My home of Minneapolis is full of people who are rather enamored with beer. I’m not talking about bros grabbing a cold one as they scan for ladies between rounds of Buck Hunter* (as apparently all of us do according to a now infamous NY Times article). What I’m referring to is the insurgence of Craft Beer that has gained a strong foothold bolstered by people passionate about not just drinking beer, but how it’s made, how it works, and most importantly, how to infuse unique and artistic flair into something that has long been a mass-produced product. Admittedly, I can in no way be classified as a “Beer Drinker”, but I still watch the movement as well as sample their progress along the way because it’s cool.
As the movement has been progressing it has been looking to the world of wine for a little guidance. Some of it has been general instruction on how be called “Fancy” at dinner parties, but there has also been a push to pair beer with food á la food and wine pairing (the greatest experience known to humans). Honestly, most of it I have seen thus far has been, to put it very nicely, a bit of a stretch. Food science is generally ignored with this effort and it seems mostly to be an exercise in filling content for media to gain the Craft Beer lovers as a readership demographic. So it was with that mentality that I quickly read a few lines of an article entitled: “Beer Vs. Wine” in our local beer rag, The Growler. I skimmed over the first few lines of a portion someone had pointed me to about pairing beer with food and promptly walked away with disgust. The author had sought guidance from a sommelier who gave him a list of Dos and Don’ts and I thought to myself “There is no hope for these people!”
After having a brief conversation immediately following that about why I thought pairing food with beer was worthless (Yes, it was mostly me talking), I began to question whether that was an accurate statement. This was after of course actually pairing a seasonal lager with a dish of andouille sausage and walnut/spinach pesto over a bed of spaghetti squash as seen above and struggling mercilessly to define whether it actually paired well or not. The next day I actually read the full article and you should too. It’s a pretty good article. The author’s conclusion is actually that beer and food pairing is just beginning so people are still feeling their way around the whole concept which I would say is a good summary.
Yet over the past 24 hours my mind has begun to ponder possible interactions between beer and food and I’ve decided that what the beer community really needs is a good framework in order to begin to hash out their own guidelines (not rules) about beer and food pairing. With that, I humbly offer some points from the evidence-based wine world to get them started. I honestly look forward to future progress and I think there will be some surprisingly wonderful results.
Work with good chefs.
The craft of wine making developed alongside the craft of cuisine. Why it was wine instead of beer or another beverage, I have no idea, but regardless, this means that wine and food already have a partnership. Wine makers have generally assumed that their product was to be consumed alongside food and chefs traditionally assume a fine meal will be accompanied by some wine. In other words, sometimes they are literally made for each other. However, if a chef designs a meal with a specific beer in mind, the results will be much better than just trying to pair a beer to a dish already thought up. Keep in mind though, that I don’t think any beers are made with the specific thought that they should be consumed alongside a meal. So once the chefs are willing to give a little taste of what they can do, it would be best to return the favor.
Map out the relationships between the components of food to the components of beer.
This is something the wine world is just starting to do, but the fact that knowledge exists on this topic, it should be incorporated. Maybe I’m missing it, but I can’t find where things like acidity or alcohol are being evaluated on standard beer evaluation methodologies. Maybe they don’t matter when judging the quality of a beer, but they sure do matter when pairing with food. What happens when you mix the varying acidity levels of beers with spicy foods? Why do parts of beer (i.e. carbonation) go well with salty foods? Ask questions and try stuff out. This is an area I can certainly help with. From this experimentation, guidelines can be developed and referenced.
Avoid Dos and Don’ts. Especially Don’ts. Focus on explaining the experience.
We have plenty of fallacies in the wine world that have manifested themselves into rules about what we should or shouldn’t do instead of just stating why something we are experiencing is happening. There are plenty of sommeliers that will tell you never to pair a big tannic red with a light fish. However, if you cook up that fish in a creamy or butter sauce, make sure there is enough salt or citrus acid to reduce the astringency from the tannins, and then force the pairing down someone’s throat, they’d probably think it was pretty good. Therefore, once you have guidelines based on what is actually being experienced in a pairing, let the chef planning the menu or the person consuming the meal decide whether or not they want to experience a certain aspect of the pairing or not.
Encourage the consumption of beer with a meal. Not necessarily by itself.
This is something America as a whole needs to do a better job of. There are a whole host of reasons as to why drinking with a meal and not consuming alcohol by itself leads to a healthier lifestyle. Having the Craft Beer movement be part of this push though would also help establish itself as a beverage that can add to the dinning experience.
Consider alcohol levels.
