A Serious Pairing Guide

Wine drinkers have been advocating proper food pairing for centuries. Entire careers, cellars and dinner party monologues have been built on it. Beer, meanwhile, has been quietly getting on with being delicious, usually accompanied by whatever was within arm's reach.

We think beer deserves better than whatever was within arm's reach. We've spent over a decade making pub snacks, and our Pub In The Post hampers come with tasting notes on flavour pairings designed with the brewers themselves. This guide shares the thinking behind them, so you can match your beer and your snacks like you know exactly what you're doing. Because after reading this, you will.

THE THREE RULES OF PAIRING

Before the specifics, the principles. There are really only three, and none of them require a diploma.

Complement: match flavours of similar weight and character, like a rich stout with a rich cheese, so neither bullies the other.

Contrast: put opposites together and let them show off, like something sharp and briny against something smooth and creamy.

Cut: use acidity, salt or crunch to slice through richness and reset your palate for the next sip. This is the secret behind every great pub snack ever made.

Right. To the beer.

LAGER AND PILSNER

Crisp, clean and refreshing, a good lager is the ultimate team player. Its light biscuity malt and dry finish want something salty and savoury to push against, which is why lager and cured meat is one of the oldest partnerships in the book. Our Snackalami - bold, meaty and peppery - is the classic match, and our Snackingham slices work just as well. For something crunchier, Sausage Crisps and Corn Scratchings bring the salt and the texture while the lager does the refreshing.

If this sounds like your evening, the Lager Pub In The Post rounds up crisp lagers from across the UK and Europe with the snacks to match, and the Hawkstone Gift Set does the same with the Cotswolds' finest.

IPA AND HOPPY PALE ALES

IPAs arrive with tropical fruit, citrus and a bitter finish, and they need snacks with the confidence to keep up. Big hop flavours love big savoury flavours: our Snacking Cheese has the rich, intensely savoury depth to stand toe to toe with the bitterness, while the gentle heat of Snackingham 'Chorizo' plays beautifully with all that tropical fruit. And when the hops start to dominate, a Snacking Pickle cuts through and resets everything. Sharp, briny, and exactly what the brewer would have handed you.

The BrewDog Big Night In is the hop lover's option here, and the Beavertown Beer Gift Box pairs four of their most loved brews with a snack apiece.

STOUT AND PORTER

The heavyweights. Deep roasted malt, coffee and dark chocolate notes, and a famously creamy texture. Stout's best friend is our award - winning Snacking Cheese - the rich umami saltiness against those roasted malt flavours and that velvety texture is, in our professional opinion, one of snacking's great experiences. The sweet smokiness of Snackingham 'Chorizo' and the meatiness of Snackalami are natural matches too, while Snacking Pickles provide the bright contrast that cuts through all that creaminess.

This is, not coincidentally, exactly how we built the Guinness Gift Set - three varieties of the black stuff with the snacks chosen to do precisely the above.

AMBER AND MALTY ALES

Smooth, malty ales with caramel and biscuit notes sit in the comfortable middle of the beer world, and they pair accordingly. Charcuterie is the move here: the subtle sweetness of the malt flatters cured meat the way chutney flatters a cheese board. A fennel salami alongside a malty amber ale is quietly one of the best pairings on this page, and nobody talks about it. Until now.

CIDER

Not beer, pedants, but it turns up in our hampers so it earns its place. A medium dry cider with proper character - like Hawkstone's, fermented with champagne yeast and matured for six months - is essentially begging for cheese. Cider's orchard fruit and gentle acidity against rich, savoury Snacking Cheese is the ploughman's lunch principle in action, and the ploughman knew what he was doing.

THE EASY VERSION

If you'd rather not memorise any of this, the shortcut is simple: our hampers do the thinking for you. Each Pub In The Post pairs the beers with the right snacks, and most include tasting notes so you can follow along glass by glass, or confidently improvise once you've got the hang of it.

Browse all beer hampers and consider your next evening in sorted.

Please enjoy responsibly. Our beer hampers contain alcohol and are only available to those aged 18 and over. For more information visit drinkaware.co.uk.