Craft Beer World E-Book

Mark Dredge

• Herausgeber: Ryland Peters & Small
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Craft Beer World is the must-have companion for anyone who appreciates decent beer. The last few years have seen an explosion in the popularity of craft beers across the globe, with excellent new brews being produced everywhere from Copenhagen to Colorado, Amsterdam to Auckland. With more amazing beers available than ever before, it's hard to know which ones to choose. That's where Craft Beer World comes in. Gathering together over 300 of the most innovative and tastiest beers you need to try, and divided into 50 different catagories, you will find the best of the best each style has to offer. Every category comes with an explanation of the key characteristics of the style - whether it's an American IPA bursting with citrusy C-hops or an Imperial Stout full of dark roasted malts - along with an example of a classic brew and a selection of cutting edge versions that are certain to become instant favourites. So whether you're looking for bitter beers or balanced flavours, a hit of hops or a hint of coffee, the reviews will point you in the right direction to find the perfect beer to suit your tastebuds. Also included throughout the book are interesting nuggets of beer information, covering everything from the catalyst that has caused the astonishing growth in craft beer through to matching beer with food and how to serve your drinks.Mark Dredge is an award-winning beer writer and runs the popular blog Pencil and Spoon where he writes about anything ale-related. Mark has won awards from the British Guild of Beer Writers in 2009, 2010 and 2011, his work is featured in leading publications across the globe and he's an international beer judge.

Leseprobe

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Text © Mark Dredge 2013

Design © Dog ‘n’ Bone Books 2013

The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

eISBN: 978 1 909313 37 8

ISBN: 978 0 957140 99 8

Printed in China

Editor: Caroline West

Designer: Mark Latter

Motif illustration: Anna Galkina

Picture credits: p161 ESB Postiljon by BeerSweden; p107 Tilquin © Gueuzerie Tilquin; p107 barrels by MikeDonk/Brewbokeh; p177 Brasserie St Helene Black Mamba ©www.atelierdesign.be; p86 Tara Boulba and p93 Jambe de Bois © Katherine Longley

For digital editions, visit www.cicobooks.com/apps.php

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART 1

UNDERSTANDING BEER

What is Craft Beer?

How is Beer Made?

World of Hops

Understanding Beer: A Helpful Glossary

When Beer Goes Bad

Serving Beer

Beer and Food

Cooking with Beer

Enjoying Beer

Flavor Wheel

Classic vs. New

PART 2

THE WORLD’S GREATEST BEERS

Pilsner

Helles

American Craft Lager

The Story of Lager

Imperial Lager

Vienna, Märzen, Oktoberfest

Dark Lager

The Bock Family

German Curiosities

Kölsch

Alt

Cream and Steam Beer

The Weissbier Family

American Wheat

Wit Beer

Belgian Blonde and Pale Ale

Belgian Dubbel and Dark Strong Ale

Belgian Style and Fashionable Monks

Belgian Tripel and Strong Golden Ale

Belgian Quadrupel

Belgo American

Farmhouse Ales

Seasonal Drinking

Flemish Bruin and Flanders Red

Lambic and Gueuze

Wild Beer and Sour Ales

Belgian Influence

Fruit Beers

Pale and Hoppy Session Beer

Golden and Blonde Ale

American Pale Ale

American IPA

IPA Rules the Craft Beer World

American Imperial IPA

English Pale Ale and IPA

Pacific Pale and IPA

Belgian IPA

Black IPA

American Amber and Red Ale

Rye Beer

Mild

Brown Ale

Bitter

ESB

Scotch Ale

Strong Ale

Barley Wine

Smoked Beer and Rauchbier

Milk and Oatmeal Stout

Dry Stout

Going Imperial

American Stout

Porter: Carrying History

Porter vs. Stout

Porter

Imperial Stout and Porter

Barrel-aged Beers

Historic Re-creations

Specialty Ingredients

Extreme Beer

Blockbuster Beers

Learn More

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

I have “There’s a story at the bottom of this bottle” tattooed on my left arm. Those nine words encapsulate what I love most about beer. Every beer has a story made up of numerous interlinking stories: the story of how it’s brewed; why it’s brewed; and the people who brewed it. It’s also about the ingredients that were used and the story behind them: how they were produced and where they originated. Combine those ingredients to create a beer style, and that style then has its own history, whether it has been developed over time or is an innovative introduction.

Then there’s the story of you, the drinker, who, getting to the bottom of the bottle, are more refreshed and relaxed, and also now involved by adding your own narrative to the beer’s story—that might be how the beer made you feel, where you had it, or who you drank it with. Whatever it is, attaching your story to the beers you drink gives them so much more meaning. Just think about the best beer you’ve ever had: I bet you can remember the moment you drank the beer better than the way it actually tasted.

Trying to cover the whole world of craft beer has shown me just how exciting, innovative, and inspiring the brewing community is. It’s also shown how history plays a big role in the present. What I’ve come to regard as the most interesting fact about beer is how it’s always changing and always has been changing. The story of India Pale Ale is one of the most often repeated, but we know the story as a soundbite of a snapshot taken at one particular moment. We don’t see the whole evolving biography. Look at it on a larger screen and there are so many changes as it evolves every decade or so to suit new tastes. And that’s still happening: think about American IPAs in 1993, then think about them in 2003, and then again in 2013. And it’s happening with every beer style on the bar; beers evolve with the flavors and inspiration of the time, although style names tend to stay the same.

It’s that evolution which makes beer exciting and sets the premise for this book: what are the most interesting and best-tasting beers brewed in the world right now? At the same time, though it’s great to see all the new stuff, it’s also important to know what happened before because this very often provides the context or inspiration for new developments, and there are so many classic beers that we shouldn’t overlook while spending a lot of time searching for new tastes. History, too, whether it’s being made, followed, or providing inspiration, is always there and always important. Beer is continuously progressing and updating itself—and that’s exciting.

Craft Beer World celebrates the stories of beers made around the world. It celebrates how they are made, where, why, and by whom. It also celebrates the drinking moment and how beer plays a role in our lives. This is a snapshot of the world of craft beer. It shows a small part of what’s happening—too small, in fact, as I’m only sorry I couldn’t get another 350 beers in—and there’s so much more to be discovered: so many new beers, so many classics to revisit, so many new breweries to drink at, and so many more stories to be told.

WHAT IS CRAFT BEER?

Craft beer is many things and can’t easily be distilled into a dictionary definition. It’s not just about good beer or beer brewed on a small scale; it’s not just about passion, innovation, creativity, integrity, or extremities of flavor. For me, it’s a knowing, thoughtful way of brewing and drinking, which is concerned with flavor, variety, ingredients, and story.

