From BeerTravelers.com

When you read about cooking with beer and serving beer with food, the writer usually places the emphasis on the food first, the beer second. But as homebrewers, you can no doubt see the logic in starting with the beer, since you’ve probably got quite a bit of it on hand.

Open up your “beer refrigerator,” or head down to the beer cellar, and start planning your menu. That raspberry wheat ale that made you realize one pint of fruit beer is plenty? Mix it with some vinegar and herbs for a salad dressing. The smoked porter that drew raves in the club-only competition? Perhaps barbecue is in order tonight. A 3-year-old barley wine? Serve it with a plate of strong cheeses to cap off the meal.

“Beer cuisine” is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot. While it usually refers to food that’s made with beer, beer can be the ideal companion to many beer-less dishes as well, and about half of the recipes featured inThe Brewpub Cookbook don’t include beer as an ingredient.

Deciding which foods taste best with which beers is a delicious, ever-evolving experiment. But how to start? The most important thing to remember is simply to think about what you’re tasting. Sip a beer slowly and determine the dominant flavor characteristics. Is the maltiness sweet or dry? Are the hops flowery or citric? Does the yeast contribute a distinctive flavor? Does the sharpness of alcohol coat your tongue?

Next, think about how you would like the beer to relate to the food. The goal is to find a balance, and the keywords to keep in mind are “cut,” “complement” and “contrast.” You may want to cut a dish that is very rich or buttery by serving it with a light, hoppy beer such as a pilsner. A perfect complement to anything chocolate-flavored is a cream stout or strong stout. And a pale ale will contrast nicely with the hearty, smoky flavors of a barbecue dish.

Just as you cannot follow certain kinds of beers with others in a beer tasting, drinking the wrong beer with certain foods will detract from both the food and the beer. Most often, the flavors in the beer overwhelm those in the food, but the reverse can also occur. A malty beer such as a Scottish ale will lose its flavor next to an astringent salad dressing such as a vinaigrette. Likewise, a bite of Limburger cheese will overwhelm all but the strongest beers.

Keep in mind that matching food with beer is not an exact science, even for the pros. “There are no set rules,” says Alan Skversky, regional executive chef for the Arizona-based Hops! Bistro & Brewery restaurants. “Every time we try a different beer with a different food, we’re blown away by the possibilities.”

Below are some suggestions on which foods to serve with certain beers.

Golden or blonde ale, American wheat ale, lightly hopped lagers. Since these beers lack both maltiness and hoppiness, they work best as thirst-quenchers. Try them with super-hot food, such as blackened redfish. Once your tongue has been assaulted with hot spices, it will no longer be able to appreciate an intricately flavored beer, anyway.

Weissbier, dunkelweiss. You want to be able to enjoy the flavors of the yeast, so stick with delicate foods, such as a delicate soup or pasta or light cheeses. These beers also work well with lightly flavored vegetarian dishes, such as grilled vegetables, or light chicken dishes.

Amber ale. A good all-around beer for any food that isn’t sweet — something sweet will detract from the maltiness in the beer. It complements sandwiches, hearty soups and pizzas. Also a good thirst-quencher for barbecue or Mexican food.

Bitter, pale ale, India pale ale, German/Bohemian pilsners. While hops can kill your tastebuds when paired with many foods, they do make for some particularly good matches — fried seafood, for example, because hoppiness cuts through grease, or anything with vinegar as a main ingredient. They also complement smoked, boiled, steamed or broiled seafood. And they can enhance the spiciness of highly spiced cuisine. The fruitier pale ales also will complement lamb, beef and game, or try them with liver paté.

English or American brown ale. Hamburgers and sausages are hearty enough for either kind of ale. The English brown may match nicely with smoked fish, while game dishes can stand up to the hoppiness of the American brown.

Porter, dry or oatmeal stout. Think hearty foods — meat dishes with gravy, barbecue, shepherd’s pie, stew. Oysters are also ideal. Both these beers and the brown ales will stand up to stronger cheeses such as sharp cheddar and blue.

Cream or sweet stout, imperial stout. These are made for chocolate, and imperial stout pairs especially well with dark chocolate. Also try chocolate-and-fruit desserts, such as stout cheesecake with raspberry sauce, or something with caramel or pecans.

