There is a lot of info on the web and in books about pairing beer with food, and what beer styles to go with what specific dishes. Generally I find the books to be a lot more in-depth than the websites, but that is to be expected. In one of my earlier posts, I briefly gave some insight and pairing suggestions that were listed in on of my favorite books, The Brewmaster’s Table. This is an excellent book for anyone remotely interested in beer and food pairing. But what I want to do today is touch on the how’s and why’s of beer and food pairing. The reason is, you may have some beef stew you are looking to pair with a particular beer, but your beef stew will more than likely have a different flavor than the way I make it. You may add chili powder, or other spicy components. Maybe you add a lot of fresh ground pepper, and I don’t. Having the ability to figure out what is in your dish, and what beer to pair it with is not a static skill. What I mean, is that you can’t always pair a chocolate cake with a stout, and expect the combination to be the same each time. Generally, a sweet stout is a sweet stout, but they all are a bit different. These differences, and knowing them, can be the difference between a so-so pairing, and a spectacular pairing.
The first step is a bit dry. You have to become familiar with beer styles and generally flavors, aromas, and mouthfeel you can expect from these generic styles. There are a few sources for this information and they are all free. First you have the BJCP style Guidelines, but you also have the Brewer’s Association’s Style Guidelines. I find the Brewer’s Association’s guidelines a little less detailed, but those would work great for a quick reference of what to expect. For a more detailed breakdown, go to the BJCP styles guide. Also, you will find some slight differences in the naming and grouping of the styles, but both will get you what you need to know. Without having a general knowledge of these generic styles, it will be very difficult to figure out beer pairing on your own. So, as boring as it may be. Read at least one of these guidelines and become familiar with at the very least, the major styles.
The second thing you need to be familiar with is the ingredients, at least the key players, in the food you are pairing. Let’s take something I simply love, BBQ. I mean the real deal. Low and slow pulled pork. How would you go about pairing a BBQ meal with your favorite beer? It is a bit easier to pair if you are also the cook. You will know what ingredients and what type of food you are making. If you are asked to bring a beer to pair with someone elses dish that takes a bit of investigation. So you have to dissect what you are making. The base of your food is going to be a pork shoulder, slightly salty, a touch sweet, and sort of fatty. But chances are that is not going to be the key flavors of the dish. There, you look at your rub, your sauce, and consider the smoke. Is your rub going to be salty? Is it going to have some spice? What type of spice? Is your sauce going to be vinegar based or tomato based? Sour or sweet? Maybe spicy? How is it cooked? Is it roasted, charred, boiled? What type of flavor does this cooking method add? All these factors are going to have some influence on your choice of beer, but whatever your main flavor component is going to be, that is probably going to be your biggest factor. Just don’t forget the supporting flavors and aromas of your dish. This holds true for every dish you want to pair. Even something simple like roasted chicken. Are you going to use rosemary or just basic salt and pepper?
Now you want to put it all together. Looking at the pairing from a very high level, you have two basic interactions, balance or accentuate. Here is where you do have some easy to remember rules. Some attributes help balance others. Here are the three rules of thumb to live by when pairing.
1. Roasty, Bitterness (hops), alcohol, and carbonation in the beer will balance fat, sweetness, and Umami in the food (for more on Umami please refer back to my article “Being Honest with the Beer“.)
2. Sweetness and Malt in the beer will balance acidity and spiciness in the food.
3. Bitterness (hops) in the beer will accentuate spiciness in the food.

here is the dish we want to pair. Here is my pulled pork sandwich which is some Slow smoked BBQ pork shoulder, Sweet Salty and Spicy Rub, and homemade BBQ sauce. Topped with a bit of creamy cole slaw.
Now, one last stage of pairing is putting it all together. Generally, you probably want to balance. With balance comes haromony….most of the time. There may be times you want to accentuate a flavor or aroma. Both of these can be obtained by using the rules above, and combining it with finding common ground in steps 1 and 2 above. By understanding the flavor and aroma components of the beer, you can find flavor and aroma components that compare to your dish. You can have earthy, citrusy, roasted, burnt, sweet, caramel, Spice (like clove, vanilla, chocolate, allspice, ect), spice (heat, think pepper beers), and so on. Almost any flavor in food you can find a close match or at lease a balancing component in beer.
