Food pairing
Beer with peking duck
Roast duck with lacquered crisp skin, eaten in pancakes with hoisin, spring onion and cucumber.
The whole preparation is arranged around rendering the skin, and the skin is what the pairing has to answer: intensely fatty, faintly sweet from the maltose glaze, and crisp in a way roast duck otherwise is not.
The accompaniments already do half the work — cucumber and spring onion are there for freshness, hoisin for sweet-savoury depth. What a beer adds is carbonation to clear the fat, and enough malt to meet the glaze without piling more sugar onto the hoisin.
Peking duck narrows the field sharply, and one answer stands clear of the rest. Most beer falls down on at least one thing this dish demands. The attribute doing most of the work is fat.
What to drink
Gueuze — excellent pairing
The whole preparation exists to render the skin, and the skin is the richest single thing in this catalogue. Acidity and very high carbonation strip it, doing the same job as the cucumber and spring onion already on the plate.
Caution: Sweet food makes a drier drink taste harsher than it is.
Tropical stout — outstanding
Enough residual sweetness to stand up to the dish rather than being flattened by it.
Caution: A richer dish than this beer can clear from the palate.
American stout — strong
Roasted malt echoes the charred, caramelised edge of the food, so the two reinforce each other.
Rauchbier — strong
Smoke in the beer meets smoke on the plate — the same family of compounds on both sides.
Caution: A richer dish than this beer can clear from the palate.
Weizenbock — strong
Enough residual sweetness to stand up to the dish rather than being flattened by it.
Caution: A richer dish than this beer can clear from the palate.
Bock — strong
Deep malt character matches the savoury weight of the dish instead of sitting apart from it.
Caution: A richer dish than this beer can clear from the palate.
Bière de Garde — strong
Enough residual sweetness to stand up to the dish rather than being flattened by it.
Caution: Expect the beer to refresh rather than to stand up to the food.
Double IPA — strong
Beer and dish carry similar weight, so neither flattens the other.
Caution: Expect the beer to refresh rather than to stand up to the food.
What not to drink
- Grodziskie — Sweet food makes a drier drink taste harsher than it is.
- Kettle sour — Expect the beer to refresh rather than to stand up to the food.
- Berliner Weisse — Sweet food makes a drier drink taste harsher than it is.