The Brewers Association in America defines craft beer as small, independent, and traditional. Small means producing less than six million barrels of beer a year (that’s a lot of beer). Independent means that less than 25 per cent of the brewery is owned or controlled by “an alcoholic industry member who is not himself a craft brewer.” And traditional means brewing beers with just malt or adjuncts that add, rather than lighten, flavor. It’s not an entirely helpful breakdown and means that some breweries such as Goose Island, in Chicago, don’t count as “craft” because they are owned by AB-InBev (who also own Budweiser and many other brands). Goose Island is definitely a craft brewery, in the same way that Blue Moon should definitely count as a craft beer, even if it is part of MillerCoors—another one of the world’s biggest brewing companies. It counts because it gets people drinking different beers, and works as a transition of tastes.

DEFINING CRAFT BEER

We probably all know what is craft beer and what isn’t craft beer, and the choice we make when we get to the bar represents that. Here are just a few of my thoughts on the subject:

CRAFT BEER IS…

… about great beer (but not all of it is good).

… made by small breweries (although some of those once-small breweries are now very big).

… about intangibles, including passion, flavor, freedom, and knowledge, but also takes account of successful business practices.

… about provenance but also uses ingredients from around the world.

… forward-thinking and innovative while also drawing on history and tradition.

… an idea, a marketing term, a community.

… an educated and conscious choice.

CRAFT BEER—RAISING ITS PROFILE

In the United Kingdom some people insist on using inverted commas around the term “craft beer,” which suggests it should invite a level of skepticism. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), which is the consumer mouthpiece for real ale, doesn’t yet have a useful approach to “craft beer” and looks upon it as threateningly alien. The trouble is that CAMRA regard “craft beer” as kegged beer (CAMRA are only about real ale, so keg products aren’t part of what they support). However, this isn’t strictly correct, as almost all of the cask beers produced in the United Kingdom might be defined as craft. This then creates its own issue: is every small brewery a craft brewery? Surely there must be some kind of qualifying quality? Should the term “craft” be reserved for only the better or more interesting breweries? If so, to whom is the craft-beer doorman granting or denying access?

Around the world, the label “craft” has been inherited from America. Other words are used, too, including “microbrewery,” once common but now largely replaced by “craft,” and “nanobrewery,” which is used to describe very small breweries. “Brewpubs” make and sell beer on site, while “gypsy brewers” don’t own a physical brewery, but use other brewers’ equipment instead. But it’s all craft beer. It’s all beer.

Beer is an industry—a community—that is different from others in that it provides an affordable, consumable luxury. If you want to drink one of the best beers in the world, then you are unlikely to spend more than an hour’s salary on it (an hour of your salary is affordable and worth working for). Beer is also mass-produced, mass-marketed, readily available, and consumed en masse, unlike anything else except fast food. We all know what a Big Mac tastes like in the same way that we all know what Budweiser tastes like. We also know that if we want a hamburger, there are many alternatives to a Big Mac, ranging from worse to way better. Beer is the same.

However, beer has a blind spot—it isn’t in the public consciousness in the same way as fast food: some people just don’t know that amazing alternatives to macro brews exist, or they don’t trust themselves to make the right choices on the other side of the beer aisle. In America, the craft beer industry hollered and high-fived as it passed 5 per cent of the market for the first time in 2011, but this means that 19 out of every 20 beers drunk isn’t a craft beer.

AND SO TO THE FUTURE…

But there’s good news. Craft beers are growing in number and total volume sold around the world, while macrobreweries are losing volume. New craft breweries are opening with such regularity that it’s impossible to keep up. Drinkers are starting to learn about beers and demanding more delicious drinks: beers with provenance and flavor, something different. This is a kick-on from an increasing awareness about what we eat. That’s why we need a term such as “craft beer.” It’s there to label what we drink as different. In five or ten years’ time it’ll be an outdated term, and we’ll look back on the last decade and laugh about when we called it “craft,” but, while we’ve still got people out there to convert, we need a name for our team: Craft Beer United works for me.

HOW IS BEER MADE?

Making beer is, in theory, a simple process: mix grain and hot water in a mash tun, separate them, and then dump the spent grain; move the liquid (now called wort) into a kettle, boil, add hops, and transfer to a fermentation tank; add yeast, let it ferment, and leave to condition before packaging (with or without filtering first); and then drink.

Making beer is, in reality, a very complicated thing. Breweries use different systems and processes, and every single ingredient or production choice will affect the final drink. The following pages look at the key ingredients as well as at how beer is made.

WATER

Don’t underestimate the importance of water: it is the main constituent of beer, and you need good water to make good beer. Because water provides the base for the beer, it has to be of great quality. Small differences in water composition can result in big differences in flavor. Soft water, for example, gives beer a soft, clean body and is especially good in lighter beer styles, such as Helles and Pilsner, while hard water gives a dryness that emphasizes hop and malt bitterness, so is good for IPAs and Stouts. Great brewing towns (such as Pilsen, in the Czech Republic, with its soft water; Burton-on-Trent, in England, with its hard water; and Bend, in Oregon, with its fresh mountain water) have grown—and continue to grow—around the best water sources.

All breweries treat their water in some way. Some breweries have a treatment plant to control the water, while others simply add different salts and minerals to the brew. This is to balance the water composition to suit the beers they make and to ensure that the brewing water (known as liquor) is always consistent.

GRAIN

The combination of water and grain creates the rough outline of the beer before the defining details are provided by the hops and yeast. Malted barley is the most common brewing grain but it is not the only cereal used: wheat, oats, and rye add texture and flavor to beer, while rice and maize tend to lighten flavor (and are generally only used in macrobrewing).

Grain provides the sugars needed to make alcohol, so if you want a lot of alcohol, then you need a lot of grain. It also provides body and color, and the brewer produces the foundation for the beer by combining different types of grain. For example, pale malt, Munich malt, crystal malt, and chocolate malt might give you a good Brown Ale base: replace the Munich malt with roasted barley, and you get a Stout; lose all the dark malt and increase the pale, and you’ve got an IPA.

Before it can be used in a brew, the barley has to be malted. There’s a little pearl of sweetness inside each grain that holds the starches, which are converted into sugars (these are later turned into alcohol by the yeast). As barley has a hard outer husk, it needs to germinate first, meaning it’s soaked in water so that the rootlets can crack through the shell. At this point, the germination process is stopped, the grains are dried in a kiln, and then roasted to different levels—the longer they are roasted, the darker they’ll become. Think of it like toast: it starts sweet and bready, gets caramelized and sweeter in the middle, and then, if you leave the bread in the toaster for too long, it becomes black, brittle, and bitter with no remaining sweetness.

