The Ultimate Guide to Pairing Beer with Food
What are the best foods to eat with beer? This pairing guide will teach you how to pair beer with any meal, food or snack!
By Clara Jaide on Mar. 24, 2021
Are you hosting a dinner tonight and looking for the perfect beer to pair with your steak and potatoes? Or maybe you’ve made some new snobby beer friends that you want to impress by ordering the perfect brew to pair with your buffalo wings on wing night. Or you have a bunch of leftover beer from the weekend and you’re just wondering what tastes good with beer? Lucky for you, as with all things beer, JustBeer has your back.
What foods pair well with beer?
Truthfully, you can pair beer with just about anything, depending on the style. But we’ll break it down for you in a quick reference chart on how to pair beer based on style:
The Best Food Pairings for Beer by Style
- Amber / Red Ales: Fried foods; pulled/smoked pork, jerk chicken, pizza
- Brown Ales: Hearty foods; steak / dark meats, sausage, sushi, fish/seafood
- India Pale Ales (IPAs): Heavy / Fatty foods; deep-fried meats, salty foods
- Light lagers: Spicy food, burgers, salads
- Dark Lagers: Sausage / dark meats, burgers, pizza
- Porters: smoked meats, barbecue, chilli, braised meats
- Stouts: roasted/smoked meats
- Wheat beers: Spicy food and fruity desserts
An even better way to pair beer would be based on the beer’s flavour profile. There are six flavour profiles of beer. Match one of them to flavours of your food to narrow it down for the ultimate dining experience. Here’s a quick reference chart for how to pair beer based on the flavour profile.
The Best Food Pairings for Beer by Flavour Profile
- Crisp & Clean Beers: seafood, grilled chicken, salads, spicy foods…
- Hoppy & Bitter Beers: spicy foods (Indian / Mexican cuisine), rich/fatty foods, fried foods, aged cheeses
- Dark & Roasty Beers: meats; poultry, pork, seafood
- Malty & Sweet Beers: vegetables; root vegetables, bold cheeses, tomato-flavoured/cured meats
- Smoky Beers: smoked meats, pork, raw fish/sushi
- Fruity or Spicy Beers: light seafood/fish; lobster, crab, mussels, chicken, turkey
- Sour, Tart & Funky Beers: duck, pork chops, chicken thighs, light meats, fruity desserts
Click here to see the Full-Size Beer & Food Pairing Guide.
The Ultimate Guide to Pairing Beer with Any Type of Food
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