Drinking culture is quite different here than it is in my experience in Scotland.

I don’t think it is necessarily unique but it is different to my experience.

Food is very important in drinking culture here whereas ordinarily in my experience in Scotland (yep, repeated 3 times, intentionally).. food was generally before or after drinking.. with the rare exception of dinner parties or going out for a meal (as the main event of the evening).

As such the topic of food pairing with beer often comes up and I am entirely useless in this regard.

We bought an Irish red ale for someone as a souvenir and thanks for recent help and I was pushed into suggesting a food pairing.. all I could say was stew.. then in a Japanese context hasashi rice (rice in a sort of tomato demi-glaze meat sauce).

Not necessarily a bad pairing but lucky if it is a good one.. I probably need to study this topic more.