Different malts undergo different processes to change their starch and sugar content. Crystal malt, for example, is germinated, then immediately heated to convert the starch to sugar, emulating the mashing process, and then roasted, with the end result being crystallized sugars that are unfermentable, giving a caramel-like sweetness and depth to the beer it goes into. Some barley is just roasted (not malted) and this will be black and bitter. As well as malted barley, other grains produce different beer qualities: oats give a smooth richness to the body; wheat helps head-retention and gives texture; and rye adds a nutty, spicy depth of flavor.

The grains are milled or crushed and then go into the mash tun where the process of mashing with hot water (the saccharification sweet spot is around 67°C or 153°F, though different enzymatic activity happens at different temperatures) converts the starches in the malt into fermentable sugars. The mash is like a big, malty porridge as the color and sweetness is sucked out of the grain and taken up by the water, making it taste like a delicious sweet tea now called wort (rhymes with pert). From the mash tun, it’s all transferred to the lauter tun where the wort is separated from the grain and sparged (or sprayed) with hot water to get as much goodness from the grain as possible. Then it’s into the kettle—not all breweries have a lauter tun, in which case the separation happens in the mash tun as the wort transfers to the next tank.

DIFFERENT GRAIN CHARACTERISTICS

PILSNER MALT

Very pale base grain, light biscuity taste

PALE ALE MALT

Lightly toasty, cereal-like base grain

MUNICH MALT

Toasty, slightly red, nutty grain

CRYSTAL MALT

Caramel sweetness, bulks bodies in beer

CHOCOLATE MALT

Dark and bitter, big roast, low sweetness

ROASTED BARLEY

Black, acrid, bitter; stains beer black

HOPS

Hops bring beer to life, providing bitterness, flavor, and aroma. They are the fireworks of beer, the face-slap, the laughter, or the delicate kiss. They are also the A-list ingredient, which has catapulted craft-brewing around the world, thanks to the amazing qualities it gives to beer.

Hops have been used as beer’s bittering agent for hundreds of years, but things only really exciting in the 1970s and 1980s when American hops were used by pioneering American craft brewers. Not only were these brewers now making beers other than light lagers, they were also using ingredients with huge flavor profiles and hops bursting onto the tongue with citrus pith and juice, bitterness, and a floral freshness. It was beer’s color-cinema moment.

Grown around the world, hops are varietal with each variety having a different flavor profile ranging from delicate to brutal, where they can be aromatic, citrusy, spicy, tropical, herbal, earthy, grassy, piney, or floral.

With the base block of the beer created in the mash tun, the hops (plus the yeast) are then used to define the beer style: the same malt bill can be hopped in two different ways to create two different beers: Porter vs. Black IPA; Tripel vs. Belgian IPA; Scotch Ale vs. Barley Wine. Like spices in food, hops generally work best in combinations rather than solo—“try my delicious, single-spiced curry made with just cumin!” should give you the idea—although there are some fantastic beers that only use one variety.

Hops are used as flowers, pellets, and oils. Flowers are harvested, dried, and pressed together; pellets are flowers that have been blitzed up, squashed together, and cut into small blocks; oils come in a pourable form. (Oils were once a craft beer no-no, but are now accepted, particularly in very hoppy beers where they give the bitterness and aroma that would be difficult to achieve with just flowers or pellets.) Some brewers only use flowers, while others stick to pellets; a mix of both is common.

As the wort reaches the kettle, it is brought to a rolling boil. That’s when the first hops are added. Boiling sterilizes the beer. It also allows hop bitterness to get in. Hops contain acids and oils, and the alpha acids in hops (which give beer its bitterness) need to be boiled to isomerize into water-soluble iso-alpha acids. Hop oils are volatile, so boiling them for extended amounts of time drives off the flavor and aroma qualities. For this reason, early hop additions give bitterness, while middle and late additions give flavor and aroma. Hops can be added after fermentation (a process known as dry-hopping) to produce extra aroma and flavor. Crafty brewers are finding endless ways to get more hops into their beer, including adding them in the mash tun.

Hops rule the craft-beer world and IPA is king. More than any other style, IPA represents what craft beer is all about, with big flavors and aromas. It’s screaming, “Look at me! I’m different to all those look-alikes on the beer shelves.” American hops started it and they continue to be in huge demand. US hop farmers, alongside Australian and New Zealand farmers, are the New World hop growers; Europe is the Old World of hop growing with the classic varieties, while new varieties are constantly being developed and cross-bred to give new and different flavor profiles.

YEAST (AND TEMPERATURE)

You don’t get beer without yeast. These micro-organisms are looked after well in the brewhouse because good yeast means good beer. There are a lot of different commercial yeast strains (check out www.whitelabs.com). Some are neutral in flavor, some leave a fruity taste behind, some are used for funky flavors and sourness, some are specific strains belonging to breweries, and some are style-defining strains.

There are “top-fermenting” yeasts and “bottom-fermenting” yeasts. If “Beer” is at the top of the family tree, then it branches down into “Ale” and “Lager”. Ale is made with top-fermenting yeast, which works quickly to ferment the wort in three to six days at warm temperatures of 18–24°C (65–75°F), rising to the top of the tank to form a thick, sticky foam before dropping back into suspension. Top-fermenting yeast contributes some fruity flavors to beer. Lager, on the other hand, is made with bottom-fermenting yeast, which works slowly, fermenting all the sugars in five to ten days at cool temperatures of 8–14°C (46–57°F) before falling to the bottom of the tank. Lager yeast is clean with little flavor added to the beer.

The yeast goes into the fermentation tanks and eats the sugars created during the mash, producing booze and bubbles as by-products. As yeast is sensitive, control over temperature is important and the two work together. For example, if you try to ferment lager yeast at ale temperatures (higher than usual), you’ll typically get a range of unusual and unwanted aromas (esters). If you try to ferment ale at lager temperatures (lower than usual), it works slowly or not at all—although some examples exist that go against these general temperature rules, Steam beer being one.

Some beers are defined by their base malt (e.g. Bock and Scotch Ales); some are defined by the hops used (e.g. all types of IPA); and some are defined by the yeast and the qualities it brings (e.g. Wit, Saison, and Wild Ales). Hefeweizen is a good example of yeast being the key component to give aroma, texture, and flavor. Unfiltered, the beer still contains all the yeast, and the aromas that swirl out of the vase glass are of bananas, bubble gum, cloves, and vanilla. These aromas are known as esters, which are primarily formed by the yeast during fermentation. Typical ester aromas include banana, pear, apple, rose, honey, and a solvent-like whiff. Esters are appropriate in some beers, but not in others, where they could be a sign of a lack of control in the brewery.

