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How to match beer with food (and where to learn about it)

Discover all you need to know about beer and food pairing.

Will Hawkes

Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery in New York.
Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery in New York.Supplied

Oenophiles, look away now. Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery in New York and the scourge of those who consider wine the only match for food, is coming to Melbourne, and he's pulling no punches.

"Beer is a much broader, more talented beverage when it comes to pairing than wine," he insists.

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"It's more complex: it's made out of more ingredients. It's a culinary dish: it's a recipe created by a person with something in mind. Wine has one ingredient. I love wine, but it can only do so much."

Martin Spedding is the owner of Mornington Peninsula winery Ten Minutes By Tractor, and the man who will face Oliver at Vue de Monde's Brew vs Cru dinner on May 18 as part of Good Beer Week, which began on Saturday and runs until May 25. It's one of many events that show the growing interest in pairing food with beer.

"The culture has shifted significantly," says Oliver. "Craft beer is a part of the overall food revolution."

Few understand this better than Oliver, author of The Brewmaster's Table, perhaps the definitive guide to pairing beer and food. Written in 2003, it's still relevant. "That was a book that was burning a hole in my pocket," says Oliver, who became Brooklyn brewmaster in 1993.

"I was desperate to get it out. That gives it a certain vitality, I guess. It was written with the long term in mind. In fact, the book is more popular now than five years ago."

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Earlier this month, Oliver received a James Beard Award, the highest honour for food and beverage professionals in North America. It's a recognition of not only the work he has done, but the now widespread understanding that beer works beautifully with almost any food you can name. A look at the eight-page beer list at Eleven Madison Park, voted North America's best restaurant in the recent World's 50 Best Restaurants awards, demonstrates that.

"Beer has a different range of talents from wine," Oliver says. "Wine does certain things really well. It's usually a combination of fruit, acidity, tannins and other aromatic flavours. Acidity is great, but many beers have it. Fruit, either literal or from flavours – beer has it.

"But beer has unique characteristics too. It has flavours of roast, caramelisation, so beer can taste like coffee or chocolate. It's incredibly versatile."

Beer, too, can reflect a place. One of the things that Oliver is looking forward to in Australia is seeing how an indigenous style is developing. He was enthused by a recent collaboration brew with Melbourne's Mountain Goat, a saison called Ridgy-Didge which incorporates Tasmanian pepperberry and lemon myrtle.

"You're starting to see a real interest in Australian hops, and you're starting to see Australian brewers looking at the indigenous ingredients," he says.

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"People are asking, 'How do we brew styles of beer that are distinctively Australian?' That's exciting."

Garrett Oliver's three classic beer and food pairings

Imperial Russian Stout with chocolate desserts "Hard to beat. Imperial stouts have residual sweetness, roast acidity and hop bitterness, which cut across and complement a rich chocolate dessert."

Saison with a strongly flavoured fish such as salmon "Saison lifts the oiliness of the salmon and slices into the fish with a crackling wave of bitterness and lemony acidity."

Belgian-style witbier with sushi "This is really awesome. The witbier brightens the flavour without disturbing the essential qualities of the fish."

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What is craft beer?

It's the question that refuses to go away. What exactly is craft beer? Plenty of people are doing their best to muddy the water.

In Australia, supermarkets have launched their own-brand beers with craft branding, in the United States, the Brewers Association has hit out at ''crafty'' beers produced by multinational brewers, and in Britain, Fosters - the faux-Aussie lager that retains a remarkable hold on many British drinkers' affections - markets itself with the tagline ''crafted to refresh.''

It's enough to drive you to drink, except that, even if only in the most broad-brush terms, craft beer does mean something. Put simply, it's the movement that has changed the image of beer around the world by focusing on flavour instead of refreshment.

Traditionally, craft breweries have been small breweries, but even here the water is increasingly muddy: the likes of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and Lagunitas Brewing Company, two Northern-Californian pioneers, have recently built second breweries elsewhere in the US, while the Brewers Association definition changed in 2011 to ensure that the Boston Beer Company remained craft.

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''The term 'craft beer' does imply that you are talking about a relatively small and independent brewery,'' says Garrett Oliver, of the Brooklyn Brewery.

''That stipulation has been part and parcel of the whole movement … until now, the only people who were really interested in making these beers were us (smaller and independent breweries),'' he says.

A significant part of this is understanding what hops, malt, yeast and water do. Homebrewing has played a key role, with many of the pioneers, such as Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman, having started at home. It's about hands-on brewing, according to Alex Troncoso, former head brewer at Little Creatures in Fremantle, who is now doing the same job at Camden Town Brewery in London.

''For me, craft beer is a philosophy,'' he says. ''If you go back to the industrial revolution … before then, if you were going to build something, you would make all the parts yourself.

''A craft brewer has to be conversant with how brewing is done, all the way from mashing through to bottling beers.''

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Good beer week

Want to learn more about matching beer with food? Here are nine events to get you started.

Uncle Cavalier: Cavalier Brewing meets modern Vietnamese, pairing its beers with Uncle's food.

Tuesday, May 20, 7pm; $55. Uncle, 188 Carlisle Street, St Kilda.

The Spanish Inquisition: Jeff Salt, wine guru, and Owen Smythe, beer master, will host an evening that pairs a six-course tapas menu with Spanish wine and beer.

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Tuesday, May 20, 7pm; $75. Bar Nacional, 727 Collins Street, Docklands.

7 Deadly Sins: A vibrant degustation at Matteos matched with Moo Brew's modern interpretation of classic beer styles.

Wednesday, May 21, 6.30pm; $120. Matteo's, 533 Brunswick Street, North Fitzroy.

Brooklyn to Bombay: Four courses of Indian cuisine by chef Jessi Singh paired with brews from Brooklyn Brewery.

Wednesday, May 21, 7pm; $85. Horn Please, 167 St Georges Road, Fitzroy North.

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Beer and The Beast: The Royal Mail Hotel on Spencer will break down a whole deer and put half on the spit for dinner, with the other half turned into salami, prosciutto and bacon, matched with beer from Harvesters Brewing.

Thursday, May 22, 7pm; $95. Royal Mail Hotel on Spencer, 519 Spencer Street, West Melbourne.

Hitachino at Heide: Guests walk through 180 years of brewing history with Hitachino Nest Beer, with brews matched to each course.

Friday, May 23, 7pm; $95. Cafe Vue at Heide, 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen.

Cookie's Daily Food and Beer Matching: Cookie has put together a specialty menu featuring 10 local and international breweries' products matched with their signature dishes.

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Until Sunday, May 25, noon; free. Cookie, Level 1, Curtain House, 252 Swanston Street, Melbourne.

Artisan Beer & Charcuterie: Bavarian-style sausages, Viennese frankfurters and Italian and Spanish smallgoods paired with artisan beer.

Until Sunday, May 25, noon; free. The Station Hotel, 59 Napier Street, Footscray.

California Dreamin': A cool brew from Northdown Craft Beer Movement paired with Indian flavours from chef Jessi Singh.

Sunday, May 25, 1pm; $85. Horn Please, 167 St Georges Road, Fitzroy North.

For more beer events see gabsfestival.com.au and goodbeerweek.com.au

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