It's the first genuinely warm day of the summer, and everything is set fair for that most unusual of British occasions: a rain-free barbecue. The hosts have rolled out their spanking new, top of the range monster grill, and by the time you arrive it's already smoking nicely thanks to the addition of some restaurant-grade hickory woodchips to the burning coals. The meat, expensively procured from an award-winning local butcher, is ready to go after resting for the best part of two days in family-secret marinades. High-end bottled sauces and carefully put-together salads are arranged on a sidetable. An iPod is playing music you actually like.

But then comes the fly in the ointment, the wasp in the honey-and-mustard dressing. Offering you a drink, your host points you in the direction of a large bucket of ice filled with beer. As you reach in to grab one you realise this is in fact an unlucky dip from the land of the discounted multibuy: 24 cans apiece of Foster's and Carlsberg jostle for space with 24 mini-bottles of weak own-label French lager.

Now although my job basically boils down to being fussy for a living, I'm not the sort of person who will refuse a drink just because it's not what I would have chosen or it hasn't entered the pantheon of accepted critical opinion. All the same, I can't help finding it a little strange that the same people who will go to enormous lengths and expense to get the food right when they have people round will pay no more than the scantest regard to what they offer their guests to drink. This is particularly true when it comes to barbecues and the drink that, with its mixture of refreshment and food-matching versatility, works best with them – beer.

Perhaps it's just another example of how the British undervalue a product that is every bit as exciting, varied and culturally important as wine, but when it comes to laying on beer for larger gatherings like barbecues there's a tendency to go for quantity rather than quality in the mistaken belief that they all taste pretty much the same anyway. While there is some truth in the notion that many mass-market lager brands are more or less interchangeable, the explosion of small artisan brewers in the UK, US and elsewhere over the past couple of decades means there are more interesting beers available today than I can remember in my drinking lifetime.

I'd recommend skipping the latest brand on the promotional merry-go-round and paying a few pence more for beers that actually complement the food on offer rather than merely whetting whistles. If there are prawns on the barbie, I'd serve up a continental-style blonde beer like the zesty Marks & Spencer's Southwold Blonde Beer, brewed by my local favourite Suffolk's Adnams (£2.19), or a slightly spicier golden ale, like the Co-op's Truly Irresistible Gold Miner Ale from the Freeminer Brewery in the Forest of Dean (£1.69), both of which have a refreshing citrusy twang that works well with seafood. .

When spicy marinades come into play – whether with fish, chicken or pork – I'd move on to a more robust British style, one that has always been associated with curry, the intensely hoppy India Pale Ale. The best contemporary versions, all with ABVs of around 7%, hail from south-east London brewers: Maltby Street microbrewer Kernel produces several different IPAs (visit thekernelbrewery.com for local stockists) and Greenwich's Meantime (£27.99 for a case of six 75cl bottles, meantimebrewing.com) is one of Britain's very best beers. Punk IPA (£1.69, widely available) is Scottish iconoclasts' Brewdog's fruitier, lighter (5.6%), and somewhat more affordable alternative.

For the main event – red meat, sausages, burgers – classic British bitter seems to work best. Beers such as the intensely rich, smoky, malty and toffee-ed Fullers ESB Champion Ale (from £1.99, widely available) or the dark wholegrain toast and dried fruit-flavoured Admiral's Ale from St Austell's in Cornwall (from £2, Waitrose, selected Spar and the Co-operative) have enough savoury power and depth to stand up to the smoke and char. But if, as it surely must, the rain intervenes, they also have enough fruity verve to offer a warming consolation all on their own.

Five great barbecue beers

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (from £1.84, Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury's)
A standard-bearer and pioneer of the vibrant west coast American craft beer movement, this rich, full-bodied pale ale is lifted far out of the ordinary by its exuberantly cinnamon spicy and fruity flavours, testament, according to the brewers, to the use of Cascade hops.

Budweiser Budvar Dark Lager (from £2.05, Tesco, Waitrose)
Budvar is best known for its excellent golden lager and legalistic naming wrangles with American behemoth Budweiser, but this relative newcomer to the Czech brewer's range is a throwback to how Czech beers used to be in the pre-pilsener 19th century. With its roasted coffee flavours, it drinks like stout for lager-drinkers.

Coopers Sparkling Ale(from £1.99, Laithwaites; Waitrose)
A brew from the home of the barbie that gives the lie to the transplanted Monty Python crack that Aussie beer is like making love in a canoe. Rather than being "fucking close to water", this cloudy, golden bottle-fermented gem is intensely flavoured with yeasty, herby and spicy notes.

Thornbridge Jaipur India Pale Ale (£2.40, Waitrose)
Derbyshire's Thornbridge has only been going since 2005, but it's already become one of Britain's most acclaimed craft brewers. This gorgeous IPA's smooth-textured tropical fruit richness is cut by a pronounced lemony-hoppy bite and is more than a match for spicy, garlicky marinades.

Duvel (from £2.10, Asda, Sainsbury's, Tesco)
A classic of its type, and a fixture on "world's best beer" lists, Belgium's Duvel is a gorgeously floral rounded and easy-drinking golden beer with a distinctive sweet pear and apple richness and a twist of bitterness. At 8.5% abv, there's a fair whack of alcohol here, but it works beautifully with spicy sausages.