Beer and wine pairing for New Year's

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Beer and wine pairing for New Year’s

How to make a menu work with both By Cindy Sutter Camera Staff Writer
Posted: 12/28/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

Can we all get along? If you have beer-lovers and oenophiles as friends, it might not seem so when you’re planning a party menu.

Here’s a solution: Find a way to please both. In this case, take a page from The Kitchen (Upstairs), which will hold a New Year’s Eve dinner with both beer and wine pairings. The dinner is an outgrowth of the restaurant’s monthly beer and wine classes that pair beer and wine with various foods. December, for example, was root vegetables.

And, according to Ray Decker, general manager of all The Kitchen properties and beer director for seven years, when you want to pair food with both wine and beer, the place to start is with the stuff you’ll be eating.

While you might think pairing is all about the flavor, Decker and Kitchen Wine Director Tim Wanner say other qualities should be considered first.

That includes structure, which means body and intensity. For example, a delicate seafood dish would more likely pair with a light-bodied and usually white wine and a light-bodied beer. A heavier meat dish might get a big red wine and a full-bodied, deeply flavored beer. After a good match is found for structure, nuances and flavors can be considered.

One nifty little trick to remember is that hops in beer and acid in wine work similar magic with dishes. That is to say they work to cut fat in food and cleanse the palate.

For those starting out, another thing to remember when narrowing down a pairing is to look at the history of the dish. If it has roots in a certain region, there
is likely both a regional beer and a regional wine that go well with it.

“I’m a big believer in if it grows with it, it goes with it,” Wine Director Wanner says.

The next question is to decide is whether the wine and beer will complement each other as well as the pairing. A good pairing can work either way, Decker says.

As an example he cites calamari. In a complementary pairing, a sparkling wine such as a Champagne and a hoppy Pilsner would each go well with the fried squid. They also would go well together, so that you could take a sip of sparkling wine and a bite of calamari alternated with a sip of beer and a bite of food if you so desired.

For a contrasting example, Decker describes a beer and wine pairing with a lamb dish with a sour cherry compote. The wine was a bigger, richer style red wine.
“That added depth to the food, and food added depth to the wine,” he says.

The beer pairing, however, was something of a departure. It was a sour beer that worked primarily with the cherries.

“I remember loving both pairings,” Decker says. “I was equally surprised by how opposite the pairings were. You did have to completely finish what was going on in your mouth before you went on to the next one,” he adds as a caveat.

Both Decker and Wanner say some things foods are more difficult to pair than others. Wanner finds “anything pickled” to throw up some obstacles when it comes to wine pairing.

Decker says the herb dill is particularly challenging.

“It doesn’t seem to pair well with wine or beer,” he says.

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