Features
Wine & Beer Pairing: Exploring Fermentations
Wine and beer may share a yeast strain on the surface, but they also share the ability to bring people together.
1 October 2026
Pairing beer with wine was the first for many, including the hosts Koo Jifu and Jaclene Liew. (Photo Credit: AWR)
In an unexpected pairing: beer and wine.
On the surface, their fermentations seem similar. Both wine and beer rely on yeast, specifically a strain called Saccharomyces cerevisiae, to convert sugar in the liquid to carbon dioxide and alcohol.
Wine uses grapes, while beer uses grains such as barley. This leads to a higher alcohol level in wine at 12 to 15% compared to beer at 4 to 6%. Not to mention the higher acidity, as we outlined during the session, which makes your mouth salivate.
Other than the fact that both hosts, while both professionally trained in more alcohol than one, have not done this before, the structure of such a pairing is rather daunting. There is a first to everything, and this was our first, trying to pair wine with beer.
Sibu is not a city most wine drinkers in Johor Bahru could place on a map, let alone name a brewery from. But Leyd Brewing Co makes craft beer there, on the Sarawak side of Borneo, in a part of Malaysia not known for wine, nor really any alcohol. Despite the regulatory challenges, Director and Brewmaster, Koo Jifu, built their craft beer brandly proudly in Malaysia.
It is worth nothing that Jifu came to the wine bar himself rather than simply send the cans over and call it a collaboration. He and Jaclene Liew, AWR's Editor-in-Chief, had spent enough time talking past each other's drink of choice that doing an actual tasting together feels more like something that was simply overdue. Together with another wine-loving friend, Co-Founder Ryan Cheng of Kami Wine Bar, this event took shape. Hanareya Group supplied the wines, while Leyd supplied the beer.
St.Donat's Slikker Olaszrizling 2023 is crisp and fresh, showing hints of citrus ith a saline, mineral finish. Leyd's Hakka Pilsner, brewed with New Zealand hops, brought its own bright, almost tropical lift. In this case, the lightness of both the beer and wine complemented each other. Tamás Kovács, the winemaker at Szent Donát, is passionate about expressing different terroirs, while the Hakka Pilsner is named after both the New Zealand Māori Haka while also paying tribute to the Founder of Leyd being of Chinese Hakka descent.
