank and adding the ‘#mybeer’ hashtag.

On Thursday, we’re going to take a more in depth look at how to pair beer with a meal many of us well be enjoying next week- Thanksgiving. Be sure to tune in then for suggestions on what beers go best with traditional Thanksgiving favorites.