Beer with Food

[Steve Plotnicki]

In the British food thread on the U.K. board, we ran across a tangential issue (gee what a surprise) which raised the subject of French and Italian dishes that go well with beer. Giving it some thought, the only ones I could think of were choucroute and Istrian pork and cabbage dishes, which are choucroutish in nature to begin with. Steve Shaw said he could name a bunch if I posted a new thread. So here it is. And aside from certain stews that come from Belgium which braise things in beer, I can't think of any other dishes outside of Alsace and Istria that are really beer friendly. Herring in oil with steamed potatoes? Charcuterie platter? Beef stew? It certainly isn't the drink of choice when eating a Steak Frittes with Bearnaise sauce or a Coq au Vin. Anybody?

[Fat Guy]

Let me throw out a couple of the most basic beer-and-food matches for consideration, and we can build up the thread from there.

The classic match that a serious beer person will hit you with is oysters and stout. I was disbelieving too, but after being forced through a taste test I am now a convert to the school of thought that says stout goes better with oysters than any wine.

Likewise, beers of various kinds (porter, stout, wheat beer in particular) are tremendously compelling matches for every variation of raw and simply cooked shellfish, such as the platters you'd get at any brasserie. (Plotnicki, you know that brasserie means brewery, right?).

Beer is also a strong candidate for matching with foods that are wine-unfriendly. Vinegar is a major enemy of wine, yet all those salads with vinegar-based dressings taste terrific with beer (wheat and fruit-wheat beers are prime candidates). Artichoke and egg dishes also work well with beer.

Coq au vin is of course a wine dish because it's wine based. But while the bearnaise component of steak au poivre may not flatter beer, if you have steak frites with a shallot butter sauce I think a trappist ale is going to be a stellar accompaniment.

Beer is great with any dish that has a strong mustard component. And of course it's nice with those curry emulsions you like so much.

On the Italian side of things, it's primarily the spicy sausage based dishes that work well with beer.

More later. I will get to some more involved dishes that bear a more distinctly French and Italian stamp, but I just wanted to lay out some of the basic ingredients matches first.

Here are a few beer-and-food matching sources online:

http://www.dummies.com/Lifesty....01.html

http://www.johnsgrocery.com/Departments/Beer/food.html

http://www.pyramidbrew.com/beer/beer_food/pairings.php

http://www.allaboutbeer.com/food/

http://www.realbeer.co.nz/library....od.html

[Steve Plotnicki]

Shaw-Well if you hadn't noticed, all of those Brasseries have raw bars outside the entrance so that would make it fall under the Alsatian theory. I mean they drink beer in Alsace, but not in Paris unless you are at a Brasserie or Alsatioan restaurant. What that leaves us with your spicy sausages which falls under the "too spicy for wine" theory. So aside from boiled foods, smoked foods, high in salt raw fish dishes or meat that is brined, spicy foods or foods where mustards play an important part, and I guess grilled foods (a beer at Peter Lugars might be better than wine,) give us a hard one.

[Fat Guy]

Plotnicki, I didn't say they drink beer in Paris. What I said was that oysters taste better with beer than with wine. This is true whether you have them in Alsace, Paris, or Timbuktu. However they are a classic presentation in French restaurants of many kinds, from Brittany to Alsace and from Paris to Nice. Alsace did not give us raw shellfish. Exactly which Alsatian body of water are they catching shellfish in?

Now, when you say "aside from boiled foods, smoked foods, high in salt raw fish dishes or meat that is brined, spicy foods or foods where mustards play an important part, and I guess grilled foods," you're including a lot of foods. I don't want just to let that slip by. I mean, there are hundreds of classic French dishes that depend on those ingredients.

What do you like to drink with mussles marinara? How about crepes alla Florentine? There are some beer-based dishes in classic French cooking, though I suppose they are Belgian derived, such as carbonnades a la flamande. And then you have dishes that build on beer-friendly ingredients like bacon, but which I'm pretty sure aren't Alsatian in origin, sich as poulet en cocotte bonne femme (chicken with bacon onions and potatoes).