The alcohol content of wine has slowly been inching upwards so now wines are more commonly reaching the 15-16% ABV levels. It is generally agreed that these higher levels may perhaps be too alcoholic to blend with a dish because they start to overpower them. We are also seeing fewer wines being sold in the 11-13% range which is unfortunate, because this is a generally appreciated area for alcohol to be when being paired with food. So while beer generally sits below the 5% range, some of the more crafty ones are being delivered at higher levels with good results. Now, I think this will vary with the type of beer being made, but my personal opinion is that the most sublime opportunities for beer and wine pairing will be with beer around 9% ABV. The point is that the wine world is leaving the bottom level open for you if you’d like to come in out of the rain.
*As an aside, I played Buck Hunter for the first time down in Iowa a couple of weekends ago…I still don’t get it.
Aaron Berdofe's Wine and Food Experience 
Hey, Thanks for the link-back to my growler article. I want to correct a few misconceptions that you have about the piece and about beer in general.
First, I didn’t “seek guidance from a sommelier.” Certified Som Leslee Miller and I have a long-established professional relationship. We do frequent events and classes together all over the metro. Most of these involve us going head to head on food pairings. At this point it’s pretty much a toss-up as to who’s pairings are the best. We both have a great deal of respect for each others work and beverage. Our next public class is January 10th at the Edina Cooks of Crocus Hill location. You should come check it out. http://store.cooksofcrocushill.com/pairing-impossible-011014
Also, Leslee didn’t give me “a list of dos and don’ts.” Her comment about the textbook rules came out of a conversation in which we were discussing foods that are thought to be difficult to pair to. We both disagree with this assessment of these dishes and feel that many of the classic dos and don’ts should be ignored. It was just the fact that the wine world even has classic dos and don’ts that got me thinking.
Now to your advice to the beer world.
Beer in fact did develop with food. In beer-loving cultures such as Britain, Belgium, and Germany, the local cuisine developed right alongside local beer. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better pairing with bangers and mash or shepherds pie than a classic English bitter or brown ale. Weisswurst and weissbier is an ages-old pairing not to be missed. In those places, the beer/food connection was never lost.
The problem in this country is that prohibition destroyed our once-rich beer culture. The variety and traditions that once existed here were replaced by a monoculture of flavorless, fizzy, yellow stuff. The craft beer movement has restored the vitality that once was and pushed it into new and interesting places. We are having to re-learn and re-invent beer’s relationship to food.
As for working with good chefs and creating dishes to go with specific beers…Have you been to a beer dinner? You should give it a go. You will find that this is exactly what is happening. I’ve even worked with chefs on menus in which every dish included a beer ingredient like hops or malt in the preparation.
Mapping out the relationships between beer flavor and food flavor is exactly what we are doing. Things like acidity and alcohol are and have always been standard elements of beer evaluation. Along with sweetness, malt character, bitterness, hop flavor, texture, carbonation, creaminess etc., etc. etc. There exists extensive science on the chemistry of beer flavor that is being applied to pairing beer with food.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxiZWVyZmxhdm9yd2hlZWx8Z3g6NmM2MTU1OGQxMTg1NDVlMQ
http://www.craftbeer.com/food/pairing/pairing-interactions
Alcohol is definitely a consideration when pairing beer with food, but the great thing about beer is that you can pair with the full range, from the lowliest 2% session ale to the beefiest 15% barleywine or imperial stout. It all depends on the intensity of the dish.
I hope that you will give beer and food second thought. The range of flavors to be found in beer is vast, much greater than wine. (That’s not a dis on wine. I love the stuff.) Beer has minimally four ingredients, each of which has hundreds of variations that can be combined by the brewer in infinite ways to create different profiles. Additionally, brewers can add all sorts of food-friendly ingredients from herbs and spices to coffee. They can age beer in used wine or spirit barrels to impart those flavors into the beer. The fact that many of the same chemical reactions occur in cooking, malt making, and brewing – caramelization and the Maillard reaction to name just two – means that beer flavors are not just sympathetic with the flavors in food, they are actually the same flavors.
In short, beer is great with food.
Michael Agnew
Certified Cicerone
A Perfect Pint
http://www.aperfectpint.net
Michael,
Thanks for your response and filling in the gaps about your wine and food pairing conversations. I had feared you had been working with a sommelier of the more traditional camp. From my very limited knowledge of Ms. Miller (We judged at the same wine competition this past year) she puts more stock in the experience and science rather than the Dos and Don’ts of wine experts past. Plus, I think we went through the same wine schooling (ISG).
