Why a homemade pale ale suits fish and chips

Fish and chips is one of those meals that doesn't need improving, and yet the drink you put beside it makes a genuine difference, because hot battered fish is rich and salty and greasy in the best possible way, and it wants something that cuts rather than something that sits alongside. A pale ale does that better than almost anything else, which is why it's the beer I'd brew if this was the meal I was brewing for.

Why the pairing actually works

Two things in a pale ale are doing the work, and they're both fairly mechanical once you look at them. The carbonation lifts the fat off your tongue between mouthfuls so the fifth chip tastes like the first one, and the hop bitterness gives your palate something to push against so the richness never builds up. The malt sweetness underneath is the third part, because it sits nicely with the grainy sweetness in the batter and the potato, and the salt on the chips makes the beer's own citrus and fruit character read louder than it would on its own.

That's the reason a very sweet or very heavy beer struggles here. There's nothing to cut with, so the meal just gets richer as it goes, and you're full and a bit over it by halfway.

Why brew it yourself

You can buy a perfectly good pale ale, so this isn't about the beer being better, it's about the beer being yours. Handing somebody a glass and saying you made it is a different thing entirely, and the pride does taste like something.

The practical argument is better though, which is that brewing your own lets you aim the beer at the meal. Shop beer is aimed at everybody. Yours can be pitched exactly where you want it, so if you find most pale ales a bit too bitter next to food you can dial it back, and if you want more citrus lift you can add it late rather than accept whatever the brewery decided.

Getting the beer in the right place

Aim for something bright and easy drinking rather than a big hop bomb, because a very bitter beer stops being a partner to the food and starts being the whole conversation. A pale malt base with a small amount of crystal malt gives you a touch of caramel and a bit of colour without making it sweet, and the trick is restraint with the crystal, since too much and the beer turns syrupy and loses the cutting job it was there to do.

On hops, put most of the bitterness in early and save the aromatic varieties for the end of the boil, so you get the citrus and tropical lift on the nose without stacking up more bitterness. Cascade is the classic choice for this style and it's a safe place to start. Citra and Galaxy both push further into the tropical end if you want the beer to be more noticeable.

And then be patient, which is the part nobody enjoys. A pale ale rushed out of the fermenter tastes yeasty and rough, and the same beer left the extra fortnight tastes like you know what you're doing. Serve it cold but not straight out of an icebox, because a beer that's too cold gives you none of the aroma you worked for.

Setting it up properly

Fry the fish, salt the chips, put out vinegar and a couple of lemon wedges, and pour the beer into a clean glass rather than drinking it from the bottle, because a decent head carries the hop aroma up to your nose and that's half the pairing. It's a small thing and it makes a surprising difference.

The nice part is what happens afterwards, which is that somebody always asks how you made it. That's how most people end up brewing, one mate at a time, and it's a good enough reason on its own.

Shop related products

• Thomas Coopers Bootmaker Pale Ale 1.7kg. A pale ale kit that gets you there without a recipe.
• Coopers Light Malt Extract 1.5kg. A clean pale base if you're building it yourself.
• US-05 Safale Ale Yeast 11.5g. Clean fermenting, so the hops stay the star.
• Coopers Brew Enhancer 1 1kg. Keeps the finish dry rather than sweet.

Did you know we also stock Cascade finishing hops, Citra and Galaxy hop pellets, crystal malted grain and a hydrometer with a test jar in the shop. They're not on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.

The rest of the gear is in our homebrew beer supplies, and if you want to talk through which kit lands closest to what you're after, Brewhilder will help you narrow it down.

More from the blog

• 5 beer and food pairings to try with your homebrew
• The best beer styles to go with lamb chops on the barbie
• How to host a beer and barbecue tasting night

I'm better at the beer half than the batter half, and I've made my peace with that.

Candeece