Nathan Berrong works at CNN's satellite desk and this is the fifth installment of his beer column . He Tweets at @nathanberrong and logs beers at Untappd . Drink up. Amazing beer and great food are two things near and dear to my heart, but it’s often hard to find both at the same place. I find that pub food is generally OK, maybe the best restaurant in town serves Guinness and gastropubs are headed in the right direction. But what about those times you want olive oil poached salmon with a Ballast Point Sculpin IPA? Where are those restaurants? If you’re a wine drinker, you cannot relate to this. Food and wine have shared an incredibly long and successful run together and it’s time to give beer the same respect. A good restaurant cannot survive, or even have relevance, without a great wine list. But as patrons we’ve largely ignored the short shrift restaurants give to beer. If a restaurant doesn’t have a carefully thought out beer menu, they are failing to understand their audience, the food and drink culture of today, and the range of flavors present in so many beers. I’m baffled when I go into a nice restaurant and the beer list mirrors the offerings of the convenience store down the street. The lack of consistency bothers me the most. A restaurant is too good to serve Sutter Home yet Budweiser and Heineken have their place on the menu? All is not bleak in the world of fine dining and great beer, though. There are establishments all over the country that are doing it very well. San Francisco’s Monk’s Kettle has pairing for years and chef and owner Adam Doyle is the beer world’s unofficial chef de cuisine. Recent James Beard Awards finalist, Stephanie Izard, has given craft beer its proper place at the table at her renowned restaurant Girl and the Goat in Chicago. On a recent visit to New York I had an incredible meal at Hearth and the highlight of my meal was grilled octopus with a Cantillon Fou Foune . Denver’s ChoLon has taken a more local approach with chef Lon Symeson and business partner Jim Deters serving beers from local brewery (and one of my personal favorites), Great Divide . Decatur, Georgia’s, Cakes & Ale takes the beer and food relationship official with chef and owner Billy Allin even naming the restaurant after a Shakespeare quote that nods to both. I recently spoke with Allin, a 2012 James Beard Awards semi-finalist, about his thoughtful approach to beer and food. Nathan Berrong: What made you start Cakes & Ale with a focus on serving good beer? Billy Allin: My knowledge of beer was limited until we opened the restaurant four years ago. The craft beer movement was basically in its infancy in Atlanta, and when the laws changed concerning alcohol content it was like the flood gates opened. This opened the market to so many great producers and allowed the consumer to taste beers they never had before. The Decatur market, in particular, was already very beer savvy and it seemed natural to really make an effort to offer some of the exciting beers available. NB: Does food pair just as well with beer as it does wine? BA: I think it does pair equally as well and better in some cases. Beer can be extremely complex and be more likely to have several taste aspects that go well with a particular dish where a wine may have only a single element and in many cases deals with its level of acidity. NB: Why are there so many great restaurants in America that neglect beer but focus so heavily on wine? BA: Beer, though not for that much longer, is viewed as less a special occasion drink than wine. With the number of breweries offering special releases and more complex options I think more restaurants will look at beer as a special occasion drink. NB: Any parting thoughts on the relationship between food and beer? BA: As more and more breweries push the flavor profiles of beer and rethink the ingredient list things can only get better. I think right now it is almost in the mad scientist and experimental stage and that is great for the industry and consumer. The next stage is where the producers take a step back and look for balance and the brewer that finds that level consistently will be at the forefront of the next stage. My whole goal as a chef/restaurateur is to offer what tastes great and sparks interest in a guest and beer is very quickly catching on as an alternative to wine in dining . My plea to restaurateurs Chef Allin gets it. My hope is that others in the food world soon will too and start exploring the possibilities that beer can bring to the dinner table. So, to the accomplished chefs, restaurant owners, restaurateurs, and all the ones just now coming onto the scene, here’s my plea: put the same effort, dedication, and money into the beer you serve, as you do your wine program. If you do, I think you’ll be astounded at the results. As a restaurant patron, experiment with different beer styles and find out the ones that go best with your favorite foods and then go from there. If your favorite restaurant in town isn’t serving good beer, politely ask them to. Below, I’ve listed some of my favorite dishes and a beer and style I think goes well with each one. Cheers to eating and drinking well. A few of my favorite pairings: Raw oysters and Harpoon Island Creek Oyster Stout (Oyster Stout) North Carolina style pulled pork sandwiches and Russian River Supplication (Wild Ale) Brisket enchiladas and Victory Hop Devil (IPA) Seared duck and Ommegang Three Philosophers (Quadrupel) Pork belly steamed buns and Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (Hefeweizen) Charcuterie and Samuel Adams Cinder Bock (Rauchbier) Lamb korma and Saison Dupont (Saison) Poutine and Westmalle Trappist Dubbel (Dubbel) Stinky bleu cheese and Great Divide Old Ruffian (Barleywine) Mexican chocolate macaron and Southern Tier Choklat (Imperial Stout) Do you have a favorite beer and food pairing? If so, I’d love to hear about in the comments.

