It often seems as though wine has always been the go-to guy for pairing with food.

In fact, in the UK anyway, drinking wine with food was a minority pursuit until the mid-Eighties. That was the point when the supermarkets convinced us that sipping a glass of Chardonnay with dinner was a good thing to aspire to. We didn’t take much encouraging.

These days, wine’s place at the table, once undisputable, is being challenged. The 5pm Dining blog has often written about food and whisky pairings – always interesting but unlikely to ever become mainstream. Not many people keep several different bottles of whisky around the house just in case they need to match a mango dessert with a malt.

Craft beer boom

Wine’s biggest threat is the rise of craft beer. What defines ‘craft’ beer could be argued about for days. What is inarguable is that, over the last decade, there has been a boom in interesting beers made by small breweries. They are a diverse bunch who are united by the simple fact that they are not large multinational corporations.

These smaller breweries provide the drinker with a huge range of beers with wildly different flavours. Finding one to match most foods is now much easier than it might have been a few years back.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that the blog was at The Riparian Rooms in Edinburgh last night for a five course beer and food matching dinner hosted by Harviestoun, the independent brewery based in Alva.

Sparge your wort

Introducing the five beer/food pairings was Harviestoun’s Ian McNally. Should you ever need to know how to sparge your wort, Ian is your man. In fact, from the role of coagulating proteins in creating a good head to the relationship between dextrins and the body of a beer, Mr McNally knows his stuff.

Most of the pairings were superb. The Schiehallion lager was light, crisp and a good palate cleanser when eaten with a crab and pickled cucumber salad.

The slightly sweeter Broken Dial Amber Ale was great with a dish of sweet and tender lamb rump. It also had enough body (it was those dextrins) to not be overwhelmed by the flavour of the lamb.

The Afterglow Summer Ale, a refreshingly light 3%ABV, met more of a mixed response. Slightly sour and heavily hopped, I liked it when paired with charcuterie and pickles.

It matched exceptionally well with the deep-fried and salted capers which were scattered over the cold meats. Incidentally, don’t ever eat the deep-fried, salted capers at Riparian Rooms or you will instantly become a hopelessly addicted caper slave.

Alternative to port

The stand-out pairing of the night was a barrel aged, 8% Ola Dubh which was paired with Isle of Mull Cheddar and Clava brie. Dark, rich, almost coffee-like, it would make a fantastic alternative to a glass of port.

So, this weekend, when you are thinking about cracking a bottle of wine to go with dinner, you may want to think again. Leave the Rioja to one side. A smooth, cool amber ale may be just the ticket to partner with a roast lamb dish.