A thorny point arose once again the other day while I was discussing beer and food pairings with a crowd. "Doesn't Indian food go with Indian beer?" someone asked, adding, "After all, the Indian restaurants I know all serve Kingfisher."

     Ignoring for a moment the fact that most if not all the Kingfisher served in North America is brewed in the U.K., not India, I countered by asking my inquisitor whether he had ever enjoyed a cellar temperature Kingfisher with a spicy curry, or even one that was less than ice cold in temperature. Naturally, the answer was no, to which I responded further by noting that had he ever experienced that particular flavour match, he would already know how poor a partner for fiery food is bland, uninspired lager.

     Or in other words, it's not the taste that pairs mildly flavourful lagers with spicy food, it's the cold, cold temperature.

     Partnering national foods with national beers is a common and thoroughly understandable tendency among those who enjoy dining with beer. Carbonade flamande with strong and malty Belgian ale; extra special bitter with the Sunday roast or pale ale with fish and chips; weissbier and weisswurst; burritos and cold Mexican lager; curry and Kingfisher: all apparently quite logical, but some sadly wrongheaded.

     So what's the difference? Simply, pairing beer styles that have emerged and evolved alongside a national cuisine makes sense, while partnering the traditional foods of nations without strong brewing traditions with beers which have been brought to their shores by emigrant brewers is consummately illogical.

     Take Mexico, for instance. Lager brewing was brought to that country by European brewers, much as occurred in the rest of North America. The Mayans were likely brewing, true, but those ancient ales have little to do with what we now count as "Mexican beer," meaning light lagers served as cold as possible, sometimes with a wedge of lime stuck into the bottle for good measure. So it makes sense that the latter beers would have little in common with foods that predate them by centuries, and in fact, that much is profoundly true.

     Ignoring for a moment the often underappreciated diversity of Mexican food, let's focus on one of its defining elements: the chili pepper. Spicy foods, to my palate, pair best with hoppy beer, as the bitterness of the hops manages to moderate the heat of the peppers without killing their taste. Alcohol, too, operates to help strip the oils of the pepper from the tongue, thus lessening their bite, and so a nice IPA would seem a safe and sure bet for such fare.

     Ice cold lager, on the other hand, works by freezing the mouth and anesthetizing the palate, thus rendering all flavours equally neutral. And bland, freezing beer creating bland taste sensations doesn't strike me as a particularly pleasurable dining experience.

     On the flip side, cheddar cheese, which hails from England, pairs wonderfully with a variety of British beer styles, depending on the cheese's age and sharpness. Ditto many other English, Scottish and Welsh foods, from the aforementioned Sunday roast to a traditional Hogmanay black bun with a generous glass of malty Scotch ale. Ditto again the national fare of places with longstanding brewing traditions, like Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic, with each country's respective beer styles.

     Makes me hungry just thinking about it all.