So now you want to think about what you want to do as far as finding balance or accentuate the flavor of the dish. So using our example above of the BBQ pork shoulder, let’s find a type of beer that may pair well with it. In my pork shoulder, I use my own rub (See the bottom of this post for my Rub Recipe) which is a bit salty, sweet, and spicy. I tend to use a vinegar based homemade sauce with sweet onions, and hard rolls baked here at a local bakery. So I have a dish that is fairly balanced between the salty, sweet, and spicy, has some acidity from the vinegar. Since the meat is sweet, there is some sweetness to the rub and sauce, I want to work on balancing the sweetness of the dish with the beer. Since it is smoked (I use maple, cherry, and applewood), I have some earthy and woody tones I can use as well.
Since I want balance, Look at rule #1 above. I may want something with a bit of roast, some carbonation, and maybe some alcohol or bitterness. Yet, I don’t want an overly roasty beer because I want some malt and sweetness to balance the spiciness from the rub. So here I am looking at a beer that is slightly roasty, has some malt depth and sweetness, a mild amount of bitterness, decent carbonation and/or alcohol. Since I don’t want to accentuate the spiciness of the food, I want to avoid highly hopped beers.
You want to match the intensity of the food. So it wouldn’t make sense to pair this pulled pork with a a heffeweizen or cream ale type of beer. I also want to match up the woodieness of the smoke. The smoke flavor is a key attribute to traditional BBQ. So I am thinking of getting a beer with some wood or smoke character. Although a Rauchbier is smokey, it is probably too smokey for my taste….although by all means it would pair nicely. Scottish ales may be a bit too sweet or not bold enough to stand up to our dish. A Marzen/Oktoberfest would fit the bill nicely. It has the malt, with a toasty character (toasty is not roasty, but can help match up well with grilled food), not a lot of hops, but it does have decent carbonation. It would be a good pairing, but we can do better. What Marzen is lacking in this case is the earthy woody character I am seeking. In this case I am looking at a porter, perhaps a brown ale. Some barrel aged English browns may work and pair nicely, Barrel aged American Browns may also work, but in some cases may be a bit too hoppy for the amount of heat in the dish. What I am looking for is a safe bet. So I am looking to the porters. A robust porter may provide too much roast. So here I have narrowed it down to a barrel aged brown porter or a barrel aged robust porter. If you look at the style guidelines for these two styles and add some wood from the barrel aging, you may have a very nice pairing for what we are looking to do in our dish.
That is the basic process and probably sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. But if you follow these simplified rules, this will get you into the right process for creating your own pairings. Just remember, it’s all about planning and understanding your ingredients, understanding your beer, and coming up with a plan on what you want your pairing to do. Balance and harmonize, or accentuate and showcase. Ido want you to keep in mind that there is no right or wrong pairing when it comes to food and beer. There are just some that are better than others. With my dish here, you could have easily gone with a Belgain Dubbel, where the malt, yeast, and alcoholic strength also would have enhanced the dish. For my taste perspective, I wanted a bit more roast than that. Also, you will need to consider the specific brand of beer. Some may appeal to you more than others. But finding this generic range, will help you narrow down your pairing. If you don’t know what is available at your local beer store, having this information will help one of the employees point you in the right direction. If you are able to tell them you are looking for a barrel aged porter, or a Belgian style dubbel, they should be able to steer you in the right direction (if they are good store and have somewhat educated people working the counter). You can also quickly deduce a good pairing based off the offerings in a resteraunt by knowing generally what you want to order, and a broad range of style that may go with the dish. That is if the resteraunt you are at offers a bit more than the big three and one or two other offerings.
As always, feel free to contact me if you feel I’ve missed something, have any questions, or just want to talk beer!
Barleypopmaker’s Triple “S” Rub
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1/3 Cup Kosher Salt
1 1/2 tbsp Black Pepper
1 1/2 Tbsp Paprika
1 1/2 Tbsp Onion Powder
1 Tbsp Chipotle Pepper Powder
1 Tbsp Cumin
1 Tbsp Cinnamon