Vienna lager/Oktoberfest/Mäarzen, dark lager, bock.Like amber ale, these are good all-around food beers, and they’re not as filling as ales. The lagers will cut some of the heaviness in sauce-based meat dishes – chicken paprikash, goulash or pork rouladen, for example – and will stand up to their strong flavors. The perfect beers to serve with pretzels and mustard. Sweeter bocks, such as doppelbocks, can complement heartier, spicier desserts, such as pumpkin pie or spice cake.

Fruit beers, lambics. Sweeter fruit beers and fruit lambics can be paired with light fruit desserts, such as souffles or chiffon cake, but sour ones will probably overwhelm fruit flavors. Some people like to drink lambics with dark chocolate. Entrees that are prepared with fruit – i.e., raspberry-glazed duck breast – can pair nicely with fruit beers. Consider enjoying these alone at the end of the meal.

Old ale, barley wine. Most foods don’t stand up to these stronger beers, and you’ll probably lose the maltiness in the beer as well. Try a really strong cheese or a piece of super-dark chocolate, or serve them alone or with a cigar.

A few more guidelines:

Don’t always match like with like. As you can see from the suggestions above, lighter beers tend to go well with lighter foods, heavier beers with heavier foods, but that’s not a hard-and-fast rule. And if you’re cooking with beer, you don’t have to serve the same beer you cooked with alongside the dish. Often, you’ll want to serve a beer that has the opposite characteristics of the one you cooked with. For example, chef Skversky finds the yeasty hefeweiss that he uses in his potato soup too “palate-coating” to accompany the soup, and he prefers to serve it with a light, golden ale.

Think ethnic. Try German bratwurst with grilled onions and horseradish with a German dark lager, English stout with steak-and-kidney pie, English brown ales or bitters with mild sausage, or a hoppy American pale ale or pilsner with raw or steamed New England clams.

If you’re planning a beer dinner, with a different beer for each course, you need to consider not only how each beer will go with each food item, but how the different beers will follow one another. Don’t serve rich, heavy beers, or beers made with herbs and spices, with your first few courses. It’s better to serve beers that are lower in alcohol with first courses, and keep the old ales or imperial stouts for the end of the meal. Stick to small portions of beer – many chefs suggest about four ounces per course. Otherwise, you may find your guests snoozing over the entrees. “People lose focus,” Schafer says, “plus, beer is so filling.”

Once you start experimenting with beer and food pairings, you’ll quickly discover that not only does beer enhance the flavor of food, but food enhances the flavor of beer. You will start to pick up the many complexities beer has hidden within it, and as you educate your palate, will begin to develop ideal beer and food pairings on your own.

So Remember

• Match strength with strength. It is simply common sense that delicate dishes work best with delicate beers.It is equally true that strongly-flavored foods demand assertive beers. With beer, flavor intensity involves a variety of qualities such as alcoholic strength, malt character, hop bitterness, sweetness, richness and roastiness.
• Find harmonies. Combinations often work best when food and beverage share some common flavor or aroma elements. The nutty flavor of an English-style brown ale and a handmade cheddar cheese; the deep, roasted flavors of an imperial stout and chocolate truffles; and the rich, caramel flavors of an Oktoberfest lager and roasted pork are all examples of this.
• Consider sweetness, bitterness, carbonation, heat (spice) and richness. At first, this may seem complicated, but it’s really quite straightforward. Specific characteristics of food and beer interact with each other in predictable ways. Taking advantage of these interactions ensures that the food and beer will balance each other, creating a desire for a taste of the other.
• Look to classic cuisines. The cuisines of beer-drinking countries offer many traditional beer and food combinations. Schnitzel with pale lager may be obvious, but who would have thought to put stout together with oysters? Classic matches like this can be found if you seek them out, and offer a great start to further exploration.
• Practice makes perfect. Not every pairing works as expected—this can be fun if you learn to appreciate the unexpected. Build on the things that work and keep seeking those magic combinations.
• Consider seasonality. The warm summer months favor light foods and beers while heartier fare works best in winter. The beers and foods of a given season pair naturally together and suit the mood as well.
• Contrast and complement. All beer and food combinations should involve both of these principles. Some pairings will be more dependent on contrast, others on complementary flavors. All should strive for some kind of balance.