National Post - Financial Post Magazine
BEER & FOOD
Wine pairings have long been the rage, while beer has taken a back seat when it comes to culinary matters. Wine certainly has snob appeal, but, as Unibroue beer sommelier Sylvain Bouchard points out, beer was food 8,000 years ago, a kind of bread-like nourishment. “And if bread can go with everything on the table, so should beer ,” he says. Moreover, beer offers more of the basic tastes (sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness and umami) than wine and comes in more textures and colours to boot. To prove his point, Chambly, Que.-based Unibroue (owned by Sleemen Breweries Ltd. since 2004) recently hosted a seminar during which five of its Belgian-inspired beers were paired with a five-course lunch. Bouchard says beer-food pairings should target the main food on the plate, but the combination can be complementary or contrasting depending on the dish and personal taste.
For example, a wheat beer—in this case, Blanche de Chambly—naturally complements salmon tar tar wit habit of lemon juice squeezed over top. Both have a light taste, with the orange/ lemon flavour of the Chambly cutting through the slight oiliness of the salmon, enhancing the taste of the fish. Similarly, a dub bel-style beer such as the slightly sweet Maudite nicely matches rare steak with aside of onions caramelized in the same beer. This pairing will also work with a dunk el (German dark wheat beer) or brown beer. On the other side, a Fin du Mon de—a trip el that has a refreshing hint of tropical fruit— contrast s with lamb. And for those who don’t think beer meshes well with desserts, Unibroue’s Grande Réserve 17’ s chocolate malt make san opera cake even creamier.
The best thing about such pairings is that there really aren’ t any hard-and-fast rules so feel free to experiment. However, Unibroue brew master Jerry Vietz cautions that hop pier beers should be used with caution since they tend to dominate other flavours.