Fancy a pint with your pizza or your crispy duck pancakes? Here are the best beers to pair with 11 of our favourite international dishes

• Pairing beer with food is a big trend in UK pubs and homes
• There are now over 1,400 British breweries producing 10,000 beers
• Beer expert suggests matching the intensity of the food and the brew

Sponsored by Britain's Beer Alliance

By Martha De Lacey For Mailonline

Published: 18:05 EST, 22 September 2015 | Updated: 18:05 EST, 22 September 2015

Let's face it, we are actually a nation of beer lovers. 

You can take your French wines and your Spanish sherries and the like and yes, we'll clink glasses and sip nicely, but ultimately, is there anything that beats the taste of frosty lager on a summer afternoon or the tang of that first sip of your bitter in a fantastic pub on an autumnal evening? We think not.

These days, if you want to look even vaguely credible in a gastropub or at home with someone you want to impress, it's not enough just to grab a bottle of a well-known brand and assume it'll go perfectly with your authentic pad thai or that 24-day aged, char-grilled organic, hand-reared steak.

Is there anything that beats enjoying a bottle of frosty beer with friends over a great meal?

Oh no. Right now it's all about matching beer with food. The right one will make both taste even better, the wrong one could mean that you are missing out on a taste sensation, say experts from Britain’s Beer Alliance.

'There are really no right or wrong pairings as it’s really a matter of personal taste, but a useful principle to follow is match the flavour intensity of the beer to the flavour intensity of the food,' a spokesman tells us.

'So it’s important to pair beer and food correctly as when you get it wrong, and the meeting of flavours clash, the whole thing tastes less desirable than the individual parts.

'It’s easier than pairing wine with food due to its range of flavours. The primary ingredients to determine flavour in wine are grapes and yeast but in beer there’s grain, hops, yeast and water. Another trait that sets beer apart from wine when planning a meal is its ability to cut through a dish due to the hops and carbonation, which cleans the palate allowing you to taste the flavours and leaving you ready for more food. 

'Also, beer transforms everyday meals into the extraordinary. When you discover a beer and food pairing that really works it’s effect can be revelatory (much more so than with wine), perhaps changing your perception of both the beer and the food. The range of beers available means there’s a beer for almost every dish/palate/occasion. There are now over 1400 breweries in the UK producing 10,000 beers in over 100 different styles so the choice of beer has never been greater.'

And so here are 11 recommendations from them for starting a beery love affair with our favourite world cuisines. Bottoms up!

1. Prawn Pad Thai

Perfect beer: Schiehallion by Harviestoun

Why?:  Mmmm Thai noodles with sweetness and prawns and crunchy nuts and Oh. My. Goodness. quite a lot of chilli, actually. 

Quick! Grab a bottle of this delicious and super-refeshing (read 'cold') lager with tropical fruit and grapefruit flavours - perfect with the spice and heat of Thai food.

Available from Sainsbury’s and Tesco, £1.60 (500ml) 

Mmmm Thai noodles with sweetness and prawns and crunchy nuts - perfect with a cold Schiehallion

2. Chinese Crispy Duck Pancakes

Perfect beer: Plum Porter by Titanic

Why?: Get your pancake, spread it with sweet hoisin sauce, grab as much as you dare without annoying everyone else of that crispy, fatty duck and top with spring onions and cucumber. 

Roll into a perfect (ahem...) cigar and take a bite, followed by a swig of this fruity, dark, toasty, utterly-divine beer. It is crisp yet frothy, and has a fantastic dryness to it that stops that sweet sauce overpowering everything. A revelation.

Available from the Belgian Beer Company, £19.30 for 8 bottles (500ml)

3. Pepperoni Pizza

Perfect beer: Pilsner Urquell

Why?: Pepperoni pizza = an almost perfect Friday night dinner. Pepperoni pizza + Pilsner Urquell = the dream thanks to the refreshing beer with a peppery bitterness balanced by rich caramel notes. 

This combination is the perfect example of how a bottle of the right kind of lager can lift something seemingly ordinary into something wonderful. 

Available from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, £1.75-£2 (330ml) 

Plum Porter by Titanic (left) is perfect with  Peking duck pancakes, while Pilsner Urquell (right) goes amazingly with a good old slice of pepperoni pizza 

There are few things better in life than a good slice of pizza... except a pizza with a cold beer! 