Plotnicki, let me put it this way: Open any classic French cookbook. (We'll get to Italian food later.) Now cross out every dish that has wine as an ingredient. You're left with maybe a third of the dishes. Those are the ones where beer can compete with wine as a pairing. I mean, obviously, if a dish has wine in the sauce it's going to go better with wine and if it's braised in beer it's going to go better with beer. But once you get beyond that you're matching for specific properties of the constituent ingredients.

There's also a question of expense here. Beer doesn't go into the stratosphere the way wine does. I don't think there's a beer that can compete with something like a '61 Lafite paired with rack of lamb. But a good Belgian abbey beer is in my opinion better with rack of lamb than any wine priced at less than $30 a bottle.

[Bux]

Pizza.

I think Shaw is correct that accepted practice, is not the best guide for what goes well with beer. If the criterion is "goes well," we also can't eliminate foods that go well with either beer or wine. So it really makes no difference if they drink beer in Alsace, or if oysters are sold in brasseries, where, by the way, they're more likely to be accompanied by a muscadet or some other bracing white wine than beer. I'd rarely think of ordereing a beer with oysters in Paris, but would in NY.

My guess is that more wine is drunk with dinner than beer in Alsace. When in Belgium, I found I was ordering beer with lunch and wine with dinner. It had as much too with the type of restaurant and formality of the meal as well as the actual food.  A draft beer was excellent with steamed mussels which they prepare with lots of celery in the broth.

In the end, there's no accounting for taste. My wife will tell you that beer is too filling and that wine goes best with all foods as it leaves more room for the food. The counter argument is that beer is both food and drink.

[Jinmyo]

Just to mention the article on lambic beer and mussels in the March 2002 issue of Saveur.

Nicely tart wheat beer. Better than wine for steaming mussels because of how the hops and the metallic briny taste of the mussels gang up with each other and look at you funny from your tongue and say, "You want a frite. Now. Do it. Heh. Didn't dip that one in the mayonaisse. Do it again."

Yes, sir. Three bags full, sir.

[Fat Guy]

Pizza is a telling example because it contains two ingredients that struggle against most wine but have a natural affinity for most beer: Tomatoes and cheese. Although there has been plenty of effort devoted to pairing wine with cheese, there are only a handful of combinations that can truly be said to improve both the cheese and the wine, and those mostly revolve around sweet wines. Tomatoes, I don't think anybody argues are good with wine, at least not in their sauce form. Whereas, beer is brilliant with both cheese and tomato products.

At Gramercy Tavern last year, I had dover sole -- a very traditional French preparation that Chef Tom was doing on a tasting menu and that felt somewhat out of place at Gramercy -- paired with beer (on two occasions at Gramercy I've done menus paired with beer and have not regretted it). Not only did I think it would be awful, but the beer chosen was rather dark and bitter so I thought it of all beers would be just awful with the delicate fish and creamy buttery sauce. Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle, it was a tremendously appetizing combination.

I should also mention that beer can, with no damage to the product, be infused with flavors ranging from coriander to peach. This property of beer, which wine does not easily share, presents countless food matching possibilities that have never been explored.

[Jason Perlow]

Spicy Asian food is a pain in the ass to match most wine with, with the exception of Reisling and Gewurtztraminer or a Chenin Blanc. Heavy use of black pepper is a huge foil for any kind of wine, it overpowers it, especially stuff like in Steak Au Poivre, or heavy Vietnamese black pepper sauces.

While I like Reisling and other Germanic wines with really spicy Thai and Chinese food, I think I like beer better. You cant beat a Singha with Thai, or a Tsingtao with any kind of Chinese food. Or Kingfisher with Indian.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Steve - Italian white wines from the Friuli go best with tomato dishes. There is something about the acid in wines from that region that matches up well with tomatoes. If you want to have yourself a perfect match, go drink a Vintage Tunina from Jermann, or a Colio Pinot Bianco from Schiopetto with a seafood risotto and they will match up perfectly. Also as Bux said, Muscadet is the usual beverage with oysters. Go down to Chambers Street Wines and get yourself a Domaine Pepiere Muscadet and that will be a perfect match for oysters on the half shell.

