MAY 1998

VOL.3 NO.5

Bring on the Barbecue

When I was growing up in Montréal, my father was consumed by the need to barbecue each and every weekend - even when the city was frozen in winter's vice-like grip. To this day, I hold dear a vivid memory of him bundled in his parka, desperately trying to coax a little life from a tray of stubborn briquettes, all so he could grill five humble hamburgers for his eagerly awaiting family.

While not everyone might share my dad's need to grill at all costs, certainly his passion for the barbecue is echoed in innumerable families, particularly during summer's glorious, sun-drenched months. And along with our hibachis, barbecues and gas grills, we haul out the cooler filled to the brim with ice and cold, cold beer; it being as natural a combination, we think, as hot dogs with mustard or ribs and sauce.

But though the frigid lagers we quaff with our barbecue meats may be well suited to quenching a thirst on a sweltering July afternoon, they will do little to enhance the enjoyment of the evening's charbroiled fare. This is because the powerful smokiness that the barbecue will lend to any food, no matter how gently grilled, is surely going to overpower most, if not all, conventional light lagers. Couple this mismatch of taste with the current and unprecedented availability of interesting beer styles, and it become apparent that the time has come for us to rethink our barbecue brews.

Just as the assortment of foods we prepare on the grill has grown far beyond the traditional selection of steak or burgers, so, too, has beer choice expanded dramatically of late. In North America, for example, where once there was a choice of either lager or light ale, there now stands a vast array of beers from ebony stouts to woody ales and rich bocks to floral pilsners.

By far the best beer style for the barbecue is one which is sadly underrepresented in the brewing world: the rauchbier, or smoked beer. Gorgeous in its ability to complement grilled foods, this smoky style in most traditionally seen in the form of the Schlenkerla or Kaiserdom Rauchbiers of Germany, but there does exist a handful of other examples ranging from brawny brews like the famed Alaskan Smoked Porter to the milder, peated beers of France, such as Adelscot from Fischer and Wel Scotch from Kronenbourg. And in the event that one is unavailable, there is always the handy back-up of dry, roasty stout.

For specific barbecued dishes, more appropriately complementary brews are available (see the following list for examples), but for general grill-side utility, the dry stout is a good bet. Its smoky flavour, bereft of excessive sweetness, will balance the lightest whitefish without becoming dominant, and neither will it succumb to the taste of even the strongest grilled meats. And, unlike the lager that loses its lustre as it suffers in the summer heat, the stout is actually favoured to improve as it warms. True, it may not be terribly quenching, but for that there is always water.

Some Suggested Barbecue Matches

• Chicken wings and legs with spicy tomato sauce
  - bock; maibock
• Honey-garlic ribs
  - Vienna lager
• Pork chops
  - mild ale, or if spiced or sauced, dunkel
• Steak and hamburgers
  - medium-bodied ale
• Salmon
  - dry stout or porter

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