A lot of beer’s potential off-flavors come from yeast. For this reason, careful control over yeast and temperature is key in the brewhouse.

FRUIT, SPICES, AND OTHER INGREDIENTS

After using water, grain, hops, and yeast, brewers can then add whatever else they want. Fruit is common, including cherries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, grapes, oranges, apricots, raisins, and pumpkin. The fruit can be used fresh, frozen, or cooked and either as syrup or peel. Any type of herb or spice can also go in to give depth or flavor; often seen are ground coriander, ginger, chili, pepper, curaçao, and hard herbs such as thyme, lavender, and rosemary. Coffee is one of the most common ingredients, particularly in stouts. Honey, nuts, vanilla, and chocolate are also popular. Some of the more unconventional ingredients include nettles (a relative of hops), bacon, tea, peanut butter, spruce, and many more. Some ingredients are added to the mash tun, some go in like late or dry hops, some are added during fermentation, some during conditioning, and some are blended in late in the process.

BARRELS

An extra element in beer-making is the use of a barrel to impart flavor. The beer is added to barrels that either once held something else such as whisky, bourbon, or wine, or to “virgin” unused barrels. If it previously held a spirit, then the beer picks up the “ghost” of what was originally in the barrel, plus some wood character and texture. It can add incredible complexity to a beer, but can also be horribly overpowering. Bourbon barrels are the most commonly used and, combined with the barrel, add vanilla, coconut, toffee, spice, and bourbon-like flavors. Wine barrels add a fruity sharpness to beers, which can also be spiked with wild yeast and bacteria to mimic the sour Lambic style of Belgium. Barrels are generally saved for the special, strong beers, and some of them are extraordinary; the best balance barrel character with depth in the beer.

TIME (AND TEMPERATURE)

Not a physical ingredient, time nevertheless is a key element in beer-making. Good beer takes time to make. Some beers need weeks to mature; some need months; others only peak after a few years in the bottle. Temperature plays an important role in this process, and after fermentation the beers are chilled and undergo a conditioning period. Think of beer maturation or conditioning time as you would the cooking time for a delicious chili: if you’ve added all the ingredients and cooked it for 20 minutes, then it’ll taste like a chili, but it won’t be great. If you let it cook for another two hours at a steady temperature, all the flavors will come together magnificently. You can’t make good beer (or chili) in a hurry. Beer needs cool temperatures to mature properly: too warm and it warps in weird ways, or the aging processes are sped up like a sun-wrinkled tan-aholic.

FILTERING, CENTRIFUGE, FINING, AND PASTEURIZING

Some beers leave the brewery hazy and unfiltered (i.e. with the yeast still present) and many drinkers are happy with a pint they can’t see through—craft beer has taught us that beer you can watch TV through isn’t necessarily a signifier of quality. Unfortunately, there are still too many drinkers who see cloudiness as a fault—but it’s only a fault if it tastes bad. Still, there are some styles, or places, where clear beer is required. The yeast in the beer can be filtered out, spun through a centrifuge to kick it out, or pulled to the bottom of a tank or cask by a fining agent. There are good and bad ways of clearing beer and, inevitably, the process means some flavor or character will be lost (although this isn’t always a bad thing, as some styles demand the sharp, clean finish of a filtered beer).

Pasteurization is a different process and is rare in craft-brewing. This is what the big breweries use to increase the shelf-life of their cans and bottles, and involves putting the beer through an intense heat-treatment to kill any possible bacteria, although this does come at the cost of flavor.

BREWERS

Beer doesn’t get made without brewers. They create the recipes, control every stage of production, and define what the beer becomes based on the ingredients used and the processes the beer goes through. Brewers can transform the four ingredients of beer-making in an astonishing variety of ways. The mark of a great beer is the skill of the brewers who make it.

WORLD OF HOPS

Hops are varietal and perennial plants that grow around the world in a band between 30 and 52 degrees latitude in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Being varietal, one type of hop can be grown in North America, England, and Australia, and it will taste different in each place it is cultivated. Hops provide beer’s terroir—its “sense of place” and link to the ground. You will also find that each region has hops that share flavor profiles and have influenced the beers brewed there.

OLD WORLDVS.NEW WORLD

Great Britain and Central Europe

vs.

USA, Australia, and New Zealand

Earthy, woodland fruit, herbal, and floral

vs.

Citrus, tropical fruit, floral, pine

Classic beer styles

vs.

Modern beer styles

HOP-GROWING REGIONS

TOP 10 HOP PRODUCERS BY VOLUME IN 2011

GERMANY

USA

CHINA

CZECH REPUBLIC

SLOVENIA

POLAND

UK

AUSTRALIA

SOUTH AFRICA

SPAIN

  Source:

  http://www.usahops.org/graphics/File/Stat%20Pack/2011%20Stat%20Pack.pdf

HOP TYPES

  Amarillo

USA

Peaches, apricots, oranges, grapefruit

  Cascade

USA

Sharp grapefruit and floral

  Centennial

USA

Orange pith, juice and blossom, pine

  Citra

USA

Bitter-spiked mango, tropical, sharp citrus

  Simcoe

USA

Resinous pine, grapefruit, bitter orange peel

  Sorachi Ace

USA

From Japan, grown in USA; lemongrass, bubblegum

  Saaz

CZ

Delicately grassy, floral, clean citrus botanicals

  Styrian Golding

SL

Slovenian, super aromatic, peppery, spicy, fragrant

  Hallertauer

GER

Peppery, grassy, floral, hard herbs, pithy

  Fuggle

UK

Like the English countryside: earthy, woody, floral

  Bramling Cross

UK

Like an English forest: berries, orchard fruit, wood

  Golding

UK

Tangy, floral, peppery, mildly earthy

  Nelson Sauvin

NZ

Grape, gooseberry, mango, passion fruit

  Motueka

NZ

Juicy tropical and exotic fruit, sweet berries

  Galaxy

AUS

Mango, pineapple, passion fruit, citrus, floral

UNDERSTANDING BEER: A HELPFUL GLOSSARY

Like getting into a new sport for the first time and hearing of birdies, off-sides, or batting averages, beer can be hard to understand because its language is filled with terms, abbreviations, and scientific stuff. Here are all the words you’ll need to know.

