SINCE THE CRAFT brew movement took hold more than a decade ago, there have been those who are just as snooty about their beers as wine snobs are about their wines. Much more than a passing spiritual kinship exists between these groups, despite what each might say of the other. Case in point: at Toronado they'll wrap a ratchet around your skull if you fail to adequately appreciate the nuances of their fine selection of Belgian beers. Severe head trauma aside, Belgian beers, and in particular abbey- or Trappist-style ales, warrant the attention of wine drinkers because they are the closest thing, in terms of taste and complexity, to wine.

Known as "the Burgundies of Belgium," Belgian abbey ales (meaning the sorts of beers originally made by Belgian monks) are usually fruitier, a bit sweeter, and more complex, thanks to their higher alcohol content, unique ingredients, and brewing techniques that have much more in common with Pol Roger than Pabst Blue Ribbon. In crawling some of the finer restaurants in town, I've found that while the wine menu dwarfs the beer menu at every last one (often by 100 or more), at least one Belgian beer is available on the premises; it's the one the bartenders secret a glass of under the bar to take the edge off their shift.

To the wine taster's palate, beer tends to be either bland or overpoweringly bitter, thus sullying the experience, but that's usually because they haven't attuned their palate to enjoying beer. The converse is also true. Beer, it is thought, is only fit to consume with Chinese take-out or Mexican food – oilier and/or spicier cuisines – in order to cool a blazing tongue. Spicy food tends to ruin the tongue's ability to parse more delicate or complex flavors, another reason why beer, thought to be uncomplicated, can be happily swilled without concern that a pricey wine is being "wasted" on an incapacitated palate. It's certainly more difficult to pair beer to the cream-and-butter bombs of French cuisine not because it can't be done, but simply because it hasn't been done.

For example, at the elegant Fifth Floor, what could be more exclusive that the lone Belgian beer on the menu, the Chimay Grand Reserve, when compared to the selection of more than 1,400 wines? Belgian beermakers each craft their own glassware to bring out the particular characteristics of their beers. However, Fifth Floor, likely loathe to have branded beer glasses on display, doesn't use them. Instead the potent brew (weighing in at 9 percent alcohol by volume) is served in a Burgundy glass, which allows the beer to air out a bit. When sipped, the beer could be paired nicely with a dish such as oven-roasted poularde (fattened hen) with French prunes, black truffles, and caramelized celery root. While the Chimay Blue is a darker beer, its malt notes of toffee and raisins enhance the sweetness of the prunes and celery root as well as the smoky, earthy truffles and the browned skin of the poularde.

Jardinière's duck breast with braised fennel, Luques olives, and orange polenta would go perfectly with the Chimay Red the restaurant offers on draft. Yet the real prize here is the interesting Deus Brut de Flandres. While Miller High Life dubs itself the "champagne of Beers," we all know what it really is. However, the Deus Brut, a newish Belgian beer, is brewed and bottled in Belgium, then shipped to France, where it undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle (like champagne). The beer is then riddled and its sediment is disgorged, just like champagne. At $25 a bottle, it's pricey – but it's a bottle the size of a standard champagne bottle and the process yields a serious 11.5 percent ABV. The Deus has many of the same qualities of champagne: it's tremendously bubbly, pours with a fluffy head, but isn't as sweet. It would pair well with Jardinière's Alaskan halibut with artichokes, pearl onions, gypsy peppers, and house-made chorizo in a white wine-herb broth.

But the best place to pair beers with an excellent meal is Slanted Door, in its (relatively) new location in the Ferry Building. The bar alone is worth a visit – and not just for the views. The cocktails are of a completely different order from those of virtually any other place in town. When done right, Slanted Door's cocktails are some of the finest examples of the mixologist's art. And ... (drum roll) the restaurant boasts what is evidently a very carefully crafted beer menu on which you'll find 13 excellent selections that, when paired judiciously, can match virtually anything on the menu. A great call? The signature shaking beef – cubed filet mignon with garlic and organic red onions – paired with the Affligem Tripel. Its ripe pear notes mingle with the dark and light soy sauce, garlic, and peanut oil in the beef's sauce and slowly wash it away, leaving a sweet and satisfyingly yeasty finish.

Many of the Belgian ales are available in wine stores with decent beer selections, such as Russian Hill's Jug Shop or any BevMo in the area. Of course, another barrier to pairing Belgian ales is that so few restaurants offer anything beyond some of the more generic brands. Beer is exponentially cheaper, and if you're the manager of a fine restaurant, your goal is to tack on potentially 35 to 100 percent to the cost of the food by supplementing it with wine and/or other pricey spirits, et cetera. Some of the most expensive beer commercially available retails for only about $12 a bottle, which is about the median cost of a single glass of wine at Rubicon. But then, Rubicon offers Duvel (Belgian for devil), a nice Belgian golden ale with scents of pineapple but with a peppery, rich, creamy body ... well, I'll leave it to you to peruse the menu to see what goes well with it.