Hello readers! I'm sharing a guest post today from Jack Thompson of Bro BBQ, a website devoted to all things grilling, from best smokers to best ways to get charcoal glowing. Here are his recommendations for pairing beer and wine with BBQ, and a photo from me to get you in the mood. ~The Gourmez
Linguica grilling at St. Jorge Winery in Lodi.
How Do You Know Which Beverage To Pair With Which Meat? #
Every food connoisseur knows that you can’t have the ultimate meal without pairing your food with the right beverage. The old adage says to serve red meat with red wine and poultry with white wines, but it is so much more in depth than that.
The fact is that every type of food and every drink has its own flavor, and these flavors have to be mixed around and matched to each other until the perfect complement is found. Flavors are not the only thing to take into consideration, though. Even the right temperature of the beverage and the food plays a part in the overall perfect meal.
There is a stereotype that barbecue and beer go together. While beer definitely can be a great asset to a good smoked meat, as with selecting a wine, there is a lot more that goes into the kind of beer that you serve.
Your choice of meat matters, of course. Red meats should be paired with strong, robust flavors of wine and beer. Poultries, however, have a multitude of different flavors and need a drink that complements them all, so in many of these meals a brown ale would be the perfect drink.
But it also depends on the way you barbecue your meat. If you use an offset smoker, for example, your grill itself will create flavors that you need to take into account. This piece from BroBBQ gives you more detail about the different nuances in each smoker and how they affect the flavor of your meat.
So how do you know which beverage to pair with which meat to create that “wow” factor that every chef wants to have their guests experience? Luckily, there are many resources you can turn to for help (including Vinepair's infographic, posted below! The Gourmez). You can give your guests the ultimate meal they will be comparing all of their other barbecues to for years.