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• A Country, a Beer, and an Equation Not Necessarily Sound March 2007
• Besting Wine with Beer and Chocolate February 2008
• A Year in Beer & Food January 2008
• Cooking Up My Last Supper December 2007
• The Best of Beer Fests? November 2007
• My First Visit to Oktoberfest October 2007
• So What IS Balance, Anyway? September 2007
• Revisiting the Beer Cocktail August 2007
• Sampling The Ubiquitous Chip July 2007
• Three Stops in Philadelphia June 2007
• Time to Kill the Cold May 2007
• Sahtis and Saunas in Lammi April 2007
• Turning St. Patrick on His Head March 2007
• A Tale of a Tasting February 2007
• Twelve Months of Beer January 2007
• The Year in Beer Blogs December 2006
• The 25th Edition of the Great American Beer Festival November 2006
• Why Can't Somebody Explain this Beer to Me? October 2006
• Ten Years Can Be a Long Time September 2006
• Rethinking the Draught-Bottle-Can Paradigm August 2006
• Light, fizzy beers are losing popularity July 2006
• Beer & Health June 2006
• Tallking Tin May 2006
• Consider the Cocktail April 2006
• The Future of Big Breweries? March 2006
• A Potpourri of Beer News February 2006
• Looking Forward in 2006 Janaury 2006
• Gifts for the Gourmand December 2005
• Beer Tasting 101 November 2005
• The Great Canadian Beer Festival October 2005
• The Passion of Mondovino September 2005
• Belgium Came to Cooperstown ... Again August 2005
• Ten Truly Great Summer Beer Experiences July 2005
• Great News for Good Beer June 2005
• Flogging A Dead Horse May 2005
• Hey Molson-Coors, What Do You Have Against Taste? April 2005
• Beer and Food Pairing Gains Popularity! March 2005
• Bud for the Cocktail Set February 2005
• Looking Back and Looking Ahead January 2005
• Holiday Wishes December 2004
• The 2004 Great American Beer Festival November 2004
• The Empty Words of Beer October 2004
• A Visit to the Griffin Brewery September 2004
• Oh Look, It's Another Major Brewery Merger! August 2004
• Interview with John Sleeman July 2004
• Creating a Blend June 2004
• World of Beer turns 40 May 2004
• Eighteen Ways to Improve Your Beer Life April 2004
• Drinking Old Beer March 2004
• Drink Local or Drink Quality? February 2004
• 2003 - The Year That Was January 2004
• 2004 - The Year of Lambic December 2003
• Perspective on the Premium Beer Market November 2003
• So What Makes a Bar Great? October 2003
• Random Reflections at Summer's End, September 2003
• Why I Drink Beer, August 2003
• American Beer Month: Controversial Again, July 2003
• The Case for the Complexity of Beer, June 2003
• Enough of the Lowbrow Chic Already!, May 2003
• A Beer Called Lambic, April 2003
• Of Snow and Barley Wines, March 2003
• Lament for a Brewpub, February 2003
• What We Didn't Get Done, January 2003
• More Belgian Bliss, December 2002
• Joanna Blythman is an Idiot, November 2002
• Brakspear and the Name Game, October 2002
• Taking a Taste of the Midwest, September 2002
• Oregon Brewers Festival 2002, August 2002
• In Praise of Expensive Beer, July 2002
• Le Mondial de la Bière, June 2002
• Beers that Go to the Dogs, May 2002
• In Praise of the Pub, April 2002
• A Great Restaurant Town, True, But a Magnificent Beer Town, March 2002
• Right Beer, Wrong Weather: Imperial Stouts in New York, February 2002
• What I've Learned About Beer, January 2002
• Deceptive Names, Deceptive Drinks, December 2001
• The Truth About Dutch Beer, November 2001
• A Very Personal Message from Stephen Beaumont, October 2001
• Smell Your Beer, September 2001
• Travel Karma, Great Beer and the Oregon Brewers festival, August 2001
• Switzerland after Samichlaus, July 2001
• A Tale of Three Bus(c)hes, June 2001
• Announcing a New Great Canadian Beer Guide, May 2001
• Beer Belongs at the Table, April 2001
• A Bevy of Barley Wines, March 2001
• Why Craft Beer is Here to Stay, February 2001
• Y2Beer -- The Year in Review, January 2001
• No Age Verification Necessary, December 2000
• A Tale of a Tasting, November 2000
• In Praise of la Belle Province, October 2000
• The Premium Beer Drinker's Guide is Here!!, September 2000
• The Downside of Beer and Brewing, August 2000
• So Why Do You Drink Beer?, July 2000
• The Summer Joy of Wheat, June 2000
• In Defense of Beer, May 2000
• Ten Days in Belgium, Part II, April 2000
• Ten Days in Belgium, Part I, April 2000
• Ten Days in Belgium, Introduction, April 2000
• A World of Stout, Mar 2000
• The Glass From Which We Drink, Feb 2000
• The Year As It Was: Brews, Fests and Damn Foolishness , Jan 2000
• New Years Eve, Dec 1999
• Beer in the Land of Stout, Nov 1999
• Visiting the World's Best Beer Fest, Oct 1999
• The Secretive Charm of the Bière de Garde, Sept 1999
• The Mixed Marriage of a Beer and a Cigar, Aug 1999

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