Wine pairing has a hundred-year head start in the popular imagination, but beer has more variety in the glass and is often a better pairing partner. The flavor range from a delicate Berliner Weisse to a thick barrel-aged stout is enormous. There is a beer that goes with almost anything, including foods that wine cannot handle.
Rule one: match intensity to intensity. A wispy lager will get crushed by a brisket. A barrel-aged imperial stout will steamroll a delicate fish. Pair light with light, big with big. Rule two: bridge with the malt. If your dish has bread, roast notes or caramelization, find a beer with toasted or caramelized malt and you have an instant bridge. Rule three: contrast with the hops. Spicy or rich foods love a beer with bracing bitterness or assertive citrus to cut through.
Rule four: bubbles scrub fat. Whether it is fried chicken, pork belly or a pile of nachos, carbonation in beer resets your palate between bites the way good champagne does, and it does it for a quarter of the price. Rule five: when in doubt, drink local. The beer is fresher, the pairing will be more interesting, and you will end up with a kitchen story about the place the beer came from.
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