You see the thing about matching raw oysters with beverages is matching the acid in the wine with the brininess of the oysters. And the wine needs to be bone dry because if it has the slightest bit of residual sugar, or is overripe to any extent, the sugar will clash with the taste of the sea. That is why beer goes well. It is never sweet.

As for crepes Florentine, well there are probably a whole host of dishes that wine doesn't go well with at all. How about asparagus? Beer is far better with boiled asparagus than wine is but not good either. As for rack of lamb and beer, sorry. Your basic $11 Domaine Remejeane Cote de Rhone, and a dozen other CdR I could buy for less than $15 are a much better combo, not to mention the dozen or so Gigondas and Rasteau I can get for around $20, or the number of great Chateauneufs I can buy for less than $30 (like Les Cailloux or Clos Mont Olivet.) They are way better than beer with a rack of lamb. Especially when you eat Alpilles lamb from Sisteron. And I'm not even going to mention Bandol and lamb. Steamed mussels are dependant on the type of seasoning, though most go well with beer. But Moules Provencal are better with a chilled rose (Tavel works well.) And  mussels with a curry cream sauce (but not an emulsion) are great with Alsatian, Loire or German semi-sweet wines. In fact I think anything that has curry that is at all spicy goes perfectly with an Auslese.

[Fat Guy]

So, where do we go from here, Plotnicki? In light of your original post, are you now convinced that: 1) There are plenty of French and Italian dishes that are entirely beer friendly, and 2) there are a few that are more beer friendly than wine friendly? I mean, I'm happy to go into detail on any example you want, but where do we stand in the overall discussion?

I have all the little books and wheels that tell you a wine that goes with everything, and I've tasted a respectable percentage of the combinations. Certainly there is a best wine for every dish, though in some cases you have to read "best" to mean "least bad" or "acceptable." I've had Friuli wines with tomato dishes and found them to be better matches than Chianti with tomato dishes but not inherently fabulous matches as in my standard previously delineated: Does the match improve both the wine and the food?

Just as you wouldn't say "wine goes with X" without further explanation that a specific kind of wine goes with X, there are thousands of varieties of beer that go better and worse with any particular food. And there's a whole theoretical approach to beer and food matching that allows for parallels to acidity in wine and other factors that you'd associate with wine. The beer writer Stephen Beaumont has codified such an approach, with the wine-knowledgeable reader in mind, with rules such as:

Hoppiness in Beer = Acidity in Wine. Anytime that you would seek a wine with high acidity -- such as with spicy or oily food -- choose a beer with significant hoppiness, or bitterness. The more acidic you would want the wine, the hoppier you will want the beer.

[Tonyfinch]

The counter argument is that beer is both food and drink.

This is a telling point.For hundreds of years in Britain beer was regarded as much as a food than as a drink and was considered to contain as much nourishment as many foodstuffs.It was certainly safer to drink than many local water supplies and the terms "mild" and "small beer" come from the weakness of the beer that people drank morning noon and night and which was given to children and the elderly and sick,again in preference to water.The perception of beer as a foodstuff was one of the reasons Britain developed a drinking culture that was separate from food.

English pies and savoury puddings-steak and kidney,beef and oyster,game and rabbit pies,pork pies etc.are perfect matches for real ale.I also agree that a lot of the stronger English cheeses pair far better with well kept bitter or stout than they do with wine.Fish and chips is best drunk with beer and most people prefer it with Indian food,although this cuisine is not nearly as wine unfriendly as some seem to think.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Steve-I didn't say that beer was food unfriendly, I said that apart from my list of types of food, I didn't know many French and Italian dishes that were beer friendly. And I agree with Stephen Beaumont who has pretty much said what I said which is that high acid foods need high acidity/low in residual sugar wines and that bitter beer offers the same qualities.

