Jim Koch, founder and president of Boston Beer Company, has a simple dictum for pairing beers with meals: “Beer should cut, complement, or contrast the flavor of the meal.” Extending his philosophy further, it’s not hard to match beer with food. Here are some recommendations from John’s Grocery (johnsgrocery.com):

Fish: A dry beer like a hoppy Pilsner.

Pizza: A malty and spicy beer like an American Pale Ale.

Chicken and pork: A malty lager like a Märzen or Oktoberfest.

Red meat: A fruity or heavy brown ale. Spicy Food: A Vienna-style lager or other slightly sweet beer.

Sausage: A German weizen or Oktoberfest.

Cheese: A potent, hoppy beer like a barley wine

Dessert: A tart and sweet brew like a wheat beer, Belgian White, or sweet double bocks.

Ale:Brewed from barley malt, hops, and a fast-fermenting yeast, these beers range from pale to dark amber in color. Smooth textured and sweet, they taste of fruit, butter and yeast, with a bitter edge. Ale was a staple in medieval times, the word coming from the Old English “ealu,” which connotes sorcery, magic, possession, and intoxication.

Barley wine:Though, like all beers, this rich brew comes from grain instead of fruit, it can be as strong as wine, hence the name. Bittersweet and dark, the drink emerged from 19th-Century England. The United States requires barley wines to be labeled “barley wine-style ales,” but don’t let that fool you — they’re still barley wines.

Belgian White:A crisp and spicy summertime brew with citrus tones, made with a sizable percentage of wheat and traditional malted barley. Colored cloudy white, the beer is usually blended with coriander and dried orange peel for added zing.

Bitter:The name started out in the 1830s as a way to differentiate dryer and sharper Pale Ales from more mild varieties like porters. Nowadays in Britain, “bitter” is simply a more common way to say “Pale Ale.”

Bock:A strong, malty lager with a coloring spanning pale to dark brown. Brewed by Roman Catholic monks in Germany to give them sustenance during fasts, the beer has a complex malty and toasty flavor, and an alcohol content of around 6% per volume. Types of Bocks include Maibock, Doppelbock, and Eisbock.

Brown ale:Made from a dark, brown malt, this sweet beer’s been around since the late 1600s. Its coloration may span dark amber to brown, and traces of caramel and chocolate creep into its flavor. The North American version is usually drier than the English original.

Lager: The name means “to store” in German, which gets to the heart of the drink. Lagers were made five hundred years ago by being placed in barrels under blocks of ice in caves and other cold places for weeks before serving. The result was (and, through modern refrigeration, still is) a crisp, clean beer whose varieties include Pilsner, Vienna, and Märzen.

Oktoberfest: The first Oktoberfest took place on October 12, 1810, when Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxe- Hildburghausen invited the public to attend their massive engagement party. The beer named after the festival is amber with plenty of the malty flavor and a sweet accent.

Pale ale: Brewed with a pale barley malt, this hoppy beer is golden to light copper in color and made from high-quality, dry-flavored malt. One variation, India Pale Ale (IPA), has taken off in popularity recently for its intense hoppiness.

Pilsner: In 1838, the citizens of Pilsen, Bohemia, stopped complaining about the quality of Bohemian beers and did something about it. They built the Bavarian-style Burgess' Brewery to produce their own version of lager, a pale brew with a dry, hoppy flavor and aroma.

Porter: Developed in the 1700s, Porter was the first beer made on a large scale and aged at the brewery so it could be delivered ready for consumption. Made from roasted malts, this dark-colored, rich beer was known as an “entire” because it combined several of traits of the more popular beers of the time.

Stout: This porter variation is made from roasted malts or roasted barley, making it full-flavored, dark, and slightly burnt (in a tasty way). It has a more grainy taste than porters. Some of its variations include Chocolate Stout, Coffee Stout, and Oyster Stout

Summer ale: Looking like a Pilsner with a flavor anywhere between spicy and citrusy, this beer was developed in 1989 by a British brewer to keep up with the light lager craze.

Wheat beer: Wheat malt is the key to this beer, making it pale, medium-bodied, and somewhat tart. Belgian Whites, German Hefeweizen, and the sour Berlin White rank high among the more memorable types of wheats.