First Class COCKTAIL
Tapas of sauteed mushrooms
Perfect Pairs
Garrett Oliver, author of The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real
Beer with Real Food, shares his favorite food-and-beer pairings:
• Pasta carbonara with abbey-style beers
• Grilled salmon with Belgian-style farmhouse ales
Once the Rodney
Dangerfield of the gourmet
world, beer is finally
getting some respect
Look
Who’s
Coming
to Dinner
Wine will always have a place at the culinary table, but an old friend from the bar
is claiming its rightful spot as a classy
accompaniment to good food: beer.
“It’s not just about taking beer seri-
ously,” says Ray Daniels, who started
the groundbreaking Cicerone Certifica-
tion Program, which o;ers certification
for would-be beer sommeliers. “It’s
part of taking food seriously. If your
knee-jerk reaction to ‘What am I going
to drink with this dish?’ is always wine,
then you’re not really thinking about
it, because wine may not always be the
best match. There are clearly times
when beer is the better choice.”
Greg Engert is the personification
of beer’s newfound cred. In April 2010,
Food & Wine named him one of its Som-
meliers of the Year, a first for someone
specializing in beer. He oversees the
beer program at a group of fine din-
ing restaurants in Washington, D.C.,
including Birch & Barley and Church-
Key—both of which stock around 550
artisanal beers.
“Wine is across the board 10 percent
alcohol, so the flavors of the alcohol
and the tannins and the acidity can be
intense,” Engert explains. “Wine coexists and contrasts with food. Beer, on
the other hand, is a sugar-based product
that works by changing the way the food
tastes and the way the beer tastes. You
