October is Dining Month on OnMilwaukee.com. All month, we're stuffed with restaurant reviews, special features, chef profiles and unique articles on everything food. Bon appetit!
Traditionally, wine has been the ultimate culinary complement. For decades, sommeliers have created entire careers out of explaining why red wine goes with red meat and so forth, but lately, the dining industry has seen significant shift from tradition.
To start, the rules of wine pairing have all but dissolved and instead adopted the "drink what you like!" policy. Secondly, the last few years have watched beer -- specifically micro beer -- give wine a run for its money on the dinner table.
With craft beer connoisseurship on the rise, beer and food pairing has gained national momentum. Lakefront Brewery's brand manager Orlando Segura attributes the boom to two things: accessibility and the "eat local" trend.
"Many people are intimidated by wine, but pairing beer with food is so much easier. Beer is more compatible than wine and it's fun because it has so many more flavors," says Segura, who has worked with chefs at Roots, Yaffa, the Hyatt, Intercontinental, Transfer, Iron Horse, Bosley on Brady, Buckley's Kiskeam Inn and Comet Café to match beers to their menus.
And, in the national push to buy, eat and cook with local products, many Milwaukee chefs are looking to pair micro-brews from Lakefront and Sprecher with their seasonal dinner events. Restaurants like Buckley's and La Merenda are making these chef-hosted dinners, which usually involve a multi-course specialty meal matched with several beer samplings for a set cost, a regular occurrence.
"Nobody thinks twice about going into a restaurant in Chicago or New York and seeing a great wine list and two beers: Miller and Bud," says Segura. "But for us in Wisconsin, if you go into a restaurant and there are no good beers, then it's not a good restaurant. The great thing about Milwaukee is that you can go into any good restaurant, or even any dive bar, and get a really great beer."
Just as Europeans don't think twice about wine with dinner, Milwaukeeans are known for having a beer with dinner, he says. But the fun part is going beyond your standard Lite and experimenting with the wealth of variety that's available.
Segura describes beer pairing as a loose art form that thrives on both complementary and contrasting flavors. So, basically, you can't go wrong.
For the recent Slow Food fall harvest dinner at Pinehold Gardens farm in Oak Creek, Segura suggested Lakefront's Bridge Burner Strong Ale to complement chef Dave Swanson's hearty roasted pig entrée. The prevalent malt and hops complemented the smoky meat while the toffee-like undertones worked well with the dish's sweeter glaze.
One of Segura's favorite beer and food combos occurs weekly at Lakefront's famous Friday fish fry.
"You have the oiliness of the fish and breading, so you want something to cut through that -- something more carbonated and fresh, more floral. I like Cream City Pale Ale or the IPA. They creaminess in the head of the beer really brings out the brightness in the fish; it's a nice contrast."
The important thing to remember, just as the wine experts are saying now, is to drink what you enjoy and don't obsess over a perfect match. Everyone's palate prefers something different and that's why its fun to play around with different options.
But, if you're really out to impress, here are a few fallback pairing practices that the true beer gurus at the Brewers Association advocate.
- Amber: Ambers have pleasant, mild flavors and often go well with many foods, but chicken and seafood are popular choices.
- American wheat ale: The sweet side of this beer makes it a good one to drink with lighter summer foods like sushi, veggies and salads.
- Classic pilsner: The pilsner is the everyman's beer and can accompany most meals -- anything from salad to steak.
- Imperial stout: Stouts can be pretty overpowering when paired with the wrong foods, so stick to smoked meats, like duck and goose.
- Oktoberfest: The official drink of the German autumn obviously goes best with German foods: sausage, pork, sauerkraut.
- Pale ale: Pale ales and India pale ales have a strong hop presence, which makes them good candidates for spicy food like curry and bold classics like burgers with blue cheese.
- Porter: Porters are dark beers with a real punch and hearty meals like BBQ and Cajun food do well here.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
