Food and beer pairing: a guideline

To say that Filipinos love beer is an understatement. It’s the preferred drink during celebrating, when mulling a problem, when we’re stressed, when it’s hot, during cold rainy nights, but curiously, hardly when we’re having a meal.

We enjoy beer with peanuts, or chips and chicharon, sometimes pizza, but not much else.

Which comes as a curious surprise for Manila-based Belgians. Like Filipinos, they also have an intimate connection with beer. Unlike Filipinos, Belgians like to incorporate beer in their food.

Photo by Melissa Walker Horn on Unsplash

Les Deux Belges, a Manila-based Belgian beer importer and distributor, recently held a beer pairing dinner at the Peninsula Manila to show what exactly we are missing out when we leave out food in appreciating beer.

The hotel’s executive sous chef, Nicola van Heemsbergen created a four-course menu where he actually incorporated beer into the Belgian dishes. Of course they were paired beer.

Emmanuel De Ghellinck of Les Deux Belges gave us a few tips on how to pair beer with food:

1. Think contrast. Strong flavored beer? Pick a dish that can shine through without being overpowered. Now: Are you also thinking siningang? 

2. Complementing is one of the easiest ways: Match rich food with heavy beers like stouts or porters. Light-tasting salads go well with light beers.

A perfect example of a rich dish paired with a heavy beer: Carbonade a la Flamande (Beer-braised Beef Stew) was paired it with Piraat, a darker triple ale, which was also added to the stew.

3. Beer can cleanse palates! Is fatty crispy pata on the menu? Get a bottle of light beer, like Blanche de Bruxelles. Light beers can lift that heavy, oily mouthfeel and cleanse your tastebuds.

4. Blonde beers can go with pretty much anything. Just remember its finish – that lingering taste in your mouth after a gulp. Is it bitter or is it sweet? Pair that finish with complementary flavors.

5. Having a barbecue? Serve dark beer. Their strong flavors go well together.

6. Fruit beers go well with bitter dishes. Ah, ampalaya, you are no longer alone.

7. Avoid overpowering flavors. When one flavor is already tangy, don't pair it with something just as powerful. Instead: think what could tame the tang? During the beer dinner, the Belgians demonstrated how creamy can tame the tangy by pairing a fruity Lindemans Kriek — that's Cherry Lambic Beer for us — with a creamy and sweet rice pudding. 

The dessert of creamy pudding went very well with a fruity beer.

— LA, GMA News

Curious about Belgian beers? Check out Les Deux Belges and view their growing portfolio.