The Beer Is True To The Food

Ethnic Food & Ethnic Beer - Point

Styles & Seasonals June 27, 2002
Written by 40oz

Newport Beach, CALIFORNIA -

It’s a no-brainer to pick a beer to enjoy with an ethnic meal by choosing a beer made in that country; assuming beer drinking is a time-honored tradition in that country. What fool would say that Aventinus sucks with schnitzel? Obviously, if they’ve eaten the style of food since time immemorial they must have worked out some pretty good food/beer pairings.

But should a beer be paired with an ethnic dish for the sole reason that the beer is made in the same country as the cuisine you are having, especially if the country has no beer tradition? My answer is a resounding heck yeah! First of all, not all foreigners are knuckle-draggers waiting to be saved by the benevolent Western hegemon; there’s probably some logic to the fact that a certain beer is made in a certain country. For example, many countries with spicy cuisines tend to have lighter beers to sooth their seared palates. But even if the locals truly are incorrigible savages whose taste in beer defies rationalization from even the most faithful cultural relativist, I would still enjoy their screwed up beer-food pairings.

Look, if you’re like me, when you go to the trouble of finding an authentic ethnic restaurant, you probably want to experience foreign culture vicariously through their food. That being said, why concoct a beer-food combination that would be totally alien in the food’s country of origin? Drinking American beer with ethnic food is as offensive to me as putting a blonde wig on a Thai hooker or putting ketchup on a kebab, even if the wig or the ketchup improves the taste of the product.

And besides, even otherwise non-descript beers tend to taste good in the right circumstances. Look at all the Americans (including me) who believe that Heineken tastes so much better in Europe than here. I think this has more to do with the fact that they are drinking European beer with European food in Europe than on any actual region

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<font size=+2 color=#999999>"Drinking American beer with ethnic food is as offensive to me as putting a blonde wig on a Thai hooker"</font>

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