Beer Pairing: Saison; White IPA; or Porter
With Thai food’s complexity—a single dish can be sweet, sour, salty, spicy, meaty, bitter, and herbal all at once—beer pairing is tricky, but you have options. Saisons, being so multi-layered, are adaptable to many flavors in food (try the superbly fresh and balanced Urban Farmhouse, from Portland’s The Commons). Alternately look for Thai-style ingredients in actual beers, like Upslope’s Thai-Style White IPA (Boulder, CO), brewed with ginger, lemongrass, and Thai basil, among other things; or Maui Brewing Co.’s CoCoNut Porter, rich with the essence of toasted coconut (www.mauibrewingco.com).