Bubbly But Never Boozy

• Forget the rule of reds and whites that applies to wine pairings. Beer has its own rules. Certain beers are better with certain spices, aromatics, herbs and other ingredients you might use to sear your tuna. To keep your life simple, bear in mind that craft beer pairing entails a few dominant taste elements: Sweet calms sweet, acid calms salt, bitter calms sweet and umami complements umami. Umami, borrowed from the Japanese, refers to savory taste imparted by the amino acid glutamate.

Sizzling, Sweet, Succulent and Sensational

• For plain seared tuna with or without a sweet accompaniment, such as mango salsa, or seared tuna with a semisweet crust -- for instance, sesame seeds and breadcrumbs -- opt for a neutral white beer. Hefeweizen, a classic German wheat and malted barley beer, is slightly creamy and moderately sweet. Its medium body and bubbly crispness are all-around partners to most seafood, and would both play off, and exalt, tuna. The other option is rye pale ale, something whose midrange alcohol by volume -- referred to as ABV -- of 5 to 6 percent, and medium sourness from hops, would cut through the sweetness without overpowering the tuna.

Scorching, Spicy, Savvy and Sublime

• Peppery seared tuna calls a sunlit beach to mind and transports your tongue to Pacific shorelines. To quell the volcanic heat of your hot seafood entree, go with a red or an amber ale. Red and amber ales are very egalitarian libations that politely and fairly converse with a wide range of foods, including most seafood. Their hoppy quality is low to medium and their flavors approach the Goldilocks zone, neither too heavy nor too light, bold as a red wine but finishing like a dry white. A good chill on the beer further serves to balance out the peppery tuna.

Sour, Slippery, Saucy and Solo

• Citrus-seared tuna or seared tuna with acidic elements stands alone. Acid is a brilliant diva that leaves little room for much else yet somehow manages to share the stage with others, such as garlic and butter. With boldly flavored seafood where acid is the central flavor, keep it sharp but democratic via a classic Pilsener, or Pilsner. Named after its parent city in the Czech Republic, there are Czech, German and American Pilseners. All varieties are pale golden in color and have an average ABV of 5 percent; each sip conveys a background debate between subtle sweetness and hoppy flavor. This beer is just forward enough to court lemon zesty seared tuna but never oversteps its boundaries.

Remind Me About Umami

• Umami enhances anything it comes into contact with, which is why it's a main additive in most foods in the form of monosodium glutamate. Beer pairings in this category pertain to Asian- and Indian-themed dishes, especially those on the salty, spicy side. These might include seared tuna with soy and sesame; Thai-style seared tuna with coconut and chili; or seared tuna with paprika, turmeric, cumin or other spices common to Indian cuisine. A healthy match for any of these are smoky, sweet or oatmeal stouts, India pale ales, maibock or pale bock. Maibock and pale bock are the sauvignon blanc of beers. They're typically dry, somewhat sour, light red to orange in color, with toasty sweetness and spice in the finish.