Pairing food with just the right wine has long been a staple element of fancy dinner parties and meals at high-end restaurants. But suds lovers deserve similar consideration, don’t they? Certainly.

Unlike winemakers, who typically work with one base ingredient (grapes) when making a match, brewers experiment with infinite combinations of barley, hops, and yeast, not to mention additional ingredients such as chocolate, fruit, spices, nuts, and even vegetables. The potential for creating exciting complementary beer and food pairings is vast, and there are a few Denver restaurants that specialize in it; To the Wind Bistro and Euclid Hall Bar & Kitchen both come to mind. That said, for such a beer-crazed city, we’re often surprised by how stumped servers are when we ask for a beer pairing recommendation for a dish.

Thus, in honor of Colorado Craft Beer Week (April 2–7) and National Beer Day (April 7), we’ve compiled a (printable!) cheat sheet to help you match your meal with the right style of brew like a seasoned pro. And to do so, we enlisted the help of two guys who know about the topic: Steve Kurowski, marketing director for the Colorado Brewers Guild, and Adam Dulye, executive chef at the Brewers Association. May this distillation of their knowledge lead you to delicious new beer-and-food experiences.

Click here to download 5280’s Beer & Food Pairing Guide