If you're looking to pair food with your favorite pale ale, you should take a look at heavy, full-bodied menu choices. Pale ales have full-bodied flavors, so you need to pair them with foods that have strong, hearty flavors and can stand up to the ale. A good pale ale can play up the spicy heat of spiced foods or it can balance a robust beef dish.
Pale ales are best known for pairing with seafood of all types, especially fried seafood or heavily spiced seafood. This is because the bitterness of the ale will complement the heaviness of the spicy or fried seafood, but will not overwhelm it. Instead, the ale will enhance the spiciness of the dish and will work well with the fried seafood. Try it with crab cakes, clam cakes, fried scallops, shrimp or clams and fried fish.
Pale ales are also excellent with beef dishes such as pot roast, steak or beef wellington. The ale can stand up to the strong flavors in these dishes.
Other popular dishes to serve with pale ales are blackened chicken, blackened catfish and other Cajun dishes. Buffalo wings also work well with ales.
Try a Thai dish, shitake dumplings or fish tacos (anything that incorporates Asian hot sauces) with a pale ale for a pleasant surprise. Order your Thai dish with spicy shrimp in it.
Fruity pair ales go very well with lamb, wild game and liver pate. Try a fruity pale ale the next time you serve up venison or quail as well.
Just remember, if you cook with a pale ale, serve the same ale with the meal in order to keep the flavors consistent. Pair pale ales with food choices that are of a similar intensity and you'll do just fine.
 | If you love different types of beer, you'll want to pair it with the right food to bring out the unique flavors in your favorite brew. Check out these types of beer and beer pairings for some ideas on making the perfect food and beer matches. |
 | When pairing food with lager beers, you'll need to pay attention to what kind of lager it is. Pale lagers go best with lighter foods such as crispy torillas filled with spicy Mexican foods or nachos with salsa and cheese. Darker lagers are more commonly served with meals, but can be consumed with some appetizers also. |
 | Microbrew beer is beer that is crafted in a small brewery instead of a large commercial brewery. Microbreweries are classified as such only if they produce fewer than about 15,000 barrels of beer annually. |
If you like to drink light beers, you'll want to pair them with lighter foods. Just like you would pair a milder dish with a mild, sweet wine and a bolder dish with a bolder wine (or white meats with white wine and red meats with red wine), you'll want to think light with light when you look for good food pairings for light beers. |
If you want to taste a variety of beers, why not consider hosting your own beer tasting party? While it might not be reasonable to taste a dozen different beers on your own in one sitting, it can be a feasible event if you invite a few friends and pour small servings of each beer for comparison. |
