We live in a fast-paced society, where household rankings of “good food” often depend on whether the pizza was pulled from your freezer or delivered by a mom & pop delivery service.  But having a truly great meal at home can be a real treat that will make your night, even if you can only find the time to do so once a week or once a month.  With the myriad of cooking shows available on television these days, as well as the corresponding network websites, heath sites, food blogs, tutorial and how-to videos available to you for free with a minimum of effort via the internet, there’s really no excuse for anyone wanting to cook great food at home.  Believe me, nothing will leave you more smugly satisfied than looking over the menu of a new, local hotspot and saying to yourself “Hmm…I’ve heard their risotto is tremendous, but the morel mushroom and black truffle risotto with Vacche Rosse that we make at home is damned good, so I think I’ll just see how well they make a patty melt.”  Don’t be fooled, this isn’t pretentious; it’s a Whole New Level of Awesome.  And once your idea of a good meal at home exceeds washing down a super-sized value meal with Red Bull, you’ll start keeping great drinks to go with your great meals.

Lots of people keep their favorite wine readily available at home for enjoying with good meals or sipping on while kicked back and reflecting on what idiots their coworkers are.  Exhaustive online searches (one) have told me that the five most popular varieties Americans drink at home are Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Rosé and Cabernet Sauvignon.  In this article, I’m going to show you five styles of beer that you should keep in your cupboard as well for just such occasions. They’re easy to find, moderately priced, pair well with a wide variety of foods and look good doing it.  If you enjoy great beer but typically only drink it out on the town, then keep reading.  I’m going to take you to school.  If you’re wondering if your glassware may not be up to par, check out this glassware guide to beef that up, as well.

Pilsner

Sure, you buy suitcases of light beer all the time; it may even be the dominant resident in the crisper drawer in the bottom of your fridge.  It’s light, it’s bubbly and you’re pretty sure it has alcohol and some semblance of flavor in it.  What you need to start stocking, however, is a real Pilsner.

Put simply, the Pilsner originated in Czech Bohemia and Germany.  When Bavarian immigrants came to the United States, they brought their exceptional lager brewing skills with them, and the American adaptation of this fantastic beer was born.  Whether you buy an American-brewed Pilsner, a German or a Czech Pilsner (also known as a Bohemian or Bo-Pils), this is a great beer style to have at the ready.  Pilsners are light, highly carbonated with a palate-scrubbing carbonic bite, have a sharp flash of brisk hops backed by a light maltiness and a modest alcohol content of around 5%.  It’s an all malt beer that doesn’t contain any of the corn, rice or sugar that dilutes macro light lagers and is beautiful beer that is highly versatile with food.  The German Pilsner tends to be a little dryer, with a lighter body and color, as well as a slightly more pronounced bitterness, while its Czech/Bohemian cousin tends to have deeper golden hues with a slightly fuller, sweeter body featuring bready, cracker malt notes.  Both are crisp, refreshing and delicious.

With food, these beers are able to cleanse the palate, cut through and lift fat, draw out saltiness, then step aside and let the food’s ingredients shine through.  With spicy foods like Mexican, Thai and Vietnamese, they’ll put out the flames and scrub the palate of capsaicin.  Pilsners are great with seafood; they pair well with just about any kind of shellfish except for scallops (scallops need a more delicate touch), and can handle any kind of fish, no matter how oily.  This is the beer you want with salty foods like hams and cured meats; it’ll pull the salt forward then quench your thirst as you reach for more.  Finally, the Pilsner is a good choice for washing down popular American cuisine like burgers, pizza and tacos if you don’t care for the hoppier styles like IPA’s.  This is a great choice to cut your beer chops on; the light, bright Noble hops in the Pilsner is a first step for enjoying many more beer styles.  You can’t beat the true European examples, but there are a lot of great American craft breweries bringing this timeless beer style to the table.