Tony-That was a fantastic post but unfortuntely has brought up the following question. Beer as food? Why would anybody believe that?

I'm sorry I keep coming back to that issue but it is the one that fascinates me. Here in the U.S., we grow up believing that everything we do is of our own choosing. Now while nobody believes the "everything" bit is literal, I think that in general if you asked most people they would agree with that.

So I am fascinated to understand why anyone would believe the concept that beer is food? And then why nobody would figure it out that it isn't and instigate public opinion against it? I mean I understand how the public invests in cultural change that works against them. Like in the U.S., we were talked into abandoning a good rail system by the automobile companies and it was very much to our detriment. But that is a little more complex than food. Food seems easier to figure out (though I could be wrong about it.) But since you are our authority about British food and drinking custom, what answer might that be to that question?

[Fat Guy]

I said that apart from my list of types of food, I didn't know many French and Italian dishes that were beer friendly.

In order for me to determine the best way to respond, I'm trying to ascertain whether you still believe that.

[jhlurie]

If we are done with the Francophilia, dare I suggest that German food goes well with beer?

As for Italian food, yes, Pizza is a given (does Plotnicki eat Pizza, since it's more of a blue-collar American thing?   ).  But in the depths of Italian America, beer also occasionally passes the lips of people eating pasta as well.  Personally, the combination of grains would make me gassy, but hey, it's done.

[tommy]

As for Italian food, yes, Pizza is a given

i was prepared to make a similar statement about beer and pizza.  then i thought to myself that i actually drink wine more often with pizza, and find that it is often a perfect match, so i was going to suggest that point ('specially pizza with aggressive herbal elements).  then i thought to myself that there are so many (well, several) different styles of pizza, that generalizing either way would be foolish.

so, i'll just continue lurking until i can think of something to say that isn't foolish.  don't hold your breath.

[Liza]

Time was in Ireland, when nursing mothers were suggested to drink Guinness, as a nutritional supplement.

[Tonyfinch]

Up until the time the populace unlimited had access to sweet water beer was drunk instead. A lot of it was very mild alcoholically and it was drunk by people of all ages and classes.Obviously people knew it wasn't food as such but they believed it contained nutrients that were beneficial to health and that it helped stave off sickness and disease.It was also a lot less likely to poison you than a lot of the foods that were available to the poorer people.The truth is that for a lot of the poor up until,say,the end of the 19thC,beer was one of the healthier things they consumed.

As large breweries took over the production and distribution of beer they fostered its image as a nutritionally valuable and healthy product."Guiness Is Good For You" is a slogan that was used in Guiness ads. up until very recently and the notion of this beverage containing iron and vitamins and minerals is still dearly held in Ireland and England.

It is also a faux-food.It is filling and can satisfy hunger pangs.It makes you feel good and relaxes you.Given a choice people often preferred to spend their money on beer and could kid themselves that they had eaten.So the demarcation line between beer as a straight alcoholic drink and beer as a nutritionally sound "foodstuff" was easily and regularly blurred.

[jhlurie]

Is there something generational or regional about this belief that beer is nutritious?  I've never heard of anything so foolish, and to my knowledge nobody from my part of the world or my approximate cultural background believes it either.

Then again, believing that wine is "healthy" seems like a stretch to me as well.  I like wine, mind you, but most of the supposed health benefits can be gotten just as easily by eating a bunch of grapes.

[Wilfrid]

Eh?  Of course beer is nutritious in the simple sense that it contains nutrients which the body can absorb and benefit from.  Liza is absolutely right that about nursing mothers being encouraged to drink stout (and not only in Ireland), primarily as an iron supplement; and of course Tony's right too.  This is not unrelated to certain topics on the UK Board: the real social problem in Britain, up to the fifties at least, was not absence of haute cuisine but malnutrition.  The government and medical community backed moderate beer consumption as one way of getting iron and minerals to the people who needed it.  You have to make an effort of imagination to put yourself back into the historical context.  Public communication on health issues was far less sophisticated than it is today, and concern about alcohol-related illness much lower.  Note, I am not saying the government and doctors were right, I am just explaining what they did and why.

