surprising success with tiny hookah

From BOS_webalbum

In the absence of the mother of all hookahs, as I like to call her... sometimes.. well really just now. Anyway, it's chillin at T-bag's pad. So, we dug out this $15 hookah, plugged in the old hose with the help of some electrical tape and sealed on the pyrex bowl with a shred of paper towel. To prevent burning (since this small hookah doesn't seem to filter as well and also has a shorter distance to the heat, increasing the likelihood of really feeling over-cooked shisha), I used the cheap metal faux-foil with a foil above it. I think this helps by raising the heat moderately off the tobacco, creating a large flat pad for the tobacco to sit on, and also by closing off air sources that don't pass near the coals (i.e. from the side and bottom of the cheap faux-foil). Lastly, an old shoe padded with old socks was used to stabilize the little bastard. I think that's its name - "Little Bastard," an endearing term nonetheless. By avoiding over-heating, not all of the tobacco burned through, but there was absolutely no burning. Some smoke escaped from holes in the quickly-done electrical tape job, but mostly air escaped through the ball-bearing'ed carb. The sound was no different from that of a usual bubbler. This little experience just goes to show that the hookah is just a modified bong, but it's still pretty sweet (I can't imagine that smoking tobacco through a bong would be very appealing). Or maybe it's that a bong is just a burn-y hookah... but that's neither here nor anywhere else.
Notes:
The carb with a ball bearing was a little annoying because I've gotten used to being able to blow smoke through the bowl to check burnage, etc., but it may be that the ball bearing, when fitted properly, is helpful in decreasing burnage... Is this reasonable?
A hose that has been left to sit for a while begins to taste like the synthetic lining... gross. Needs extensive cleaning.
Tiny hookah worked well, except the hose seems to get more crap in it. This could be an artifact of using the old hose, but I think that I cleaned it pretty thoroughly, and I don't know why smoking would loosen something that wasn't already released by soap and hot water.

Conundrum: Having beer with hookah is always ontologically better than just having a hookah. However, very few beers "go with" hookah, and each might actually detract from the other's enjoyability factor. It's also possible that certain hookah flavors go and don't go with certain beers.
Solution:
What beers and/or liquors match well with sweet, fruity, tobacco-y, strong, minty, and other categories of hookah flavors?
Remaining issue:
What is the threshold for hookah-beer matching at which it's better to have both rather than each separately?

Obviously, I take hedonism very seriously.