How should craft beer be paired with a meal?

What can you do to relieve the summer heat?

Only craft beer!

With crawfish?

Perfect!

Let's take a look at what kinds of craft beers are available and what kind of characteristics they have. And then let's see how to match the delicious food.

I. Types and characteristics of craft beer

Here are 7 different types of craft beers.

(1) Pale Lagers & Pilsners

Pale Lagers & Pilsners

The first choice for summer. These craft beers are light in color, clear, thirst-quenching, and have few to medium hops and malts.

Pale Lagers and Pilsners are lighter and crisper in taste.

Pale ale, also known as cellar beer, is a beer made using low-temperature maturation techniques and is the world's most prestigious under-fermented pale ale.

Pilsner is lighter in color, with good foam, a strong and prominent hop aroma, a heavy but not long bitterness, and a mellow taste.

(2) Pale Ales and India Pale Ales

Pale Ales & India Pale Ales, IPA

Very rich in hops! IPA is the hoppiest of all the ales.

First invented by the British in the 19th century, it is a branch of pale ale (brewed with lilighter-coloredalts) and has aromas of citrus and flowers.

A big sip is bitter but exciting, especially for American IPAs.

(3) Wheat Beers

Wheat Beers

Wheat beers are made from wheat malt as the main ingredient. The aroma of wheat and yeast fermentation, full of bubbles, with the aroma of orange or banana, is sweet and slightly sour in the mouth. It has a sweet, slightly sour taste in the mouth. It lingers on the lips after the mouthful and is suitable for both warm and cold seasons.

American wheat beers are softer, while German wheat beers are stronger.

(4) Amber Ales

Amber Ales

Amber Ales have a cool, dark amber color, rich malt flavor, low CO2 content, and a soft mouthfeel with a distinctive maltiness. Medium-bodied, hoppy, slightly richer than the pale ale, with a soft caramel flavor with hints of grass.

Leaves a pleasant maltiness in the mouth and a mellow, sweet fruitiness with a sweet aftertaste.

(5) Brown Ale

Brown Ales

A dark reddish-brown beer with a fluffy, long-lasting foam, rich in chocolate and spice, with hints of chocolate and raisins, and a rather dry and refreshing hoppy bitterness on the aftertaste.

(6) Porter

Porter

Porter is a dark, malty, roast ale with a hint of roast.

Aroma: Moderately light to moderately strong dark malt aroma, often with a slight char, a characteristic similar to bread, toffee, caramel, chocolate, coffee. Hop aroma usually varies, sometimes with fruit esters.

Appearance: brown to dark brown, even black, with a brown foamy layer.

Taste: strong maltiness, often with a slightly charred malt character, with a touch of grain and dark malt on the back end. Moderately full-bodied, weak kill the taste, strong kill taste, and slight alcohol warmth in the strong version, moderate to no fruit ester aroma.

(7) Dry Stout

Dry Stouts

Varying in body, medium-low to medium-high. Dry Stouts are heavy and creamy, with chocolate and coffee flavors, and medium to high hop bitterness.

Guinness (Guinness) is a typical dry-hopped beer.

II. Pairing craft beer with food

How exactly do you pair craft beer and food? Do you want to pair craft beer and food together? Or do you want to highlight a particular feature of the food? It's totally up to you!

(1) Pairing craft beer and food with each other

If you want a certain flavor of your food to get better and better, then pick a craft beer that tastes similar to that flavor!

For example, grilled meat with smoked stout is a fierce collision of taste buds, and the flavor is quite strong.

(2) Mixing craft beer and food

If your food is heavy and you want a slightly sour taste to tone it down, pick a craft beer that can reduce the heaviness.

For example, a pale ale and the smokiness of barbecue collide, and the citrusy flavor of the beer just "kills" the heaviness of the barbecue.

Another example is the collision of sweet and spicy. A simple, sweet American wheat beer paired with a spicy Thai delicacy can be just the thing to alleviate the slight heat from the spice.

(3) Craft beer food with each other + mix and match

For fried calamari, the best choice is IPA: the bitterness of the beer "kills" the greasiness and goes well with the flavor of the food; also, the sharp bitterness of the IPA makes the calamari taste more crispy and appetizing.

(4) Local match

If you are completely clueless, it's easy: the most distinctive local beer with the most classic local dishes.

Or maybe you're eating a delicious meal, grabbing a beer at hand, and feeling great, then you're right.

(5) Spicy food pairings

There is malt flavor of craft beer can be very good to reduce the spicy bringing a slightly hot feeling, as the so-called sweet and clear heat.

Porters, brown ales, Scottish ales, and dry spirits are all malt-flavored beers.

Simply put, the thicker the craft beer, the heavier the food; the lighter the craft beer, the lighter the food.