A fine beer makes the perfect companion for watching a FIFA World Cup soccer game (starting Thursday [June 12]), especially when it’s consumed in one of Vancouver’s growing number of drinking places with a good choice of craft brews on tap. It’s now possible to show your support in liquid form for most of the national teams with topnotch locally produced beers in styles popular in the homeland, with a few liberties taken.

Commercial Drive is, of course, the prime location for World Cup action—before, during, and especially after the game—and the massive beer list at multiscreened St. Augustine’s (2360 Commercial Drive) suggests a few choice team-and-beer couplings. The lager-loving nations—led by Germany and including Latin America, the Mediterranean coast, and Africa—form by far the largest group in the World Cup. At St. Augustine’s, their progress through the tournament can be measured in glasses of Hoyne Brewing Company’s robust and beautifully balanced Helios Dortmunder Golden Lager. This beer style from the industrial Ruhr region has the requisite clean, crisp bite and weighs in at a solid six percent alcohol. For the more usual and lighter Bavarian style, try Parallel 49 Brewing Company’s St. Augustine’s Lager. Fans of Germany also have Parallel 49’s hefty Banana Hammock Hefeweizen on hand, an unfiltered traditional wheat beer from Bavaria.

St. Augustine’s offers two strong choices from the West Coast for supporters of Team USA. The delicious 33 Acres of Life California Common by 33 Acres Brewing is a lower-alcohol beer—a lager fermented at ale temperatures to give it a fruitlike profile, made with Mount Hood hops. At the other end of the scale is Howe Sound Brewing’s not-for-novices Total Eclipse of the Hop, an eight-percent Northwest-style double India Pale Ale made with six varieties of hops.

Further north on the Drive, BierCraft (1191 Commercial Drive) is clearly the place to roar for plucky Belgium and its ales, in the centenary of the country’s cataclysmic invasion—but let’s not talk about that. A glass of draft Grimbergen (a well-malted dubbel with a honeyed-bourbon finish) or a La Chouffe blond ale should bring harmony among all European sides; the deceptively pale golden ale, at 8.5 percent, has a kick like Lionel Messi’s left foot. Orange-clad fans of the Netherlands are advised to cross the beer border and raid the neighbouring Flemish territory for their drinks.

BierCraft has prime attractions for England followers, too. New local outfit Bomber Brewing’s excellent, well-hopped Extra Special Bitter has roasty David Beckham–ish notes, while the company’s beautifully balanced West Coast–style IPA pairs nicely with Wayne Rooney’s shining pate on a hot, sunny day at the goalmouth.

If you’d rather be on the water than on the Drive, Tap & Barrel (1 Athletes Way) offers a multitude of screens on its two levels and a broad spectrum of artisanal beers. A saison is a thirst-slaying farmhouse ale from French-speaking Belgium and is closest to the bière de garde of northern France, the most distinctive of the French styles. Two different saisons are currently available at Tap & Barrel. In the interest of avoiding diplomatic upset, the Straight is not, however, suggesting that fans of Les Bleus would want to salute their team with glasses of Spring Loaded Saison by Dead Frog Brewery but instead with Driftwood Brewing Company’s Farmhand Saison, full of flavour and panache, with a lingering rather than sudden end.

England supporters, Londoners in particular, should hunt down 20-ounce pints of Parallel 49’s ESB, a nitro beer that has an exceptionally smooth feel and maintains its head of foam impressively. Inspired by the classic Fuller’s ESB from Chiswick, it’s probably the closest of all the beers mentioned to an English palate. Irish and Scots rooting for Australia—and Aussies of Celtic descent—should get together over pints of Gael’s Blood Potato Ale by Crannóg Ales, made with organic spuds. For a trip further into the midsummer’s gloaming, Crannóg’s smooth and mildly hopped dry stout Back Hand of God is at hand.

Whatever your chosen teams, when they lose—as all must, save one—a pint of Phillips Brewing Company’s Longboat Chocolate Porter, rich and dark, with a distinctive cacao flavour, will nurse even the deepest wounds to national pride. Beer is the best of all companions to the beautiful game, and it’s no coincidence that the World Cup is staged at the thirstiest time of year. Enjoy it all to the last drop.