Draft Queen: Four beers to complement a traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal | Beer

Hey, there! My name is Katie and I love beer. I love beer.

But mostly, I love the complexity in flavor and sensory overload that arise when four simple ingredients marry. It is for that reason I will be sharing beer column-writing duties along with the Beer Baron in this grand, sudsy-driven space here at the Wisconsin State Journal.

I have spent the past decade working for beer bars, breweries and a startup craft beverage wholesaler. I have spent time in St. Louis and Chicago with Side Project Brewing and Revolution Brewing and most recently finished up tenure here in Madison at Karben4. I spent several years writing about beer in St. Louis for a jazzy independent periodical, Sauce Magazine.

My passion, through all of these professional adventures, is getting people excited about the liquid in their glass through words. I love talking about beer almost as much as I love drinking it. And, I greatly enjoy helping people understand what it is they like about what they, well, like.

My first column here comes in honor of the upcoming holiday focused on adult beverages and Irish food — specifically, a pairing guide for a classic dish: corned beef and cabbage.

The ideal beers alongside this fatty entrée will challenge its saltiness and richness while adding another dimension, such as dry, toasted flavors and citrus.

This award-winning Irish-inspired red ale is perfectly rounded with toffee notes and balanced, bready malt sweetness typical of the style. On first take you get toasted grains and just a touch of fruitiness on the nose. This is followed by a very pleasing flavor profile of lightly toasted bread and a bright, citrusy complexity reminiscent of orange marmalade. Delicious carbonation and a dry, roasty finish from a touch of roasted barley make this pint well worth committing to that final bite of corned beef on rye bread.

This winter, K4 dropped a new monthly series in which it explores classic beer styles, and how appropriate to choose March to release an Irish stout. This incredibly roast-forward beer hits on several points: Aromatically you get notes of coffee, tobacco, anise and baker’s chocolate. The aggressive coffee character on the first sip is most notably characteristic of the roasted barley addition typical of Irish brews. Medium-bodied with very little malt sweetness, this pint cleans up nicely sip after sip, encouraging another drink. If we see this beer again next year, it would be fun to see it in nitro cans for an even more Guinness-like experience.

This pale ale is everything I want in a beer. Lowish ABV, gorgeous hop presence, crushable texture. Simple complexity, if you will. With just a small amount of haze and nice carbonation, the star of this beer is the hop profile: Simcoe, and only Simcoe. Lightly dank and tropical, vibrantly citrus-forward with rewarding bitterness. This banger of a beer is sure to justify a second helping of cabbage. Better yet, use a little to braise your veggies and really up the ante.

Style: Dark lager, Czech-style

Whoa baby, this brewery does no wrong — and UW-Madison alum and Dovetail brewer Jenny Pfäfflin really hit this one out of the park. This beer’s malt sweetness will, without question, balance the saltiness of your Irish Day feast. On the nose you will pick up notes of fresh bread, chocolate and just the perfectly poised underlay of raisin. The beer dances on the palate with toasted grain and a mellow sweetness of chocolate-covered blueberries. Effervescent and light-bodied, call this beer anything but ordinary. It’s the perfect complement to your food-induced nap.