Wales has a prodigious thirst to quench. In popular imagination, it may be the land of castles and bards, and the home of Merlin and Arthur. But in the middle of the 19th century, the reality was rapid industrial development that made some men enormously wealthy and left the laboring man thirsty for beer.

Welsh,Beer,People,Life and Changes - Ugly,Lovely City
"You wouldn't be caught dead drinking Brain's in Swansea," said Sean Keir, director of the new Dylan Thomas Center there. Ironically, Dylan's, a new Brain's beer named for the Welsh poet may make Brain's acceptable in Thomas' "ugly, lovely Swansea." It may be odd to name a beer after the poet whose death in New York at a tragically young 39 in 1953 was attributed to alcohol. But his last words - "I've just drunk 18 straight whiskeys. I think that's a record." - suggest that beer might have been a more prudent drink for the talented writer.

Thomas wrote humorously and affectionately about intimate Welsh life, whether in the small fictional village of Llareggub ("Bugger all," backwards), or the small communities within the city of Swansea. Pub life is part of Thomas' Wales. In Under Milk Wood, his word play for radio, the happily married Mrs. Cherry Owen counts herself lucky that her husband drinks beer: And Mr. Cherry Owen, sober as Sunday as he is every day of the week, goes off happy as Saturday to get drunk as a deacon as he does every night. "I always say she's got two husbands," says Cherry Owen, "one drunk and one sober." And Mrs Cherry simply says "And aren't I a lucky woman? Because I love them both."

Beer and Cheese - It's Better Than Wine and Cheese (by Fred Eckhardt)
It's widely assumed that wine and cheese are compatible friends. They're paired together so routinely that phrases like "the white wine and Brie crowd" can be used to define a social set. But all is not well in this friendship. At least one wine writer has recognized this, according to brew master and gourmand Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewing: Willy Gluckstern, a somewhat cranky New York wine critic, called wine and cheese a "train wreck in the mouth."

Not many folks realize that beer and cheese have far more in common than wine and cheese. Both are simple and nutritious, each born of Graminae and carefully nurtured in an ancient fermentation process. Of course, the beer aficionado must be forgiving of the fact that cheese residue remaining on the lips will crash the finest head formations of any beer. If you can put up with that inconvenience, you'll find that most beer styles are quite compatible with most cheese types.

Rogue Kells Lager
4.8% ABV, 28 IBU, Newport, OR.
Cheese: Alan Sprints' quick homemade "Hair of the Dog" cheese (an overnight prep, where boiling milk is coagulated with lemon juice). This was a very friendly combination, simple, low key, and a great way to start the tasting.

Deschutes Pine Pilsner
5.4% ABV, 50 IBU, Bend, OR.
Cheese: Bandon White Aged Cheddar (Bandon, OR). Served as a simple "sandwich": first a small pretzel, with a thin slice of fresh apple, and topped with a slice of the cheddar. I ask the reader, how could one have a beer and cheese tasting without at least a slice of apple?

Rogue Hazelnut Brown
5.5% ABV, 33 IBU.
Cheese: Sally Jackson Chestnut semi-soft cheese, in three varieties: unpasteurized sheep, goat and cow milk (Okanogan WA). This was my choice of "Best" combination, tied with the IPA-Camembert combination below. Actually, I personally liked the cows' milk version best, surprising myself. The cows' milk version was also the darkest (yellow) of the three.

Source:http://www.allaboutbeer.com