My journey into the science of flavor has equipped me to delve into the world of beer, yet my unconventional entry into the brewing sphere means I sometimes miss the shared lore and oral traditions passed down through generations of brewers. This often leads to moments where my scientific understanding clashes with established industry perspectives, such as the common belief that beer effectively calms the burn of spicy food.
The fleeting relief beer provides is akin to any cold drink. It offers temporary coolness, but the burning sensation returns as your mouth warms up.
To unravel this pairing paradox, we need to examine all the elements at play.
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Decoding Your Taste Receptors’ Reaction to Spicy Food
The burning sensation from spicy food originates from irritants they contain, making “spicy” a mouthfeel rather than a taste. These irritants, such as capsaicin in chili peppers, gingerol in ginger, and cinnamaldehyde in cinnamon, bind to receptors on the tongue. This triggers a cascade of signals to the brain, indicating a potential threat. The brain responds with a typical pain reaction: blood vessels dilate, causing skin redness and sweating, and you perceive a burning sensation. This pain response is your body’s signal to take action. If you’re reading this, you likely reach for your beer.
The initial comfort beer offers is similar to any cold beverage. It momentarily cools your mouth, but this is a temporary fix. The capsaicin remains bound to receptors, continuing to signal distress to your brain. What you need is something to detach the irritating molecules from these receptors and wash them away.
This leads us to capsaicin’s properties. Capsaicin is hydrophobic, meaning it repels water and doesn’t dissolve well in water-based solutions. However, it’s attracted to fats, like whole milk, and even ethanol. These substances can effectively release capsaicin from the pain receptors on your tongue. Beer contains alcohol, and some styles boast higher alcohol by volume (ABV). So, could beer be the answer?
The Double-Edged Sword of Alcohol in Food and Beer Pairings with Spice
However, alcohol presents a double-edged sword when pairing beer with spicy food. Firstly, alcohol itself is an irritant that can activate the same pain receptors as capsaicin. In this way, it might exacerbate the burning sensation. By sending more pain signals to the brain, alcohol could intensify the overall pain response. Conversely, at higher ABV levels, ethanol might dissolve capsaicin, effectively removing it from the receptors. The challenge with beer, even high-ABV varieties, is its substantial water content. The water content dilutes the effect of the alcohol, limiting its ability to effectively neutralize the spice and stop the burn.
Several other factors complicate beer’s role in spicy food pairings. Effervescence, or carbonation, in beer can stimulate pain receptors at certain concentrations. Bitterness also plays a role. Contrary to popular belief among beer bloggers and online forums, bitterness isn’t always a friend to spice. In a spirited, albeit outdated, Beeradvocate discussion, the prevailing opinion favored hoppy IPAs as the ideal match for spicy food. Only one dissenting voice (GCurlow) pointed out that this combination actually intensified the perception of heat, bitterness, and alcohol burn, creating a less enjoyable experience. Scientific evidence supports this lone dissenter. High alpha acid content in hoppy beers combined with capsaicin can indeed amplify each other, making bitterness more pronounced, spice more intense, and the alcohol burn more potent, potentially rendering the pairing unpleasant. GCurlow suggested pairing spicy food with sweeter beers, similar to a high-sugar Riesling.
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As Julia Herz suggested, sugar might be the missing piece in the spice-calming puzzle. Focusing on residual sugar in beer, a quick online search reveals numerous articles recommending sugar as a solution to chili pepper burn, either directly or in sugary, doughy baked goods. Beer’s connection to this solution was less explored until a Sam Adams blog post caught my attention. For IPA Day, they conducted a tasting panel with chefs from the Culinary Institute of America, evaluating the intensity of medium-hot chicken wings paired with three West Coast IPA variations.
IPA and Spicy Wings: Can This Food and Beer Pairing Work?
Personal experiences are valuable and testable through scientific methods. The Sam Adams team conducted a small but engaging experiment with spicy chicken wings and IPAs. While their findings might not meet rigorous scientific peer-review standards, they offer insights into the dynamics at play and suggest avenues for more controlled studies with larger participant groups.
Intriguingly, the Sam Adams panel’s initial observation aligns with sensory science: the highest ABV beer (8.4%) intensified the sensation of heat. However, the mid-level ABV beer (6.5%) paradoxically reduced the perceived heat, while the lowest ABV option (4.5%) prolonged the heat. IBUs (International Bitterness Units) could also be a factor. Given bitterness’s known ability to amplify spice perception, the 8.4% ABV beer with its high 85 IBUs might have contributed to the increased heat. The other two beers, both at 45 IBUs, don’t explain the significant heat difference between the 6.5% and 4.5% ABV beers.
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Again, we return to the potential role of sugar. The Sam Adams panelists didn’t explicitly mention residual sugar, but they noted that the higher malt character of the 6.5% ABV beer seemed to balance the heat, imparting a sweet perception to the pairing. However, scientific research offers limited evidence regarding sugar’s interaction with spice receptors. I found no studies confirming or denying sugar’s ability to counteract spice. In short, scientific evidence on sugar calming spice is lacking, suggesting a gap in research.
Ultimately, high-ABV, high-IBU IPAs are likely not the ideal choice to alleviate the burn of spicy food. Yet, many still reach for this pairing. This could be due to personal preference – enjoyment differs from perception. Years of repeated pairings might create a conditioned preference, making it feel familiar and comforting. Even if an IPA doesn’t truly reduce the burn, habit and familiarity, scientifically proven drivers of preference, could explain the enduring appeal of IPAs and spicy food.
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Anecdotes from brewers and chefs, highly attuned consumers, provide valuable hypotheses for sensory science. This is why I enjoy beer consulting. These real-world observations deserve rigorous scientific investigation to advance both scientific understanding and the brewing industry. The Sam Adams experiment, though informal, offered a glimpse into the potential role of residual sugar in spicy food and beer pairings, highlighting a direction for future sensory studies.
Now, it’s your turn to contribute. Share your beer flavor questions or pairing anecdotes that could benefit from scientific scrutiny in the comments. Your input could inspire my next article or even a future scientific study.
Dr. Nicole Garneau
Dr. Nicole Garneau is a geneticist specializing in taste, co-author of the Beer Flavor Map, and co-founder of DraughtLab, a beer sensory app. A sought-after speaker, she has appeared in numerous media outlets and is featured in “Beer Pairing: The Essential Guide from the Pros.” She is a member of ASBC, the Beer & Food Working Group, and an advisory board member for the Fermentation Science & Technology program at Colorado State University. Beyond speaking and sensory consulting, she leads the Genetics of Taste Lab at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
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