(I would encourage those interested to follow Michael’s link above to their pairing class which I’m sure is gastronomically enjoyable and entertaining,)
To clear up one of your misconceptions: I am very much giving beer and food pairing a second thought. My cautionary words were written in hopes that the beer world can avoid some of the pitfalls that wine has gone through in elevating its status as a “classy drink”. This was more of a “Here are some problems with wine, please avoid these…” kind of post. But on to the debate!
As far as history goes, a biased historian may point out that beer only became popular in regions where they couldn’t grow grapes and even then the Romans pushed their preference for wine onto the conquered. Jokes aside, let’s put the alcohol/food pairing idea into some context. The art hasn’t been around for more than a few centuries and must very well be considered “modern”. I don’t think it can be disputed that beer was consumed alongside food historically, but I can’t find any references that the consideration of what beer to pair with what food came along until very, very recently. The consideration of what wine to pair with what food came slightly before that. This is to say: I think wine got there first. Both are rooted in the “What grows together goes together” (as we say in wine) mindset which I feel is culturally significant, but sometimes quite limiting. I think you probably agree on that.
I definitely agree that Prohibition gave a devastating blow to the craft of American beer making. Wine and liquor are included in that too. However, when they recovered, chefs took to wine to consider pairing with gourmet meals. Thus, my recommendation to work with chefs. As you pointed out, this actually is happening, but how many restaurants have a Cicerone circling the floor? My hope is that the beer and food pairing events that are currently happening can become more ingrained in the restaurant culture. My sense is that right now they are more of a novelty.
Additionally, from my limited conversations with beer makers, I haven’t heard them say they consciously think about their beer pairing with food when they are crafting it. Maybe this is happening, but it doesn’t seem to be a part of the conversation yet.
Your link to the Craft Beer’s pairing interaction chart is fantastic. These are the kinds of things I think beer can leapfrog wine in. My fears that a strong movement based on subjective opinion instead of science in beer and food pairing have been eased. As you noted, the complexity of potential beer and food interactions is vastly greater than that of wine. This difference is due to the additive nature of beer creation whereas wine is theoretically a reductive process. There is a philosophical debate within that I think wine and beer lovers can forever argue over, but that is more for good-natured bantering over drinks. However, due to that complexity, it may be difficult to communicate to the consumer what the beer has to offer for the dish they are having. Most casual wine drinkers already find this overwhelming.
Lastly, I would encourage you and other Cicerones to check out the work of Tim Hanni, MW (www.timhanni.com). I don’t completely agree with his opinion that we shouldn’t teach wine and food pairings, but I feel he makes important points about how differently people perceive smell and taste that we should consider before using comparative adjectives (better/worse) to describe pairings.
Cheers to you work and happy tasting!
Aaron
A real historian/archeologist would point out that fermented barley, grape, and honey concoctions were made throughout the golden crescent as far back as remnants can be found. But that’s neither here nor there. 😉 No dispute that wine came to the concrete idea of pairing before beer. That was part of the point of my Growler piece. And I like to say, “What’s made together goes together” as beer is essentially an industrial product as opposed to an agricultural one. I like your description of wine and beer as reductive and additive. It adds to my own comparison of their essential natures.
Cicerones in restaurants does remain a rarity. It’s starting to happen at some fancier beer-centric places. But sadly, though they may have wine books as thick as the yellow pages, most fine-dining places still only have one or two even decent beer. That’s just beginning to change and is part of the work that we cicerones have to do. However, given that the cicerone program itself is only seven years old – the first twenty, including me, were certified in 2008 – the fact that it is starting to happen seems like good progress. But I think you have been talking to the wrong brewers. Most of them think a great deal about beer and food these days. The challenge is to instill that thought in the beer-drinking public.
As to subjective vs. scientific thinking in both beer and wine pairing, I have an observation that is rooted in the manufactured nature of beer. Because beer is an industrial product and consistency from batch to batch is demanded, a great deal of scientific research has been done into the flavor-active chemistry of beer. This goes way back to the 19th century. Many brewers come from a chemistry or engineering background, so this science is deeply rooted in the whole ethos and practice of beer making. It is starting to worm its way into the thinking about pairing. Leslee laughs at me because I will frequently talk in classes about the chemistry of the beer and the dish that makes them compatible. A great example is my pairing of English ESB to candy corn. I based the pairing on the fact that both of them contain diacetyl, a buttery-flavored chemical. It’s an approach to pairings that I am excited about exploring more deeply.
I’ll check out this Tim Hanni guy.
Cheers
Ha! Glad to see I’m not the only one who has talked chemistry in a pairing class.