As part of my ongoing efforts to rekindle my nightlife mojo, I began a review of all relevant party skills, starting with beer knowledge. For too long I have asked of beer only that it be cold, plentiful and steadily poured. I resolved to purge my ignorance with a visit to Xenon Yuan, master of the Beijing beer universe.

Xenon is a Beijing sales representative for beer importer-distributor Dxcel Partners. But that’s really just his cover to seriously freaky-deaky-geek-out on all things beer, which he does with monkish devotion at his blog, ChinaBeerGeek.com.

“I started learning about beer by trying every beer I could find,” says Xenon, who names Red Seal Ale, found at Apothecary and Jenny Lou’s, as well as Achel Bruin, found at Morels, Beer Mania and The Tree, as among his favorites available in Beijing. “You can also get the Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier at Nola. Eudora even has it on tap.”

Soon after coming to China for study in 2007, Xenon began bringing beers back from the States for tastings with friends in Wudaokou, where there were still too few quality foreign brews. “I wanted to share the art and history of beer,” says Xenon, “and show people how it can match with food.” Match with food? Like beer and chuan’r? Beer and pizza?

“Compared to wine, beer actually has an equal if not wider range of pairings with food. Carbonation, bitterness, malt sweetness – these are all things that can help with food,” says Xenon.

Examples?

“Well, there are famous pairings like English barleywine and Stilton cheese; Belgium’s moules-frites and witbier. Myself, I like a creamy pasta carbonara with a Belgian tripel – that deep-blonde abbey-style ale.”

Not having tried any of these pairings, I plunged deeper into my ignorance by asking why darker beers are stronger.

“They’re not,” explains Xenon, “There is no necessary connection between color, flavor and alcohol content in beer. You can brew to get whatever you want. Guinness Draught is about 4 percent alcohol. American Budweiser looks light and has little flavor, but it’s 5 percent. The aforementioned tripels are usually 7 percent or more.”

More ignorance: Must I drink beer from a glass?

“Pouring beer into a glass forms a head that helps open up the aroma. And yes, the bottle itself matters too. Green glass is the worst, exposing beer to harmful wavelengths of light. Ten minutes in the sun is all it takes to skunk your beer.”

This rang a bell. Green glass. Skunked. Could it be Yanjing?

“Could be worse,” he laughs, “but it’s decent on tap—at the brewery.”

Class dismissed, people. Time to double down on the Tripels and tipple.