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Berrong on Beer – Why do restaurants neglect beer?

The families of four US citizens violently killed in Iraq in 2004 settle a long-running lawsuit with Blackwater, the US security firm that hired them.

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Blackwater families settle case

The families of four US citizens violently killed in Iraq in 2004 settle a long-running lawsuit with Blackwater, the US security firm that hired them.

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Blackwater families settle case

On the muddy edge of the Wicomico River, where tall grass hides all sorts of vermin, Stephen Kendrot and his patrol of federal wildlife biologists tracked the dirty rat that’s destroying precious Chesapeake Bay marsh. A near-decade-long federal and state effort to get rid of nutria, or swamp rats, killed 13,000 of the giant rodents but failed to eradicate them from the Delmarva Peninsula . So Kendrot and his team at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge got strict final orders last week: Find the last survivors. Kill them all. And when it looks like they’re gone, go back and make sure. Read full article > >

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In Maryland, a renewed effort to eradicate swamp rats from the Delmarva Peninsula

Erik Prince is back in business. The billionaire founder of mercenary group Blackwater Worldwide is helping set up a special forces battalion in the United Arab Emirates, where he resettled recently as his company faced mounting legal challenges in the…

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Blackwater Founder Training UAE Battalion

Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, has been hired to assemble a force of foreign troops in the United Arab Emirates, according to a variety of sources.

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Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder

Not everyone loves John Ashcroft, but it’s fair to say that his reputation is better than Xe Services, the military contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater. The former Bush attorney general will bring his comparatively spotless record to the…

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Ashcroft to Head Ethics at Blackwater

MOYOCK, N.C. — Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is joining the security firm once known as Blackwater. Investment group USTC Holdings, LLC, said Wednesday that Ashcroft is serving as an independent director for Moyock, N.C.-based Xe (ZEE) Services. The director positions were created in December when USTC purchased Xe. The private company became famous as Blackwater, which provided guards and services to the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Read full article > >

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Former US Attorney General John Ashcroft joining security company once known as Blackwater

Somalia said Sunday that it would most likely sever its relationship with Saracen International, a private security company in which South African mercenaries and the founder of Blackwater are said to be involved.

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Somalia May Cut Ties to Mercenary Firm

A war-ravaged and lawless country? Blackwater founder Eric Prince smells a business opportunity. Prince is reportedly secretly pushing controversial South African mercenary firm Saracen International to join Somalia’s civil war. Saracen appears to be…

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Blackwater Founder Eyeing Somalia

Blackwater changed its name to Xe, and now it’s hoping a change of hands might help the company’s image: Erik Prince, head of the defense contractor, is working on a deal to sell the company to a small group of Los Angeles investors. Xe has faced an…

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Erik Prince Selling Blackwater

Solutions: Making Government Work is a weekly column edited by Dina Rasor, an investigative journalist and author with three decades of experience fighting waste, corruption and fraud. read more

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Solutions: Making Government Work

Does this mean Blackwater can get a foot back in the door? International aid groups may get an exemption from Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s ban on private security firms. Kabul has insisted the private firms undermine the Afghan army and police…

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Karzai May Allow Private Security

Maybe we need Blackwater after all: The Washington Post reports that American development firms are beginning to shut down their development projects in Afghanistan because the government there refuses to lift a ban on private security guards. Hundreds…

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U.S. Firms to End Afghan Projects

It looks like Blackwater guards won’t get their day in court after all. Efforts to prosecute the personnel of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, of murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan are falling apart, apparently due to legal…

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Blackwater Cases Collapse