And indeed the health-based beer ads continued at least into the 1970s:  "It looks good, it tastes good, and by golly it does you good."  That was Guiness, I believe; or was it Mackeson?

[Steve Plotnicki]

I have eaten quite a lot of pizzas in my day. Although it is a thing of the past due to the development of an intolerance to wheat gluten a dozen years ago. But at the time that happened, I was quite an accomplished eater of pizzas made in the Mediterranean style (which happens to be the original style since it seems to be a Neopolitan thing.) So when you say to me what goes best with pizza, it depends on whether we are talking about the flavors that you get in NYC at a John's type of place or what you get at Chez Black on the beach in Positano or La Pizza in Cannes. In NYC, beer is better. Don't ask me why because I never studied it closely. Maybe it is the type of acidity that American tomatoes have and maybe it is the types of toppings that are popular here like sausage etc.  Maybe it is the crust/cheese/tomato ratio of an American pie. I'm not sure. But on the Mediterranean coast stretching from at least Marseille to Sicily, the predominant pizzas are Margharita (cheese, tomatoes and basil) or Napolitana (anchovies) which I always considered the "real" pizzas. And in my experience you drink rose with them, or an acidic white or light red wine. And although I have frequented those types of places a good 50 times in my life, and still do now ordering things like eggplant parmagian, I can't recall anyone ever ordering a beer except Northern Europeans. People from the States or from Southern European countries always seemed to order wine or Coca Cola or stuck with Badoit. But next time I'm there (which is next month) I will do a quick survey on the terrace of La Pizza. Thinking it through, a significant way Italian pies differ is they seem to have a higher proportion of olive oil drizzled on them than American pies. And they usually have a strong herbal component and sprinkled with things like Herbs de Provence or whatever the local equivelent might be. To me, oil + herbs = wine not beer.

[Jinmyo]

To me, oil + herbs = wine not beer.

I think this to be very true.

But then I only drink beer with Mexican or Indian foods, and even then only in summer, and even then often with lime.

[tommy]

why does steve take 500 words to say what i said in 15.

[Fat Guy]

Because he knows how to type.

[tommy]

Because he knows how to type.

[buh dum, pshht]

but can he bust out a rim shot with perfect timing.

[cabrales]

Let me throw out a couple of the most basic beer-and-food matches for consideration, and we can build up the thread from there. . . . .

Likewise, beers of various kinds . . . . are tremendously compelling matches for every variation of raw and simply cooked shellfish, such as the platters you'd get at any brasserie. (Plotnicki, you know that brasserie means brewery, right?).]

Ghislaine Arabian's French cuisine, which once attracted two stars at Ledoyen, has significant beer components.  She matches the beer with turbot, with scallops and even with beef.  See my description of scallops with beer emulsion under "lunch or dinner in Paris on March 6" under "France" (Yes, the chef is from Flanders.)

Articles on Arabian that reference beer include:

(1) Bonjour Paris: "Chez [At] Arabian, Biere Blanche de Bruges, Gueuze Kriek and Gueuze Mort Subite are *served chilled in ice buckets* [i didn't witness this; nor did I choose beer to drink], with the same pomp as others serve fine wines. More than 30 beers feature on sommelier David Desbonnet's carte des bieres. *Zeeland oysters* are served with Speck beer and whipped milk; *turbot* and *sole* are roasted with biere de garde and served with onion rings."

http://www.bparis.com/newslet....id=1838

(2) AsiaCuisine: "She shared with guests her award-winning signature dishes such as oven-roasted *turbot* with Garde beer and deep-fried onion rings, sautéed *beef* tenderloin with Gueuze beer . . . ."

http://www.asiacuisine.com.sg/Nacws/2000/9/669/

tommy -- What do you think about my typing?