ABV  Alcohol-by-volume. This is the total percentage in your drink that is alcohol. Beer can range from less than 1 per cent to around 25 per cent through fermentation. Beers have been made to over 50% ABV but this requires fractional distillation to get it so high: the beer is frozen and, as water freezes at a higher temperature than alcohol, the brewer can take out chunks of ice, leaving just the alcohol behind. This is found in Eisbocks, as well as extreme beers. It’s illegal in some countries, including the United States.

ALE  A very broad range of beers brewed with a top-fermenting yeast (as opposed to a bottom-fermenting yeast for lagers). Ales commonly have a fruitiness imparted by the yeast. Styles range from lager-like Kölschs and hazy Hefeweizens, through best bitters and porters, to IPAs and up to huge Imperial Stouts and Barley Wines.

ALPHA ACID  This is where hop’s bitterness comes from. Alpha acids need to be isomerized in order to give their bitterness to beer; isomerization takes place as a result of extended boiling in the wort. When hops arrive at a brewery, they have a percentage figure attached that represents the total weight of the hop that is acid content. The alpha-acid range in hops can vary from under 3 per cent to over 20 per cent. Low-alpha varieties, such as Noble hops, are generally favored for their aromas; high- or super-alpha hops produce a lot of bitterness but also usually come with big, aroma-giving profiles. Low-alpha hops can give the same level of bitterness as high alphas, but brewers need to use a lot more of them.

ATTENUATION  A measure of the percentage of sugars that the yeast consumes during fermentation. A highly attenuated beer will be dry and have little sweetness. See alsoGravity.

BEER  Alcoholic drink made from fermented grain. The best drink in the world.

BEER GEEK  I am a beer geek. I’m obsessed with the details of beer as well as the taste. I get excited about things like hops, brewing processes, new beer releases, beer history, and beer labels. It’s far better to be a beer geek than a beer snob—beer snobs aren’t cool.

BODY  Light, heavy, thin, full: this is the weight of the beer in the mouth. It comes from a combination of the grain base, whether it’s filtered or not, and is dependent on the residual sugar left in the beer.

BOTTLE-CONDITIONED BEER  Beer that undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle. A priming sugar (or just residual sugar left in the beer) and yeast are added to the bottle and this starts a slow, gradual conditioning process that also produces carbonation. British and Belgian beers are often bottle-conditioned. Some bottle-conditioned beers will last for decades as they mature. When you pour them, make sure you leave the sediment in the bottle (unless you want it yeast-and-all).

BREWPUB  A pub that makes its own beer and sells it on site. Visit these to drink fresh beer where it was made.

BU:GU  A way to consider balance in beer. It’s the measure of bitterness (BU) against the relative sweetness of the gravity (GU). Knowing IBU is interesting, but it doesn’t explain the balance between malt and hop—for example, a beer of 5.0% ABV with 50 IBUs would taste very different if it’s very sweet or very dry, with the sweet version hiding the bitterness and the dry version emphasizing it. BU:GU isn’t used widely outside of brewhouses yet, but as drinkers become more interested in technical details, this could be a stat they want to see.

COLLABORATION BREWS  Beers made by two or more different companies. This may involve breweries coming together or perhaps a brewery and a restaurant. It’s like two of your favorite artists recording a song together, resulting in beers that are often creative, one-off specials. They demonstrate the sharing spirit of the craft-beer community.

COLOR  Anything from very pale blonde to the blackest black. Measured on two different scales: Standard Reference Method (SRM) and European Brewery Convention (EBC). A pale lager will be as low as 1 SRM or 2 EBC. American IPA ranges from 6–14 SRM or 12–28 EBC. The darkest Stout will be 70 SRM or 138 EBC. All others will fall in the middle. Talking about SRM or EBC is generally reserved for geeks who love too much technical information; most of us just say gold, red, brown, or black.

CONTRACT BREWING  This is when one brewery produces beer for another. This might be because a brewery can’t cope with the volume, needs to make its beer somewhere else so it can be packaged there, or exists only in name (rather than physical kit) and so contracts out its brewing. See alsoGypsy brewer.

DEGREES PLATO  A way of measuring the alcohol content in beer. It’s drinker-facing in central Europe and brewer-facing around the world. For example, when you order a beer in the Czech Republic, it might say 10° on the tap or menu, whereas in other parts of the world the ABV would be given instead. However, platos are a measurement brewers use when determining the alcohol content of their beer. It’s incredibly complicated to work out unless you’re a brewmaster. What you need to know when ordering beer is: 12° is about 5.0% ABV.

DRY-HOPPING  Adding hops to beer after fermentation, whether in the tank or cask. This gives extra aroma and flavor to a beer. Try this at home by putting hops in cool water and see how much aroma the water picks up. Taste it as well—it will have taken up some bitterness.

ESTERS  These come out of beer as aromas that are created during the higher temperatures of fermentation when alcohol and organic acids react with each other. They are often fruity aromas but can be potently harsh and veer toward nail polish remover. Expect banana, pear, apple, rose, honey, solvent. Sometimes these are brewing faults and other times they are desirable it depends on the beer style and the volume at which they are present.

FINISH  A word we’ve borrowed from wine to indicate how the flavor ends in the mouth and then hangs around. It could be short or long; dry, bitter, sweet, or sharp; or combinations of these.

GRAVITY  Original gravity (OG) and final gravity (FG). Gravity is the weight of the wort relative to the weight of the water, and it’s the brewer’s measure of sugars in the beer. OG is the sweetness after it’s left the mash tun, and FG is after it’s finished fermenting. The OG is a guide to what level of alcohol can be expected in the finished beer, and the FG will tell you how sweet or dry the finished beer is, depending on how it has been attenuated. 1.000 means no sugar. An OG of 1.050 might give a beer around 5.0% ABV, and an FG of 1.005 will be dry and not sweet (while an FG of 1.030 will be sweet and sticky on the lips).

GYPSY BREWER  A brewer without a bricks-and-mortar brewery. He will travel around and use spare capacity in other breweries. This is similar to contract brewing, although the gypsy brewer will often use a number of different breweries.

HOP OIL  Where alpha acids give bitterness, hop oil gives aroma. Oils are more delicate than acids, so don’t like the boiling process. To get the most aroma out of them, they work best late in the brewing process—at the end of the boil in the kettle or as dry hops after fermentation.

IBU  International Bittering Units. Also known as EBU (European Bittering Units) or just BU. This is the measure of bitterness in a beer and represents the parts-per-million of dissolved iso-alpha acids in the beer. Each beer style will have an appropriate IBU level. A light lager might be 10 IBU, Pilsner will be between 25 and 40 IBU, Stout might be around 50 IBU, and Double IPAs and Barley Wines can hit 100 IBU. Some beers boast even higher bitterness levels, though smart scientists debate how much bitterness the human tongue can actually handle before it can’t detect any more.