Saison

You can’t beat the bright, citrusy refinement and extreme versatility of the Saison style.  It’s a hazy, golden-hued, highly carbonated beer with typical notes of citrus peel and pepper on the nose.  The preferred examples will be bottle conditioned, meaning there’ll be a little yeast at the bottom that was added to the beer when it was packaged.  Believe me, you want bottle-conditioned Saisons, their complexity will extend into a myriad of amazing flavors.  Some of the best come from Belgium, with the legendary Saison Dupont needing to be one of the first you try, but American breweries are quickly making their mark on this style.  Blackberry Farm, Crooked Stave, Jackie O’s and Prairie Artisan Ales are producing some phenomenal versions of the Saison, as American breweries embrace the cooperage and multiple fermentations of their Belgian predecessors.

There isn’t much in the way of food that doesn’t pair well with this beer; it is the unabashed slut of the beer world.  Anything, and I mean anything, that can benefit from a squeeze of lemon and a dash of fresh pepper will absolutely pop with this beer.  Fried seafood, crab cakes, nearly any kind of salad and Asian fusion dishes will jump off the palate if you’re washing it down with a Saison.  Dishes with bright Mediterranean flavors will sing; try grilled Salmon, ribeyes or Portobello mushroom caps with olive oil, rosemary and sea salt and a glass of Saison Dupont.  I’m a big fan of cioppino and find the cornucopia of seafood, paired with the bright herbs and white wine, as well as the earthy garlic and acidic tomato have a fantastic Mediterranean complexity that is enhanced and carried aloft by a Saison.  There may not be a better style of beer to drink with crab cakes; it’s as if they were destined to be together.  I have yet to find a meal that doesn’t taste better with this beer style; I’m currently looking for great pairings of both ice cream and breakfast cereal.  Ask my friends, they’ll tell how stup… er, visionary I am.

As I mentioned before, go out and buy some Saison Dupont today.  It isn’t expensive and you may find it to be one of the best beers you’ve ever tasted.  Other exceptional versions of this style are Blackberry Farm Classic Saison, Crooked Stave Surette Provision and Off Color Apex Predator.  A word of caution: Words like “wild” and “Brett” on the label are indicative of a funkier, barnyard version of the style.  Stick with the straightforward versions initially.

Orval

I can’t laud Orval enough.  Orval is a Belgian ale brewed by a Trappist (best of the best) brewery that makes only one beer: Orval Trappist Ale.  Trust me, they don’t need to bother with any others.  Everything about this beer is specialized.  They use a specially malted grain bill, a particular rock candy sugar to dry out the body of the beer, an unbelievable blend of ten yeast strains, including the wild Brettanomyces yeast strain, it is dry-hopped, bottle conditioned and cellarable despite its relatively low ABV of 6.2%.  That means you can put it in your cabinet or closet in the dark for long periods of time and it only gets better!  All of this adds up to a beer is amazingly complex, delicious and no two are ever the same.  It’s a gorgeous hazy, golden-orange beer with a voluminous head that makes a fantastic aperitif to get the palate ready to eat.  And speaking of food…

Orval has a similar versatility to a Saison.  It has a bright acidity, hoppy citrus notes and a zippy carbonic bite.  Orval, however, has more pronounced earthy notes of leather, wet wool and damp earth.  This beer is fantastic with the aforementioned seafood and Mediterranean cuisine, as well as pairing well with dishes that have earthy notes of truffles, mushrooms and capers.  Orval is great with just about any kind of seafood, from the bright, acidic dishes like ceviche to heavier, oily fishes like salmon, mackerel and sardines.  I personally don’t think it a sin to drink this beer with certain fried foods; if you make a great fried calamari with herbs or a tempura mushroom, pour an Orval and enjoy!  This beer is also a great palate scrubber with course, gamy sausages with herbs and salty, cured meats.

Orval is a treat for pre-dinner drinks in a champagne flute with finger foods.  Try taleggio or a triple cream brie wrapped in prosciutto.  Saba nigiri with a swipe of soy and wasabi.  Truffle and parmesan palmiers.  With Orval, your dinner guests will call you Big Pappa.  And it isn’t expensive; a 11 oz bottle will typically cost you $6-8.  A steal for the lesson in molecular gastronomy you’ll be getting!

