Thought pairing was all about wine? Here’s the beers that will work with your dinner.

Apart from the fact that there now seems to be a brewery on every street corner (and in every discerning drinker’s garden shed), a recent product of the proliferation of beer in the past decade is the beer sommelier. It is unlikely that you’ll find one pop up next to the wine expert at your favourite restaurant any time soon, but it is something that beer producers are utilising to show off the flavour profiles of their top brews, and demonstrate how they can be enjoyed with food. High-end restaurants are on board, too. An event at London Beer Week, which began yesterday, sees the Michelin-starred restaurant Outlaw’s At The Capital team up with Sharp’s Brewery (producers of the much-loved Doom Bar) for a dinner exploring beer and seafood. “Beer has had a bad reputation in the past because people think it’s one thing only,” says Ms Ali Dedianko, London Beer Week’s festival director. “But brewers have decided to brew with different flavours and hops and it has snowballed. There are so many options – you could have a whole menu of different IPAs pairing with different food.”

To learn more about matching beer with different dishes, we spoke to the Mr Ed Hughes – the beer sommelier for Sharp’s – who provided us with a quick guide on the topic:

“Matching beer with food can be challenging. Not in terms of taste, but getting people into the right headspace can be difficult. Glassware is massively important. Put the beer into a functional vessel like a wine glass or a brandy balloon – and people will treat the contents with more respect and reverence. The important thing is to go on a voyage of discovery. There are so many more beers out there for us to try.” Below are some of Mr Hughes’ favourite combinations.

Try: Dover sole with Staropramen

“White fish and lagers work really well together. You could try a pale lager like Helles. If there are delicate flavours in the dish, match it with delicate flavours in the beer. Pilsner is named after the city Plzeñ in the Czech Republic, where the first lagers were brewed in the mid 1800s. Arguably it’s the most important beer style in history. Staropramen is an archetypal bohemian Pilsner. It has a bit of caramel in there, and it is quite robust – so you can go for burnt butter with the fish. Bigger flavours in the beer allow you to have bigger flavours in the fish.”

Try: grilled asparagus and parma ham with Leffe

“This is a tricky vegetable to match with beer. I like to go for something like Leffe. The sweetness just works perfectly with the flavour of asparagus. I haven’t found any rhyme or reason to it – it’s something I just stumbled across.”

Try: beef brisket with Wolf IPA

“You can bridge the gap between the food and the beer by cooking with a bit of beer. A beef brisket slow-cooked in red IPA – served street-food style in a brioche bun with a little bit of Cornish Gouda is lovely. Wolf Rock Red IPA is a stark IPA – the flavours are robust enough to match the food. It has a solid, malty backbone, which you need with rich red meat. The hops act like tannins do in wine. They have a palate-cleansing effect that goes well with rich brisket and Cornish cheese. A lot of the new world IPAs – coming over from the US, for example – are intensely bitter. They don’t have the sweetness that a red IPA has.”

Try: chocolate cake, orange and muscovado ice cream with Sharp’s 6 Vintage Blend

“Barley wine has been coming back into circulation recently. It’s because they’re quite olde worlde and very British. There is a lot of residual sweetness, a strong malt base and it’s high in alcohol. It has delusions of grandeur – it thinks it’s a dessert or port wine. With barley wine you get a lot of molasses and treacle aromas – big flavours which are a natural match for Christmas pudding or chocolate cake.”

Try: barbecued mackerel with La Trappe Dubbel

“With oily fish, you’d go for bigger flavours. Brill and sole, on the other hand, are very delicate. Mackerel has a little more to it. Salmon is the same. Smoked mackerel or smoked salmon with a Belgian ‘abbey beer’ would work really well. The thing with Trappist beers is you get incredible sweet-shop aromas which work with smoke. La Trappe Dubbel has a solid backbone to match the intensity of the fish.”

Try: mature cheddar, pickle, bread with ESB Extra Special Bitter

“This is a classic beer and food match. There is a decent hop content in ESB, a decent malt backbone. The alcohol is usually five to 5.5 per cent. It’s a very versatile beer. The bitterness cuts through the fats in the cheese. Go for a good medium – mature 18-month-old cheddar. If you add some pickle and bread to the mix – it’s a great combination.”