By JANET FLETCHER

ALTHOUGH WINE AFICIONADOS SWEAR THAT THE GRAPE IS THE NATURAL COMPANION TO CHEESE, BEER OFFERS STRONG COMPETITION. "There's a reason the monks used to call beer 'liquid bread,'" says Lucy Saunders, creator of the website beercook.com. "It has those toasty and grainy flavors that go so well with different styles of cheese."

Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery in New York, has his own hypothesis: Both beer and cheese are born from grass—from barley in the case of beer; from pasture and hay in the case of cheese (albeit with an animal in between). It's a premise that may not hold up under scrutiny: Although the caramel and nutty scents in an aged Ossau-Iraty find an echo in brown ale, those aromas could be unrelated to diet. Even so, the match is resoundingly right.

"Wine is good at doing contrast," says Oliver, "but not good at doing harmony in most cases. You can really set up some wonderful harmonic matches between beers and cheeses."

Beer also boasts carbonation, which can plow through the creamy residue that most cheese leaves on the palate better than non-sparkling wines. In Oliver's view, wine "bounces off the tongue" when it follows high-fat cheese. "Beer, with its scrubbing action, literally lifts that fat off your tongue and allows the cheese and beer to come together."

Great Combinations
Oliver and Saunders offer their recommendations for notable beer and cheese pairings:
Taleggio, Red Hawk, Munster or other washed-rind cheeses:
* Oliver votes for Bière de Garde, French farmhouse ales, of which the most widely available is probably Jenlain. "They have earthy, mushroomy, damp autumn leaf notes that tend to tie in well to the funkiness of washed-rind cheeses," he says.
* Saunders matches these pungent cheeses with the yeasty character of a brown ale or abbey-style ale refermented in the bottle. "Those yeasty (beer) flavors meld with the strong, funky aromatics that you get from washed-rind cheeses," she says.

Humboldt Fog Goat Cheese or other young, fresh, tangy goat cheeses:
* Oliver likes wheat beers, which are relatively light bodied, snappy and refreshing (right).
* Saunders prefers more of a contrast and votes for a darker beer with raisin notes, such as Belgian-style brown ales or weizenbocks (weissbocks, back), which are strong and dark wheat ales.
Gruyère, Comté (pictured), Pleasant Ridge Reserve and other nutty alpine cheeses:
* Oliver recommends powerful, high-alcohol English barley wines (right).
* Saunders suggests beers on the malty side, such as amber ales (left).

Brie, Camembert (pictured) or other bloomy-rind cheeses:
* Oliver believes that the mushroom notes in these cheeses call for a French Bière de Garde, which has similar mushroom and damp-leaf aromas. He also likes the Belgian Trappist and abbey beers, such as Chimay (left), with these cheeses.
* Saunders goes with maibocks and strong golden lagers (right), high-alcohol beers that can stand up to the character imparted by the rind.

Brillat-Savarin or other triple-crème cheeses:
* Oliver looks to Belgian strong golden ales, such as Duvel (left), which have a high level of carbonation and "a nice crackling hop character that really cuts through all that fat," he says.
* Saunders likes a saison-style beer, sometimes called farmhouse ale (right). These beers have spicy aromatics and are often refermented in the bottle, producing a creamy carbonation that complements lush-textured cheese.

Blue Cheese:
* Oliver notes that an imperial stout (left), with its big, chocolatey character, can flatter Stilton, because it finds the underlying chocolate notes in the cheese.
* Saunders would pair blue cheeses with stouts, potent barley wines and strong dark ales (right). "I want a beer that's not going to make the cheese taste metallic," she says.

And for the many occasions when the cheese board includes multiple cheeses with little in common, the ideal beer bridges the differences. Oliver nominates brown ale. Its moderate bitterness provides some "cutting power," says the beer maker, and it has enough sweetness to handle nutty cheeses and blues. Saunders would choose an unfiltered amber ale or farmhouse ale for its bready, yeasty flavors and subtle carbonation.

The vast range of styles in beer affords enviable flexibility when it comes to finding the right match for cheese. As Oliver says about his occasional match-ups with sommeliers, "I have an awful lot more to work with."

Janet Fletcher is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and author of The Cheese Course.

Pairing Guidelines to Follow
When recommending cheeses to accompany a favorite beer, Lucy Saunders, creator of the website beercook.com, advises paying particular attention to four factors: the beer's level of carbonation; its hops-derived bitterness; its malt-driven sweetness; and any added flavors. Then consider these guidelines:
1. Carbonation helps cut through creaminess.
2. Hop-dominated beers, such as India pale ale, love well-aged Cheddars and other cheeses with obvious acidity.
3. Malt-dominated beers, such as amber ale and barley wine, work well with cheeses that have nutty or caramel notes, such as aged sheep's milk cheeses (Manchego, Vermont Shepherd, Pecorino Toscano).
4. Brews with fruit flavors invite experimentation. Try kriek (cherry beer) or framboise (raspberry beer) with a triple-crème, Teleme or Crescenza.