One of the most agreeable qualities of beer is the way it pairs with spicy food, which is why so many Asian restaurants have quite decent beer selections but paltry wine pickings. This month’s dish draws on properties of Japanese, Thai and Chinese cuisine. Thus a beer from one of those countries is probably going to be your best bet for complementing the flavors of the peanuts, peppers and garlic. It’s the malt in beer that cuts through the fieriness of spicy foods. Also, the alcohol rinses the heat from your tongue more quickly than water or other drinks.
The three Asian beers we tried were Asahi and Kirin Ichiban, both from Japan, and that old standby of all Chinese restaurants, Tsingtao. The driest, Asahi, which I often order in sushi bars, seemed flat and a bit too smooth with this food, like still water on a river when you’re dying to get to the rapids. The Tsingtao, while more effervescent, sweeter and all-around more pleasant than the Asahi, didn’t have quite enough punch to stand up to the flavor of the peanut sauce.
We three tasters agreed that the best accompaniment to the Asian noodles was Kirin Ichiban, which has a characteristic known as "prominent wort." This has something to do with the way the malt is rinsed before fermentation. The result is a beer more golden in color than are most Asian beers, along with a mild, sweet flavor and a perfect effervescence almost like that in a good champagne. Our tasters found it to have a "barkier" and "more muscular" flavor than either the Asahi or the Tsingtao, and we all liked the way we could feel it in the throat, not just on the palate.
I can never resist tossing a Belgian ale into a taste test, so I also broke out a bottle of Duvel, a beer so delicious that if I were an alcoholic, I’d drink it for breakfast. Immediately the other two tasters said, in unison, "This is too good for food." Nonetheless, the bolder of the two proceeded to finish off the bottle with the rest of his noodles.
