Ale Street News Online

Ever since the beginning of civilization in Mesopotamia about 10,000 years ago, food and beverages all over the world have evolved in unison, shaped by their terroir, that is, by the local soils and climates that produced man’s culinary ingredients. Subsequently, diverse civilizations emerged that patterned people’s everyday lives, including the rituals of the kitchen and the table, according to complex rules and mores. As a result, blends of dishes and drinks, born of both terroir and culture, acquired, over time, distinct characters — they became cohesive cuisines.

Some of these cuisines excelled in complexity, some in comprehensiveness from soup to nuts, some in sophistication of technique, and the greatest among them, excelled in all those aspects. Two cuisines in particular, French and Italian, both wine-based, seem to have achieved universal acclaim as the epitome of fine dining and it is perhaps precisely because these two cuisines rely so heavily on wine, that wine has become the commonly accepted drink with elegant dining. Other beverages, including beer, sadly, are deemed by too many as just too pedestrian.

Contrary to the now-prevalent perception that only wine goes with fine food, the beverage at the table in most cuisines around the globe has always been beer, not wine.

The reasons are obvious: Wine comes from grapes, beer comes from grain. Grapes grow well in only a few regions of the globe, while grain thrives in many greatly varying environments.

The Roots of Beer Cuisine

The grain regions, where the climate is either too hot or too cold for the vine to flourish, encompass most of the earth’s habitable surfaces, and, not surprisingly, it is there that we find the world’s first brewers, most notably in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Central Europe. Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Co. calls these areas the “beer latitudes.”

In these latitudes, people found interesting ways of combining food and beer, almost out of necessity, both at the table and in the kitchen. The dishes that evolved there were not even meant to be consumed with wine. Thus, they generally do not fair well if they are force-paired with it. Traditionally, beer cuisines are rustic, hearty, hefty and sustaining...and much more interesting than many food snobs think!

In modern times, the mainstream breweries, perhaps unwittingly, helped to reinforce the image of beer as a second-class drink. The promotion of beer in sometimes tasteless mass advertisements has left a beverage vacuum in the kitchen and at the table, even in the beer latitudes, which wine — sexy, elegant, and sophisticated — has no trouble filling, especially now, with fast and efficient global transportation.

Beer’s Culinary Comeback

Yet, there is hope again for beer. Beer cuisine may be an ancient art, but, with the incredible growth of the craft brew sector and the renewed interest by North American consumers in the wide range of imports, beer is now being rediscovered by modern cooks and is already making a comeback at the table.

As Boston Beer’s Jim Koch explained in a recent interview, “Our world is drawing ever closer together, and creative chefs are opening the door to innovative experimentation with all kinds of ingredients, including beer. Real creativity in the culinary arts during the past two decades has come mostly from chefs who have infused classic French and Italian cooking with elements from other cuisines, especially tropical ones, such as Thai, Mexican, Indian, Chinese and Ethiopian. The result is a spicier, more sharply flavored cuisine that is notoriously difficult to mate with wine.”

The tropical cuisines, though not known for indigenous beers, have been exposed to beer for the past two centuries by Europeans who took it to them during the colonial era. Even today, when you go to a Thai, Mexican or Chinese restaurant, beer is still the beverage at the table, as opposed to wine. Dishes combining sweetness and sourness, for instance, simply overwhelm wines, especially white ones.

Likewise, salty dishes tend to exacerbate alcohol flavors, tannins and oakiness, especially in red wines. “With beer,” says Koch, “because of its malty component, no such precautions are necessary. Beer will stand up well to such dishes.” Therefore, according to Koch, beer in the modern kitchen just might be the next culinary frontier, while our modern focus on wine in cooking and dining, could be a temporary aberration, “a mere accident of recent vintage, which stems from the fact that we have elevated traditional French and Italian cuisines with their wine-drinking customs to the exclusive pinnacle of culinary culture.”

Beer’s Versatility

There is good reason to take heart in beer’s culinary future. When cooking or pairing food with beer instead of wine, it seems the cook has much greater freedom. Such wine rules as “red with meat, white with fish,” simply do not apply. A smoked salmon, for instance, tastes just as great with a fruity brown ale as it does with an assertively hopped blond lager. A strongly curried Jaipur chicken in a yogurt sauce tastes just as great with a Wit or bière blanche as it does with a Hefeweizen, Bockbier, or double IPA. Likewise, for brunch or as an appetizer, a French bière de garde or German copper-colored Altbier stand up well to Westphalian ham or Italian prosciutto. Finally, who could forget the ubiquitous Bavarian beer garden and beer hall fare of Weisswurst (a steeped veal-and-pork sausage) served with a spicy yeast-turbid Hefeweizen or a brilliant, straw-blond quaffing lager such as a Munich Helles?

Classic Brew Stews

Stew is perhaps the classic dish, in which beer often outshines wine. Most famous among these is probably Carbonnade flammande, the classic Belgian stew of beef and onions braised in Oud Bruin or Trappist ale. Another is an Irish stew of lamb and stout. A pot roast gains in depth of flavor if cooked in a malty Märzen for a Bavarian touch or in a darkish Scottish ale for a Gaelic touch. Use the same beers for mopping the meat as an oven roast or a BBQ. Dark lagers such as the bacony-tasting Rauchbier from Bamberg in Bavaria or the Schwarzbier from Köstritz in the German state of Thuringia are excellent for marinating and basting flavorful oven-roasts of duck, goose, pheasant or pork.

Even dishes that are conventionally not associated with beer have imaginative pairing potentials. A fresh, crunchy salad, for instance, goes well with a beery dressing of extra virgin olive oil and a sour Lambic-style brew, such as Kriek or Gueuze. Then there is always the heavenly marriage of cheese cakes or chocolate-vanilla deserts and stout or porter.

As stand-alones, too, beer can take wine’s place at the table. A dry Pils or super-hopped ale is a great appetite-inducing aperitif, while an Eisbock, barley wine or Belgian Triple is a first-rate digestif, but with less alcohol and at least as much flavor as the usual Port or cognac.