ISO-ALPHA ACID  This comes from the alpha acids present in hops. An extended boil converts these into water-soluble iso-alpha acids that then give bitterness to beer.

KETTLE  Also known as the copper. This is where the wort is boiled and the hops are added. Brewers also drink a lot of tea and coffee, so the other type of kettle is an important part of the brewhouse set-up.

LAGER  Beer made using a bottom-fermenting yeast. Often has delicate yeast profiles. The yeast works slowly at cooler temperatures (compared to ale yeast). The range of lager styles is very broad, from light lagers through to intense Eisbocks. The name comes from the process of lagering (or storing) beer in cold places for it to mature.

LAGERING  The maturation process of a lager. After fermentation the temperature will be dropped to 0°C (32°F) for an extended period of time. This is to allow the flavors to mature. Some will get a few weeks; others will need a few months.

LAUTERING  The process of separating the grain from the wort before the wort moves into the kettle.

MACRO BEER  Beer made by big, multinational brewing companies. Some people dislike these companies because of their size, and the beers for their lack of flavor. Personally, I’m happy to drink macro beer; if nothing else, it reminds me why I love craft beers. Many of these breweries have fascinating histories that are worth reading about—they aren’t just enormous beer factories that arrived overnight. Macrobreweries are now making craft brands, some of which are incredibly successful—notably Blue Moon, made under the MolsonCoors arm. It’s also interesting to note the craft breweries that have been bought by macrobreweries or have distribution deals with them. The distinction between micro/craft and macro isn’t as simple as it used to be.

MASH TUN  Where the malt meets water and gets mashed together to extract sweetness and color from the grain.

MOUTHFEEL  How the beer feels in the mouth. Another way of describing the body, although mouthfeel is more about sensation: prickly, delicate, creamy, sharp, dry, smooth.

NITROGEN/NITRO  Nitrogen is an important nutrient for yeast and also a measure of the protein in malt. More appropriate for drinkers is seeing beers described as “nitro.” This means they are pumped with nitrogen in the tank, copying a beer like Guinness, to get a full, creamy mouthfeel thanks to the small bubbles that nitrogen gives to beer (as opposed to the bigger bubbles in carbon dioxide).

PHENOLIC  A spicy or smoky flavor or aroma in beer, which is sometimes regarded as a brewing fault. Spicy will mean something clove-like, whereas smoky will be more medicinal in character (rather like antiseptic or Islay whisky). This is not a smoked meat or bonfire flavor—that comes from smoked malt. Some drinkers are very sensitive to phenolic flavors, whether they love the taste or not.

PRODUCTION BREWERY  A place where beer is made, packaged, and then distributed to bars or refrigerators. Most breweries are production sites, though increasingly they have a tap room on site in order to sell beer direct to customers.

RESIDUAL SUGARS  The sweetness left in the beer after fermentation.

SECONDARY FERMENTATION  The act of kicking-on a second fermentation. This can be done in a tank, bottle, or cask. Bottle-conditioned beers undergo a secondary fermentation, as do real ales, where the process gives the light carbonation. Generally, it’s a slow, gentle process that is necessary to produce carbonation and allow the beer to mature.

TAP ROOM  Many breweries now have a tap room. Visit them, and drink the beer at its freshest.

TRAPPIST BREWERY  Monastic beer. To qualify (and very few do), the beer must be made within the walls of a monastery by monks—or under their supervision where the brewing is not intended for profit-making purposes. Some Trappist breweries are very big (e.g. La Trappe, Chimay) and others are very small (e.g. Westvleteren). An “Abbey beer” will be an interpretation of a Trappist beer.

UNFILTERED  Beer that hasn’t had the yeast filtered out of it. These beers are generally hazy and have more flavor and texture than their filtered counterparts. The haze may be cleared using a fining agent, which pulls all the particles left in the beer to the bottom of the container. In the United Kingdom, the most common fining agent in cask ale is isinglass (which is made from the dried swim bladders of fish).

WILD YEAST AND BACTERIA  If these get into a beer unintentionally, they can turn the brew sour. However, some brewers deliberately add wild yeast and bacteria to get wild flavors and sourness. A good beer made with wild yeast will be sharp, without a vinegary quality, and clean-tasting—try Lambic and Gueuze to see how the best taste. Brettanomyces (shortened to brett) is a common wild yeast and pediococcus and lactobacillus are common bacteria. The wild yeast adds funky flavor, and the bacteria give the sourness. They can work together or separately to change the flavor of beer.

WORT  The sweet, malty liquid that leaves the mash tun. Hopped wort is what leaves the kettle before being transferred to the fermentation tank. Wort makes a very good breakfast drink, especially if you’re hungover from the night before.

WHEN BEER GOES BAD

Not every beer is good. While some just won’t be to your taste, others are technically faulty. Interestingly, tasters are very individual when it comes to detecting off-characters: some may not be able to detect diacetyl (buttered popcorn), for example; others may be very sensitive and find it stomach-turning; while others can smell and taste it and also like it.

These flavor characteristics will also change depending on the quantities at which they are present in the beer. At low levels, they might be pleasant, but at high levels, they may be revolting. Here is some information on the different tastes and what may cause them.

BUTTER, BUTTERED POPCORN, BUTTERSCOTCH, FATTY MOUTHFEEL

What? Diacetyl

Why? A natural by-product of fermentation. If it’s in your beer, then it could mean the beer was hurried out of the brewery. It can also mean infected yeast.

Appropriate? In very small amounts in some lagers, Porters, and Stouts.

SWEETCORN, STEWED VEGETABLES, TOMATOES

What? Dimethyl sulfide (DMS)

Why? Comes from the grain (most often pale malt). It hasn’t had a vigorous-enough boil in the kettle, or fermentation has been slow.

Appropriate? In very small amounts in some lagers. (Interesting fact: DMS is what truffle-hunting dogs are trained to sniff out.)

PAPER, CARDBOARD, STALE, SHERRY

What? Oxidized

Why? Oxygen is not good for beer. If it tastes like this, then you’re drinking old, stale beer.

Appropriate? Never in fresh beer but can be an integral part of aged beers and contribute to their character.

SMOKY, ISLAY WHISKY, BAND-AIDS, DISINFECTANT

What? Chlorophenol

Why? Could be from a reaction between the phenolic acid naturally found in malt and either the chlorine content in the water or a cleaning solution used in the brewery.

