Left to right: Keen’s Cheddar, Mezzo Secco, Pondhopper

American Pale Ale

STYLE NOTES: For many craft-beer enthusiasts, American pale ales offer the most appealing integration of hops, malt, and alcohol. Typically, these brews exhibit plenty of up-front hops aroma without being aggressively floral or piney. They finish with brisk bitterness, but never enough to curl your tongue. Malt shores up the middle, yet they don’t smell sugary or finish sweet. They have enough alcohol to give them body—typically, 4.5 to 6 percent alcohol—but not enough to make them unwise at lunch. Carbonation is usually moderate, on the cusp of crisp and creamy.

Pale ales have proven so popular with consumers that most American craft breweries have released one at some point. Although patterned after English pale ales, the American efforts tend to be bigger and brassier, often with the citrusy scent of American hops, some grassy notes from dry hopping (steeping hops in the beer after fermentation to extract aromatics), and higher alcohol.

These well-balanced ales are “pale” only in relation to the dark ales that prevailed in the days when malt roasting was more primitive and less controllable. Pale ales range in color from deep gold to pale amber to burnished copper. Many if not most are filtered and clear, but some are unfiltered and consequently hazy.

BEERS TO TRY: Bell’s Pale Ale; Boulevard Pale Ale; Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale; Firestone Walker DBA (Double Barrel Ale); Grand Teton Sweetgrass APA; Great Divide DPA (Denver Pale Ale); Moylan’s Tipperary Pale Ale; North Coast Brewing Acme Pale Ale; Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale; Sierra Nevada Pale Ale; Stone Brewing Pale Ale.

CHEESE AFFINITIES: Although pale ales are impressively versatile and don’t clash with many cheeses, they shine with cheeses that are as full flavored and balanced as they are. Turn to firm cheeses with the savoriness and concentration that emerge with age, such as Cheddar and Manchego. Pale ales stand up to cheeses with herbs and spices, especially peppercorns, but many blue cheeses seem to rob these ales of some sparkle. And young, soft, buttery cheeses like triple-creams and robiolas tend to be overshadowed by pale ale’s robust hoppiness.

Mezzo Secco, from California’s Vella Cheese Company, resembles a young Dry Jack, this creamery’s better-known hard cheese. Produced from raw cow’s milk and matured for three to four months, a wheel of Mezzo Secco has a thin rind rubbed with oil and black pepper. The interior is pale gold, semifirm, and smooth, with aromas that hint of nuts and hay, and mild, milky flavors. Neither pungent nor particularly rich, Mezzo Secco doesn’t tire the palate, so you can happily keep snacking until the beer is gone.

Produced on a family farm in Somerset now in its fourth generation, Keen’s Cheddar is as traditional as English Cheddar gets. The Keens insist on using raw cow’s milk from their own herd, a culture derived from local microflora, and animal rennet for the coagulant. When the wheels are only a few days old, they are wrapped in muslin and coated with lard—another practice that defines traditional Cheddar—to protect them until a rind forms. For top quality, look for wheels selected by Neal’s Yard Dairy, the London exporter. A fine wheel of Keen’s has a handsome natural rind; a golden, slightly waxy interior that smells of nuts, grass, and earth; and a tangy acidity that synchs with pale ale’s hoppy bite.

From Oregon’s Tumalo Farms, a specialist in Gouda-style goat cheese, the goat’s milk Pondhopper loves a pale ale. No surprise there, as the fresh curds are actually steeped in a hoppy Oregon pale ale before being drained, molded, and pressed. After a three-month maturation, the 9-pound wheels have a smooth, semifirm, supple interior and inviting aromas of yeast, caramel, and cooked milk. (Alas, the cheese does not smell of hops.) Pondhopper’s creamy texture and pleasing balance of sweetness and salt make it easy to like and a good companion for many beer styles, but pale ale may head the list. The ale’s malty center responds to the cheese’s mellow nature, while the beer’s bitterness keeps the match from being cloying.

MORE CHEESES TO TRY: Bellwether Farms Pepato; Chimay; Grafton Village Four-Year Cheddar; Leiden; Montgomery’s Cheddar; Manchego; Point Reyes Toma; Tumalo Farms Capricorns; Twig Farm Goat Tomme.