4. Steak and chips

Perfect beer: Sharp’s Wolf Rock Red IPA

Why? A savoury, juicy, chargrilled steak might scream MALBEC to the ill-informed. 

Try this instead, with its roasted, toasty character and toffee and fruity flavours that will elevate that steak experience to something sublime.

Available from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, £1.50-£2 (500ml)

5. Chicken korma

Perfect beer: St Peter’s Grapefruit Beer

Why? A creamy curry calls for a fruity beer. And this is one of our favourites - a wheat beer style, with a light citrus grapefruit character. Luverly.

Available from Waitrose, £2.19 (500ml)

Sharp's Wolf Rock Red IPA (left) is perfect with a juicy steak while St Peter's unusual Grapefruit Beer (right) is a tasty match for a chicken korma

6. Spaghetti Carbonara

Perfect beer: Duvel

Why?: At mouthful one you think you can't get enough of the eggy, creamy, cheesy sauce dotted with bacony bits. 

By mouthful five you are starting to feel like maybe you should have gone for the spag bol, as it's all just a teeny bit rich. 

Just reach for the Duvel - its fruity bitterness will cut through everything and you can go back to feeling like you did on mouthful one. Phew. Thank goodness for those fresh flavours which will remind you of orange zest, pear brandy and green apples...

 Available from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, £1.75-£2 (330ml) 

Duvel is the perfect beer to marry with creamy cheesy goodness of Spaghetti Carbonara 

7. Shepherd's pie

Perfect beer: Fuller’s ESB

Why? You need a rich and malty beer to stand up to a hefty shepherd's pie and this does the trick - and some. It has a slight marmalade-like fruitiness which is JUST SO GOOD with that juicy meat. 

Available from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Ocado, £1.50-£2 (500ml)

8. Lamb souvlaki and tzatziki

Perfect beer: Thornbridge Jaipur

Why? Basically we are talking kebab here. 

Yup, posh kebab, that you are eating at home in front of Suits rather than on a street corner, but a kebab nonetheless, and that needs a fruity, juicy, punchy beer as a co-partner. Jaipur has gorgeous citrus notes and you can taste the hops on the finish - and it is actually really very good chilled. Available from Waitrose, £2.55 (500ml)

Thornbridge Jaipur (left) is a fruity punchy beer that can hold its own against lovely herbed lamb, but Fuller's ESB (right) is a rich and malty brew that is perfect with full bodied homely dishes like shepherd's pie

9. Haddock and chips

Perfect beer: Camden Gentleman’s Wit

Why? What do you have on fish and chips? Vinegar, that's what. Or lemon if you're posh. So this delicate, slightly lemony twist on a Belgian beer is perfect with that crisp batter and those salty, fat chips. 

The people at Camden Town Brewery experimented by making a white beer with the flavours of slow-roasted lemons giving their caramelised pithy sweetness and sharp citrus juice, plus the floral freshness of bergamot. 

And it worked so well, they decided to make lots more of it, and sell it. Thank goodness.

Available from Honest Brew, £2.25 (330ml)

10. Buttermilk fried chicken and coleslaw

Perfect beer: Meantime Yakima Red

Why? Just when you thought fried chicken couldn't get any more FANTASTIC....you read this. 

This is a combo you need to try, like, yesterday. 

The ale is malty, red, fruity and delicious on its own but just incredible with lightly spiced, crispy, juicy chicken.

GET ME SOME NOW.

Available from Meantime Brewing, £20.49 for 12 (330ml)

Camden Gentleman’s Wit (left) is the perfect tipple for those fish and chips while Meantime's Yakima Red (right) brings a malty new taste sensation to fried chicken 

11. Chicken & seafood paella

Perfect beer: Saltaire Blonde

Why? Where do we start? SO many flavours in one dish. Hurrah for Saltaire Blonde - a light, spicy and citrus golden beer that will go with all those complex flavours and make you wish you were still on holiday. Sigh...

Available from Morrisons, Waitrose, Asda, Sainsbury’s £1.65-£2 per bottle

Don't panic! Paella might have complex flavours BUT Saltaire Blonde is the perfect blend to complement it 

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