Dobson - Food Plus Beer: Great Food To Eat With Beer

He was a wise man who invented beer.

Folk proverb

There is more than a little truth in the suggestion that beer is mankinds greatest ever invention.

The agricultural revolution was thought to be all about food but in recent times, some scientific anthropological-type folks have suggested that man/woman actually cultivated the first barley crops not to make bread, but to make beer. It was this thirsty appetite that motivated people to grow the grains needed to make beer; bread was more an afterthought. Its reassuring to know that our ancestors had their priorities right.

This universally common interest in and desire for beer could explain why beer has been a part of many cultures, world over, well before such geographically separate groups of people had contact with one another. In times long ago, beer ticked all the boxes: it was easy to make; it was safe to drink; and back in the day when we were not so obsessed about our weight, beer contained all-important calories, imperative for refuelling the body after a day of exhausting physical labour.

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

William Shakespeare

It is now thought that some beer was being brewed as far back as 9000 years ago, and that the oldest recorded written recipe is for beer. So, someone made beer and it was enjoyed so much that they chiselled the recipe onto a piece of stone to preserve for all time. It sounds positively Flintstone-esque, but this is not cartoon fiction, folks the invention of beer is an elementary part of our evolution.

Earlier beers were made with cereal grains such as barley and wheat; the addition of hops, which is such a distinguishing feature of modern beers, came much later. Hops gives brews a more complex, bitter flavour, as well as being a natural preservative.

(On a side note, in biology things are classified into groups or families. Hops is from the same family as cannabis. Thats one very happy family!)

Never underestimate
how much assistance,
how much satisfaction,
how much comfort,
how much soul and
transcendence there
might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.

Tom Robbins, author

Research suggests that the taste of beer alone is enough to trigger the release of a pleasure chemical in the brain. And this is an instant good feeling that has nothing to do with the intoxicating effects of beer. That is, the taste of the beer alone, without any intoxicating effect from the alcohol, triggers activity in the brains reward centres. It is the same for eating: something tastes good to us and we enjoy eating it. Put food and beer together in one room and you have a pleasurable combo indeed.

In wine there is wisdom.
In beer there is freedom.
In water there is bacteria.

Proverb

After water and tea, beer is the worlds third most consumed drink, and the most widely consumed alcoholic drink. Think about this for a moment. Water well, its just there, isnt it? And tea is the dried leaf of a plant that really only needs to be dunked in boiling water. But beer is something else. Its preparation requires planning and crafting.

In many countries the marketing of beer is clearly aimed at a target audience: men. History and sexism play a hand here. Many women were not permitted to drink alcohol in the same places as men. If they were, it was often in a separate room with limited choices of drink think sherry, cherry brandy or shandy (beer diluted with lemonade) in the ladies lounge or hotel parlour room. Many drinking institutions, such as pubs and hotels, would close in the early evening. This would allow men to drink after work, but left no time for women to enjoy a beer they were at home making sure a lovely plate of food was ready on the table when the pub had closed!

After World War II, however, the baby boomers called for change. The concept of the teenager evolved. Women started drinking whatever they wanted, and in the same places as men. The fairer sex like beer too, you know.

Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world.

Kaiser Wilhelm,
German emperor

Beer is one of lifes pleasures, and the idea of enjoying food and booze together is by no means novel. What we prefer to drink with food is influenced by convention, as well as the ingredients themselves. When it comes to wine, there are only two choices, right? Red or white. The basic rule of eating chicken and seafood with white wine, and eating red meat and rich, creamy dishes with red wine, is very much an old-world notion, even though there is much credit in these pairings.

Arguably, however, beer may well be a better drink to pair with food than wine. There is certainly more variety of ingredients: beer can be made with the inclusion of barley, hops, yeast as well as rice and spices. The resulting flavours are complex and layered, leaving greater options to match with the flavours in food, especially dishes containing herbs and citrus.

Beer: its the best damn drink in the world.

Jack Nicholson, actor

These orthodox notions of pairing wine and food were probably a class thing. Simply put, rich people ate at restaurants, or in castles or wherever else poor people didnt eat. Dining out was considered a privilege at least by the underclass who never ate at restaurants and etiquette and decorum dictated behaviour at the dining table. Fashion, food, drink fads and fancies often began at the top of the social order and trickled down, if at all.

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Proverb

Beer really had no place in the restaurants of by-gone eras, as food was meant to be enjoyed with wine. Beer was something the working-class man drank with his meat-and-two-veg dinner or at a football game.

But the rise of the middle class changed all that. Now many of us are savvy enough to know what we want to drink with our food. The phenomena of the celebrity chef and the cooking show not to mention the cookery book and the internet means we are exposed to food and ingredients like never before.

Supermarkets juggle exotic ingredients on the shelf, depending on what is the flavour of the month. Table salt has been replaced by sea salt, tomato sauce by sweet chilli sauce, evaporated milk by coconut milk, and old-school dried herbs like basil (does anyone actually use this?) are now overlooked in favour of fresh and fragrant Thai basil, lemongrass or kaffir lime. And so it goes.

We have become a savvy, hungry bunch of consumers who know what it is we want to eat and what we want to drink. Things have moved a long way from the question, Would you like white or red? The restaurant sommelier must now possess a broad and deep knowledge of beer as well.

There is always something happening around a beer.

Alfred Heineken

Discount air travel allows us to travel more frequently and further than ever before in our history. Like fine dining, air travel is no longer the exclusive preserve of the rich and famous. Travel allows us to see, touch, smell and taste food from afar. There is so much less palaver, paperwork and preparation for international travel these days, the biggest travel decision we need to make is which search engine to use to book hotels and restaurants halfway across the world.