The Best Beer With Barbecue

BY OWEN MORRIS

Unless you’re in the beverage business or you just love trade mags, you probably don’t read Draft Magazine. It’s not meant for us lay people. It’s meant for people for whom beer is a living. This month, they have a feature on picking the perfect beer from each famous barbecue city. The beer they pick as the perfect KC barbecue beer is…drum roll please…Zōn.

Yes, Boulevard Brewery’s seasonal Witbier is Draft’s top choice. Really Draft Mag? Zōn?

Zōn is not even Boulevard’s best seasonal (that title belongs to Nutcracker Ale) and whenever I drink it, it never seems to go particularly well with any food, much less barbecue.

So what is the best barbecue beer? My top three choices would be in no particular order, Boulevard Pale Ale, Boulevard Wheat and Sapporo.

Sapporo, the Japanese beer is excellent with some spicy barbecue. Really though, there’s no right answer, just better answers than others. But if I was picking a beer for a barbecue, Zōn would not be high on the list.