American India Pale Ale (And Sometimes the Pale Ale)

Most people are unfortunately introduced to the craft beer scene with an IPA.  Why is that unfortunate, you ask?  Hoppy beers, particularly the West Coast style hop bombs of the 1990s and early 2000s are highly bitter beers, taxing on the palate and having many people close their minds against these amazing styles, refusing to ever revisit them.  I myself was given a rye IPA the first time I started drinking craft beer, struggled through them for a few years, then abandoned them to drink the malt-balanced styles of Browns, Porters and Stouts before eventually easing back into the India Pale Ale.  Brewing practices by American brewers such as late hoping, whirlpooling and dry hopping have unlocked many secret aromas and tastes in hop strains however, and the traditional bitter citrus, piney and resinous flavors have given way to tropical fruits, stone fruits, melon, sweet mint and berries.  The American IPA has come a long way from its English roots, and whether you like a beer with a big, bitter flavor profile and piney nose or a deft approach with a fruity nose that’s a little gentler on the palate, there are IPAs out there for everyone and they need to be in your fridge.

Americans drink IPAs 4 to 1 more than any other craft beer style and it is ideally suited to the melting pot of American cuisine.  We consume more salsa than ketchup these days (that’s a fact), and although the hop bitterness of IPAs will accentuate the heat of capsaicin on the palate, these beers are fantastic with Tex-Mex and Cali-Mex cuisine.  The IPA’s bright hop notes are a great match for the bright flavors of cumin, cilantro, chilies and citrus, and their bright carbonation and bitterness are great palate refreshers, cutting through what little fat of black beans and cheese are evident in these dishes.  Only the earthy, smoky, chocolate notes of a traditional Mole will give you pause when considering beer with Mexican cuisines.  Other cultural influences of American foods, particularly Thai, Vietnamese and Indian foods will benefit from the bright notes of the American hop varietals, with the malt backbone going hand-in-hand with any underlying sweet flavors of coconut, peanuts and mint.  Fried foods, hot dogs, cheeseburgers with all the fixings and even classic pizza will benefit from an IPA next to it.  Pizzas with big notes of Mediterranean herbs, garlic and vegetables might prefer a different style (like the Saison!), but cheesy, meaty pizzas with lots of pepperoni, sausage and red pepper flake are amazing with the zing of an IPA.  Fair warning: hops can intensify the heat of capsaicin.  IPAs will put a little zip on spicy foods, but can easily become overpowering when those Scoville heat units get up there.  Keep a glass of milk on the ready!

As for finding commercial examples, close your eyes and point.  Just about every brewery in the United States begins their repertoire with an IPA.  If you want bigger aromas and less bitterness on the palate, look for words like “dry hopped” and “Smash” (Smash beers use a single hop variety and tend to have more balanced hopping, so they typically aren’t as bitter).  If you want to ease into IPAs, start with a Pale Ale, although some American Pales can show a fair amount of aggressive hopping despite their more prominent malt balance.  I’ve even known people to start with the Double IPA, which has more malt flavor in the body in addition to its big hop profile.  One thing to keep in mind, however, is that IPAs don’t age well.  Their hop aromas and flavors begin to fade almost by the minute, so drinking them fresher is best.

Whatever Style You Love

It’s important to keep examples of your favorite style in your cupboard, beer cave or fridge.  Sometimes you simply don’t care to have alcohol with your meal and would prefer a beer before or after you eat.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Or perhaps you’d simply like to kick back and have a treat.  This is where your favorite style or styles come in.  Whether it’s fruity, sour, hoppy, malty, barrel aged or vinous, having a few of your favorite beers on hand so you can enjoy one on short notice will put a nice touch on your evening.  And don’t get stuck in a rut.  If you like stouts, buy different kinds.  Find a package store that lets you create your own six-pack and enjoy the endless variety of American brewing.

You never know when inspiration may strike.  You may be cooking dinner or even heating up leftovers and think to yourself “I’ll bet this bacon-wrapped meatloaf sandwich with gouda on rye would taste nice with that smoked porter I have in the fridge.”  And you’d be right.  The possibilities are endless.  Become the domestic chef you’ve always wanted to be and let beer help you along the way.  Just make sure you have some on hand!