The best beer pairings

Pairing a drink with a snack is common in the land of tapas. There is a clear connection between beer and the food we enjoy it with. Knowing beer’s properties, we call this relationship pairing. Pairing means combining a drink with a dish based on their characteristics to enhance the sensations of both elements. This way we achieve greater harmony together than separately. In the case of beer, there are a number of more or less effective pairings for each style, always bearing in mind the benefits of beer. Let’s look at a few examples:

• Lager or Pale Ale beers work great with typical appetizers such as cured meats, potato chips, olives, or nuts. Classic combinations are a safe bet if you don’t want to rack your brain.
• Sour styles such as lambic beers offer a very interesting dual pairing. By contrast, we can pair them with fatty meats and foods like pâté; while by affinity, pickles in vinegar are an intriguing alternative.
• The roasted and caramelized flavors of Doppelbocks and toasted Ales pair well with goat cheeses or brie-style cheeses.
• In general, wheat beers enhance their fruity profile if we drink them with banana.
• Dark beers like Porter or Stout intensify their coffee-like character when paired with chocolate or other cocoa-based sweets. These styles, with such heavily roasted malts, are often used to accompany desserts, but they are also associated with savoury dishes such as cured beef (cecina) or oxtail stew.
• India Pale Ale–style beers enhance the tasting experience when enjoyed with spicy dishes or seafood.
• Smoked beers are a great option for barbecues, whether meat, fish or vegetables.
• We should also not overlook musical pairings, a new trend that’s very much in vogue. For example, we associate the properties of maltier beers with low notes and hoppier beers with high notes.

More and more breweries are aiming to produce a wide enough range of beer styles to pair with a full meal from start to finish. The same is true of specialty venues, which no longer just organize beer tastings and pairings—always taking into account the benefits of beer—but also offer dinners and menus where pairing is integrated into a carefully curated gastronomic selection.

In the end, it’s all about experimenting with which beers you like best with which foods. While we offer some examples here, not everyone has the same tastes, so it’s up to you to find the perfect pairing.