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Video Tip: Breaking Down the Flavor Elements of Beer and Food

Bitter, sweet, sour, salty, spicy, fatty, umami... Knowing which basic flavors are in your beer can help you match it with a food that has similar flavors—or with one that has contrasting flavors. Greg Engert explains.

Greg Engert Apr 7, 2021 - 2 min read

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Greg Engert is beer director of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, with 20 bars and restaurants in the Washington, D.C., area and New York City. Among beer enthusiasts, he is best known as the force behind the famous ChurchKey and Shelter beer bars, Bluejacket brewery, and more. Meanwhile, at restaurants such as Birch & Barley, the Sovereign, and Rustico, Engert takes the lead on tasting menus and training staff on the principles of winning food-beer pairings.

In this 75-minute video course, Engert demystifies the challenges of choosing which beers tend to work best with which dishes—and vice versa. He offers several rules of thumb to keep in mind before diving into specific flavor families of beer and which kinds of food tend to work best with those. Then, he walks us through several specific dishes to highlight beers that can elevate both—going for that food-and-drink gestalt that can make a meal greater than the sum of its parts.

Whether you work in hospitality—be it brewpub, taproom, or restaurant—or you simply want to raise your pairing game for more pleasure at the dinner table, this is a course you won’t want to miss. (Warning: It will make you hungry.)

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