Beer Pilgrim's tips for matching beer and food

Sometimes I think that food was created purely to complement beer. (Or is it the other way around?) Either way, the incredible combinations you can come up with when it comes to fodder and froth are sure to amaze you, your family and your friends.

And while it is all about personal tastes, there are a few simple rules you can follow to make sure you hit the right matches time and time again: The three Cs: contrast, complement and cut-through (cancel).

Contrast is where you have tastes that might appear extremely different, but seem to work with each other. For example a spicy, salty Thai dish with a fruity German wheat beer.

Try: Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse (German wheat beer) and pad kra prao seafood (spicy Thai dish).

Complement is when the taste notes of the beer work in harmony and complement the flavour of the food you are matching it to.

Warning: There is a fine line here between contrast and another C-word: clash. But the best part about beer is that it can be quite forgiving so you have a pretty big safety net here. An example of complementing tastes would be pairing a pale ale with citrus notes (which comes from its hop profile) with a seafood dish.

Try: James Squire One Fifty Lashes Pale Ale with grilled snapper. The citrus notes of the pale ale complement the light flavoured snapper perfectly. And we all know fish and citrus are a match made in heaven!

Cut-through (cancel) essentially means one taste cutting through another; cancelling one flavour out and cleansing the palate. Usually with beer, this means the dry bitterness of the hop character cancels out an oily or creamy opposing taste.

Try: A good example of this would be a hoppy IPA with a creamy cheese. Let's say a Feral Hop Hog with a rich blue cheese (an incredible combination in my book.) The intense hoppiness of the IPA will have a strong bitter, dryness that will cut through the creamy cheese.

The Beer Pilgrim is hosting an attempt to break the world record for the largest beer tasting at a single venue at Ivy in Sydney on August 1, 2014. More information is available at Merivale.com.au.