What to Drink with Italian Food: A Beer Lover's Pairing Guide
Italian food gets paired with wine by default. But Italy has been brewing since the monks of Montecassino grew barley in the sixth century — and at the table, a well-chosen beer can do things wine cannot.
The Case for Beer
Why beer belongs at the Italian table
The argument is carbonation. Italian cooking loves richness — olive oil, melted cheese, cured meat, slow-cooked sauces — and the natural carbonation in a bottle-conditioned beer lifts and resets the palate between mouthfuls in a way still wine never quite manages. Add the bitterness of hops against salt and fat, and the malt sweetness that echoes anything caramelised, and beer stops being the casual option and becomes the considered one. These pairings are the way we drink our own beers on the estate, where our restaurant serves regional cooking a few steps from the brewhouse.
The Pairings
Three beers, the whole menu
Alba Blonde Ale · 5.0%
Golden, clean and lightly sweet from caramel malt, Alba is the aperitivo beer and the pizza beer. Pour it with fried starters — arancini, calamari, courgette flowers — where its crispness cuts the oil, and keep it on the table for pizza of every kind: the carbonation against melted mozzarella is the whole argument for beer with Italian food in a single mouthful. It belongs with white pizzas and margheritas especially.
Aurea Wheat & Citrus · 4.8%
Bright, aromatic and gently spiced, Aurea is the beer for the lighter half of the menu: seafood pasta and risotto, lemon-dressed fish, grilled prawns, insalata caprese, anything with basil. The citrus in the glass meets the lemon on the plate, and the soft wheat body flatters delicate flavours rather than flattening them. On a warm evening it is also simply the beer for the table before anyone has ordered.
Dubbel Abbey-Style Ale · 6.5%
Rich, mahogany-dark and complex, the Dubbel is for the food that takes hours: ragù and lasagne, braised beef, sausages and lentils, wild mushroom dishes, porchetta. Its deep malt character stands shoulder to shoulder with slow-cooked depth, and it is the one to carry through to the cheese board — aged pecorino and parmesan in particular — or a square of dark chocolate at the end. The abbey tradition made beers for feast days; this is what they were for.
Quick Reference
What beer with what dish
- Pizza, fried starters, aperitivoAlba
- Seafood pasta, risotto, fish, saladsAurea
- Ragù, lasagne, roasts, braisesDubbel
- Cured meats and antipasti boardsAlba or Dubbel
- The cheese course, dark chocolateDubbel
- A table that ordered everythingThe Mix Case
Feeding a table rather than a person? The Mix Case of 12 puts four bottles of each style on hand, so every course and every guest finds its match — and for a smaller gathering, the case of 6 does the same in miniature. New to the styles themselves? Our guide to Italian beer styles tells the fuller story.
From the Estate
Tested nightly, in Cassino
These are not theoretical pairings. Our brewery shares its 700-acre estate with an authentic Italian restaurant, in the hills beneath the Abbey of Montecassino — the beers are poured beside regional cooking every day it opens, a few steps from where they are brewed with rock-filtered spring water from the hillside. If your travels bring you to Lazio, the pairing guide becomes a table reservation: details on our Where to Buy page. Everywhere else in the UK, the same bottles arrive at your door.
Or explore the full range in Our Beer.