Beyond sushi and saki: The art of pairing American craft beer with Japanese cuisine

Beer with Japanese food? Outrageous, I hear you cry!

But before dismissing the idea, put preconceptions aside and consider how beer, especially American craft beer, may be a good match for Japanese food. Beer has one major advantage over wine or sake when it comes to food pairing: carbonation.

Beer’s lively effervescence lifts richness and fat from the palate, leaving it cleansed, refreshed and ready for the next bite. Add to that beer’s remarkable diversity of styles, ingredients, flavours and strengths, and the pairing possibilities become almost endless. Japanese cuisine can be delicate and light but so too can American craft beer.

What’s not to like about a delicate, crisp German style pilsner, such as Sierra Nevada Summerfest, with its delicate spicy, floral hop character and a hint of lemon zest harmonising perfectly with a Porthilly oyster dressed with sweet sake and tart finger lime? The beer’s bready malt sweetness contrasted nicely with the oyster’s salinity without overwhelming its delicate flavour.

This combination was the opening salvo of the Brewers Association’s latest foray into American craft beer and food pairing. Hosted at Moi in London, a Japanese-inspired grill and sushi restaurant, the Brewers Association sought to demonstrate that American craft beer has a place at the dining table and can elevate food dishes across an entire menu. Japanese flavours and culture are growing in popularity amongst American craft brewers as they seek to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation.

Rice lagers are gaining traction and some brewers are incorporating authentic Japanese ingredients such as matcha, ube or yuzu into their beers. Take Shogun by Embolden’s Midnight in Tokyo Matcha Hazy IPA for example.

The use of high-end ceremonial grade matcha imported from Japan results in a green-hued, delicate tasting, nuanced matcha tea character that paired beautifully with an exquisite combination of fluffy steamed and fried doughnut-like buns with rich smoked cod’s roe cut through with an explosion of fiery chilli. A bluefin tuna tataki in a miso grapefruit sauce was all at once sweet, bitter, spicy and savoury but enhanced by the delicate pairing of smooth, grassy, matcha tea notes from the beer.

Dark beers, too, have an important role to play in Japanese food pairing. The porter style has the depth and roasted malt character to stand up to richly flavoured meat dishes and Deschutes Black Butte Porter with its layers of coffee, chocolate and roasted malt, proved an outstanding accompaniment to A5 Wagyu nigiri, marrying the beef’s remarkable richness with the beer’s flavour complexity.

Wild ales or those using mixed fermentation are often dry with a bright, tart acidity and lend themselves perfectly to food pairing. Coldfire The Sparrow and the Crowwas one such example.

A blend of oak fermented ales was aged in white wine barrels for 18 months then racked over Pinot Noir grapes for a secondary fermentation before bottle conditioning for six months. This incredibly nuanced beer was matched with a king oyster mushroom ‘kebab’ and dashimaki tamago, a Japanese rolled omelette, and grilled eel.

The fruity wine-like character and gentle acidity of the beer provided an elegant counterpoint to the bold, savoury flavours of the mushroom, and complemented the rich umami notes of the omelette and eel. Naturally, American IPA featured on the menu in the form of Knee Deep Breaking Bud, a classic West coast IPA bursting with tropical fruit notes, and was paired with a show-stopping spread of 36-day dry aged sirloin, baked rice with wild mushrooms and egg, namayasai salad and grilled beans with smoked tofu.

As if that wasn’t enough an exquisitely tender miso-cured trout completed the course. The IPA’s vibrant hop character and balanced bitterness cut through the richness of the dishes and brought out their earthy and savoury flavours. The event concluded with perhaps its most unexpected pairing: Ideas of Order from Virginia Beer Co., a blend of 34-month bourbon barrel-aged imperial milk stout with 16-month English barleywine.

Rich, complex and indulgent, it was served alongside a raspberry whey sorbet, the beer’s notes of malty sweetness, chocolate, coffee and Bourbon contrasting beautifully with the dessert’s bright acidity and delicate fruit. The event proved that American craft beer and Japanese food are far from unlikely companions.

American craft beer offers creativity, complexity and versatility that can not only match Japanese cuisine, but elevate it in surprising and memorable ways.