Yeah, sure, I'm a wine connoisseur, but
even we wine snobs have to let our ponytails down once in a
while and admit that beer is darn tasty.
Lots of my readers are surprised to find out that, with certain
foods, I recommend beer over wine. Let's face it, Pinot Grigio just
isn't the ticket with a burrito, nor is Merlot the right beverage
for
Buffalo wings. As a rule, the spicier the cuisine, the more I
tend to steer toward beer as a wash-down. Thai stir-fry, Indian
Tandoori,
Caribbean jerk chicken, and even pizza all cry out for
beer like a 1-year-old screaming for a teething ring.
Some of the best beers to use with
food are
India Pale Ales. I love
IPAs for their clean, crisp taste and refreshing, highly hopped
finish. The English invented this style in the 19th century for
shipment to thirsty colonials in British India. The extra dose of
hops was designed to preserve the beer on its long sea voyage to
the torrid tropics.
After being forgotten for several decades, IPAs are now widely
available again, the style having been resuscitated by the
craft-brew movement that gained momentum during the 1970s and '80s.
Nowadays, there's hardly a craft-brewery around that doesn't stash
an India Pale
Ale somewhere in its portfolio, either as a summer
seasonal or as a year-round offering. What follows are three of the
more widely available IPAs, but don't forget to ask your local
brewpubs about their own version.
PYRAMID IPA ($7 Per Six-Pack)
For beer aficionados who are into statistics, one of the most
significant numerical indicators of a beer's taste is how high or
low it rates in IBUs: International Bitterness Units. You'd have to
be Mr. Wizard to understand the actual measuring process, which has
something to do with "isomerized alpha-acid content," but suffice
it to say that the higher the number, the more bitter the brew.
Pyramid's IPA rates a puckery 67 on the IBU scale, which qualifies
it as a beer for true hop heads.