Appropriate? No. And it’s not to be confused with the flavors produced by a smoked malt or a Belgian yeast, giving a phenolic, clove-like spiciness.

“SKUNKY,” ROTTING VEGETABLES, GARLIC

What? Light-struck

Why? Sunlight and beer don’t work together (unless it’s a hot day and you’re drinking a cold pint). The UV rays break down hop molecules, causing a reaction with the sulphur in the beer and producing some of the same stinky chemicals as a skunk.

Appropriate? Never. Avoid beer in clear or green bottles, and keep beer out of sunlight.

EGGS OR BURNT MATCHES

What? Sulphur

Why? Could be from the water (“Burton Snatch” gives Burton-on-Trent’s beers their famous whiff of sulphur) or from yeast. It could also be a sign of infection or of a young beer.

Appropriate? In small amounts. Some beers have a delicate, sweet, sulphury aroma that can be nice—some drinkers are very sensitive to sulphur.

BANANAS, PEAR DROPS, APPLES, ROSES

What? Esters, including isoamyl acetate (bananas and pear drops), ethyl caprylate and caproate (apples and apples/aniseed), ethyl acetate (solvent), and phenylethyl acetate (honey, roses)

Why? Fruity aromas given out by the yeast during fermentation.

Appropriate? Yes, in certain styles and in low volumes—appropriateness is down to the detectable levels. Expect isoamyl acetate in Hefeweizens, but it can be a fault in other styles.

SOY SAUCE, BURNT TIRES, MARMITE

What? Autolyzed yeast

Why? Yeast that has died and ruptured its beer-spoiling guts into your beer.

Appropriate? In some aged beers it’s acceptable in small volumes; otherwise it’s not.

APPLE SKIN AND JUICE, CIDER, PAINT IN HIGH VOLUMES

What? Acetaldehyde

Why? Natural by-product of fermentation. If present, then it’s because the beer is “green,” usually due to haste in the brewery, or the yeast is of poor quality. If it flips into being “cidery,” then it’s got to an extreme level.

Appropriate? No. Though can be acceptable at very low levels

SOUR MILK, VINEGAR, LEMON JUICE

What? A bad thing. Sour beer, unless intentional, isn’t good.

Why? Souring bacteria in your beer.

Appropriate? It makes some wild ales what they are. Otherwise, it’s only good for the drain.

BABY SICK

What? Butyric acid

Why? Bacterial spoilage. Not very common but horrible if you get it.

Appropriate? No. Never. Do you want to drink a beer that smells of vomit?

BOOZY, ALCOHOLIC, NAIL POLISH REMOVER

What? Fusel alcohol, solvent, ethyl acetate

Why? From esters in the beer. Low volumes can come across as fruity but it can sting the eyes in high volumes.

Appropriate? Small amounts are okay. It can be present in strong beers (though it isn’t always pleasant).

CHEESY, SWEATY SOCKS

What? Isovaleric acid or old hops

Why? Could be a bacterial infection or a sign of using old, oxidized hops, which give a cheesy flavor.

Appropriate? No. Never is a beer that smells like socks going to be delicious.

MY BEER IS CLOUDY…

Why? Could be many things: an unfiltered beer with yeast still in it, a “chill haze” from being served cold, a “hop haze” from a very hoppy beer, or an infected beer.

Appropriate? Just because it’s cloudy doesn’t mean it’s bad. If it tastes bad, then it is bad; otherwise it’s fine.

SERVING BEER

The vessel you choose to drink from can play a big role in the perception and experience of the beer you pour. I was dubious of this idea—surely, it’s the beer that matters, not the glass—until I sat down and tried the same beers in different glasses: some made the beer hide, others overemphasized things, some made the beer feel more delicate or less refined. Choosing a specific size and shape of glass can really enhance your appreciation of a beer’s defining characteristics.

DIFFERENT BEER GLASSES

Here are the basic glasses that every beer cupboard should have:

1. PILSNER: Tall and thin so the bubbles stream into the tight foam. For Pilsners and pale lagers, as the name suggests, this style of glass sends the delicate aroma right to your nose.

2. WEISSBIER VASE: Vase-like shape for Hefeweizens where the foam is concentrated at the top of the glass like a fragrant pillow. Shaped so that you can see the beautiful haziness in the body and get the full impact of the estery aroma.

3. SHAKER: A chunky all-rounder best with American styles—American Wheats, Pale Ales, Reds, Browns, and IPAs—where you get the hop hit in the aroma without intensifying it too much.

4. TULIP: An elegant glass best for Belgian beers—Wits, Saisons, Triples, and Wild ales or styles where you can swirl, sniff, and focus the aromas in the tapered rim while ogling the beautiful colors and carbonation.

5. BOWL: For those big beers such as Imperial Stouts and Barley Wines that demand more attention. Think of them like fine spirits as they roll around your glass. You want to send the intensified aromas swirling out as you sip.

6. PINT: Nonic, tulip, straight-sided, or a dimpled mug, these are for those low-ABV, session-style beers—Bitter, Pale Ale, Stout, Porter. Czech lager often comes in a round dimpled mug topped with three-fingers of tight foam. It’s a glass for drinking from, not thinking from.

7. GOBLET: Squat and round, and used for strong, dark Belgian beers (Dubbels and Quads) where the often-high carbonation is quickly softened. There’s something majestic and special about drinking from a goblet, especially when in a Belgian café.

GLASSES  I have a collection of favorite glasses that I use all the time. If you like drinking from one glass only, that’s fine—most of the time I pick between three: Shaker, Tulip, and Bowl. But there is some science behind choosing a beer glass, and you’ll find that the shape and size of the glassware can change your appreciation of flavor.

KEG  The most popular dispenser for craft beer around the world. The beer is carbonated and pushed through the tap with a nudge of gas. Kegged beer is served cool or cold.

CASK  The British tradition of cask-conditioned beers is one that is gaining popularity around the world. Typically, unfiltered beer is added to the cask without carbonation. A solution of yeast and a priming sugar are included and a secondary fermentation takes place inside the cask, which produces a delicate carbonation (and also slowly develops the flavor). Proper cask beer will be delivered to the pub and left to settle and condition for a few days before serving; good beer needs a good cellarman who knows when to put it on tap. Cask beers are pulled by arm-work from the cellar to the pint glass or served by gravity dispensers on the bar. Ideally, beer in casks should be drunk fast; otherwise, oxygen gets into the casks and can stale the beer.

BOTTLE  Go to a beer store and you’ll see an enormous variety of bottle shapes and sizes. Bottles are good because it means drinkers can take them home and put them in the refrigerator. They can also be branded, which passes on information or attitude to the drinker. Avoid beer in clear or green bottles because the beer will probably be light-struck, which isn’t tasty.

CAN  There are many benefits to canned beer: light, stackable, low oxygen levels, and no risk of being light-struck. Cans also don’t smash and they get colder quicker than bottles. Increasing numbers of craft breweries are now canning their beers.

TANK  There’s no better way to drink beer than from the tank—ideally, the tank it was made in. Brewpubs around the world are now connecting bar taps directly to the tanks to serve the beer. It doesn’t get much fresher than that.

GROWLER  Go to your local brewery, grab a growler, fill it with fresh draft beer, take it home, drink it, go back to the brewery, refill it, and repeat happily forever. Growlers are reusable containers (typically up to 2 liters/3½ pints/4 US pints in volume) for drinking brewery-fresh beer at home.

A WORD ON TEMPERATURE…

If you get your beer too cold, this will hide some of the flavor and aroma. Personally, I like my beer cold. If it’s too cold, it’ll warm up; if it’s too warm, it’s not going to get colder. Each style of beer has an ideal serving temperature: for some, such as lagers, it’ll be colder than for others, such as Imperial Stouts. I say: drink beer at whatever temperature you enjoy it the most.

BEER AND FOOD

The beauty of bringing beer and food together lies in their ability to take each other in exciting new directions. Whether food on fine white tablecloths or with paper napkins, the range of flavors, strengths, textures, and tastes in beer gives it the versatility to go with whatever you’re eating. The best way to get started is just to dive right in: make dinner, open a couple of bottles, and see how the beer and food interact—it won’t always work but you’ll soon find out what does.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT…

Beer has a lot going for it at the dining table. First, there’s the malt. Eat a handful of pale malted barley and you’ll taste the sweetly nutty flavor; eat chocolate malt and it’s like roasted coffee. The cereal quality adds a savory taste and is very complementary to food. From the grain comes beer’s body and depth, which can be clean and delicate; nutty and spicy; smooth and full-bodied; caramel-like; dark and roasted; dry or sweet; as light as tonic water; or as heavy as cream. The body, intensity, and alcohol level of the beer are a key consideration: you want beer and food with similar intensities, you want the alcohol and depth to give structure, and you need the body of the beer to provide either a comforting fullness or a crisp dryness—beer that is thin is never good with food because it gets overpowered.

Hops provide most of beer’s aroma, and most of our sense of taste is connected to smell. This is where hops can make food really interesting, as zesty, spicy, fragrant, floral, tropical, citrus, earthy, and herbal aromas and flavors can link glass and plate, bridging similar or complementary flavors. Hops also provide bitterness, which can cut through heavy and rich flavors and textures, giving a little kick to the tongue to keep it interested. Just watch out for high levels of bitterness, which can be overpowering—very bitter beers are only good with salty snacks.

In most beers, the yeast contributes a neutral flavor or a delicately fruity note. It’s already done the difficult job and produced the alcohol that contributes to the depth and intensity of the beer. Generally, as the alcohol content goes up, so does the flavor profile; a Helles will be light and delicate, whereas a Doppelbock will be strong, sweet, and fuller bodied. In some styles, yeast also adds to flavor and texture: perhaps it’s the full body and estery aroma of Hefeweizen; the spicy, fruity Wits and their sharp finish; unfiltered beers with a full body; or Sour beers, made sharp by the yeast and bacteria, with their appetite-poking acidity and ability to cut through richness.

Carbonation also contributes and is like a refresh button for the tongue. Beer can sweep across the palate, giving little bubble-bursts of liveliness to keep the tongue from getting bored or too familiar with what it’s tasting. Or, with the richness of fatty meats or sweet desserts, carbonation is able to lift flavors and lighten them.

The use of fruit, spices, alternative grains, coffee, or barrels can all also change the flavor and texture of the beer, pointing it in different directions and toward (or away from) particular types of food.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO PAIRING BEER AND FOOD

There are different ways to approach beer and food and each method combines the two to achieve different results. Start with the beer and find the right food to match. Here’s how I do it:

BRING TOGETHER  This aims to create a bridge between the food and the beer by looking for similar flavor profiles in both. It means picking out one or two aspects of the glass and plate that match each other and pull the flavors toward one another. Think about a chocolate brownie with a dark, chocolaty Stout, or marry the subtle, earthy spiciness of Saison with a peppery salad. It’s about matching flavors and putting them together to enhance them.

BALANCE  Full-flavored food can clash with full-on beers. Sometimes you need a pairing that mellows things out or cuts through a big flavor. Chili heat is a good example: hops kick out against the heat of chili, causing them to fight instead of play. Try smooth, chocolaty Milk Stout with chili heat and it cools everything down (in the same way that milk calms the tannins in tea). Hefeweizen, which has a full body and fruitiness plus a low bitterness, can also cool down the scorch of chili heat. It’s not just about heat and any intensely flavored food needs beer to balance it: smoked, oily fish; fragrantly spiced dishes; sharp, tomato-based dishes; strong cheeses; very salty foods. With these big flavors, a delicate beer can refresh the palate and keep the experience light, instead of hitting flavor with flavor like two slugging heavyweights. Try beers with a dry or spicy finish (e.g. Wit, Pilsner, Saison), or a bitterness that can cut through fattiness (e.g. Pale Ales and IPAs), or the sharpness of Sour beer. The pairing is there to stop things getting too overpowering by balancing and controlling flavors, and not letting them fight.

BOOST  Some flavors boost others in the same way that waking up to sunshine can make your day a lot happier. It’s about bringing together different flavors and textures, and making them better than the sum of their parts. For example, smoked beer is like squeezing a syringe of meatiness into steak or sausages; fruity, fat-stripping IPAs cut through the richness of cheeseburgers but also match the condiment-and-cheese combo; and chocolate desserts are lifted and enlivened by sweet and sour cherry beers. The beer adds to the food (or the food adds to the beer) by becoming an extra element in the experience.

LOCAL  There’s an important geographical and seasonal aspect to putting food and beer together. Local beer and local cuisine often have a way of being naturally complementary: dense dumplings and pork with a full-bodied dark lager in Prague; a beef stew that’s earthy, slightly sweet, and intensely savory with an ESB or a Belgian Dubbel; Asian-inspired dishes with tropical-scented Pacific Pale Ales; moules frites with a Belgian Blonde or Wit. Remember seasonal releases, too: as fall descends, drink pumpkin beer with earthy vegetables; choose spiced strong ales with festive turkey, and summer Blondes with light salads.

AVOID