New Glarus & Cheese Pairing

Beer and Cheese. Its a great combo.While passing through Wisconsin I had the good fortune to stumble upon New Glarus Brewing, and brought home a good deal of beer from them and some cheese from the area giving me the chance to host a local Wisconsin beer and cheese pairing session. The results were tasty, I assure you and in the hopes that you will give beer and cheese a try Id like to share my pairing notes with you. 

Spotted cow ( Saison Style) with brown cow Baby Swiss:

Spotted cow turns out to be a very light interpretation of the saison style. Brewed with corn, light, refreshing, with just a hint of the belgian "funk" of lemon and grass. Very nice beer. Apparently is 70% of their sales. The lightness and the slight funk is present in both the cheese and the beer, bringing out new flavors from both, while still keeping it light.

Stone Soup ( Belgian Pale Ale) with one year aged brown cow Swiss:
Stone Soup seems almost like cross between a belgian and a german wheat beer, it has a good deal of sweetness but is fairly sharp. The swiss is tasty, and the beer seems to contrast with the cheese, making an OK pairing.

Moon Man ( American Pale Ale) with one year aged Cheddar:
The beer has a strong nose of citrus, especially grapefruit, however the taste is much milder, with a fairly low bitterness. The cheese is a very rich creamy cheddar, I cant say the pairing is good. The dominant citrus in the beer just does not have anything to grab on to in the cheese.

Fat Squirrel ( Nut Brown Ale) with ten year aged Cheddar:
The nut brown ale is just how I like it, subtle nuttiness, dash of smoke, balancing sweetness, and a strong bitter middle. Cheese is sharp, as one would expect, but also retains more creaminess that i would imagine. Pairing is good. Specifically the nut flavor and bitterness in both come together well, and the sweetness and carbonation in the beer contrasts with the cheese to form a new flavor experience. Cheddar and Brown Ales are usually nice, and this pairing is no exception.

Coffee Stout and Wisconsin Belgian Red ( Wheat beer with cherries and aged on oak) with Chocolate Fudge:
Not actually a cheese pairing, but close enough. Coffee Stout does exactly what I would expect it to do. Sweet malts enhance the fudge a little, but the bitterness and astringency of the coffee beer contrasts and balances with the fudge delightfully. Not necessarily adding a bundle of new flavors but deepening the existing ones. The Wisconsin Red on the other hand brings dark cherry, earthiness, vanilla, and a host of new flavors to the party。Great on its own, paired with the fudge the Wisconsin Red becomes an event desert experience.

Overall I would say the best pairing was the Spotted Cow followed closely by the Fat Squirrel. Beer pairing is a lot of fun, and fairly easy. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of beer. Just pick up some quality beer, and a variety of cheeses and you'll probably find a good match in there somewhere. If you want to increase the odds of create a memorable pairing consider the following:
1. Match the impact of pairing elements. Make sure the "impact" of the beer and cheese are similar. This includes flavors, richness, aftertaste, really everything.
2. Compliment or contrast main flavors. Take a minute to consider the dominant flavors in both the beer and the cheese. These are not always the flavors which will come through in a pairing but usually it will be the case. Then try to either match the main flavors somewhat, or put two opposites in for contrast.
3. Have fun. Food should be about fun. You will make mistakes. Regardless if you have good beer, and good food, it will be fine.

On a final note if your ever in Southern Wisconsin I highly recommend New Glarus Brewery. Essentially what they have done with their brewery is build it, from the start, as open to visitors. The brewery is laid out somewhat like a museum where you can watch the production process from grains to bottling and ask the staff questions. Of course they have a gift shop, a bar, and a bottle shop. The set up is just amazing from a management and marketing stand point, really just a great business model. From a beer stand point its also nice because it brings in people who would not normally drink good beer, but does it in a classy way. Basically, New Glarus has branded themselves as "Wisconsin's craft beer", they do a wonderful job of this, and it really shows in their beers and their brewery.

-Eric

New Desert Beer

So I found an excellent pairing. I was assisting my restaurants chef in pairing some beers with an Xmas dinner. Originally I had decided to go with a belgian double ( heavy, sweet, dark beer). However since we were just doing a test dinner, and the beer in question is fairly expensive, I randomly grabbed Fullers London Porter out of the fridge. Its imported by one of my parent companies so I figured its use would please everyone.
We tried a number of food pairings for this dinner coming to these conclusions: First, Paulaner works fine with salmon with basil dressing, but not so good with salmon + spicy salsa. On the other hand hoppy beers, like a pale ale, or an amber with good bitterness work quite well. Second, Fullers ESB is a hefty beer. We tried it with turkey with stuffing and all that and it was just too much. When we substituted in London Pride, the result was much better.
Finally, London Porter is great with chocolate cakes/tarts/ chocolate. Puts wine to shame. Not even a contest. We tried the porter with a chocolate tart with a raspberry sauce ( real raspberries, watched chef blend them) Flavor ride. First you get luscious semi sweet chocolate, and all the little flavors that come with it. The raspberries follow it up with that tart, woody flavor that they have. Then you drink the beer. All of a sudden the chocolate flavors from the tart and the chocolate flavors in the beer come bursting back out. Weeee! But wait, whats this? Its a peety, burt, bitter finish which contrasts so well it real feels, filthy is the best way I can describe it. Afterwords I tried the beer with some other chocolate deserts with similar results. Its quite versatile and surprisingly robust. Try it for yourself and tell me Im wrong.

Nabe Pairing Testing

There are some good resources for Beer Pairing out there. But none I have found really cover with much depth pairing Japanese food and beer, aside from say sushi. Of course you can take a pairing for a more general food and apply it to something similar in the Japanese cuisine, but thats tricky does not always work.
So Its been a bit of a quest of mine to find beers that pair well with Japanese food. Last night I tried to find some beers to match with Nabe. Nabe really is one of the great things about Japan. Its basically a pot, usually cooked at the table, with veggies, shrooms, meat, tofu, and whatever you want boiled in a light broth of some kind. If you are unaware of this dish, or have not made it I encourage your to go find a recipe and make it. It is, like all good recipes, tasty, easy, and healthy. Wonderful in cold weather as well. Try it with a kotatsu for bonus points.
I made it with a soy sauce based broth, then hakusai ( cabbage), shitake, negi ( big ass green onions), and pork. Also made some yuzu ( sweetish lemon thing) dipping sauce, and sesame dipping sauce.

As shown above I tried a pilsner ( the original), Anchors Liberty Ale, Nests Pale Ale, De Rankes XX Bitter, and Fullers London Porter. Just some beers I happen to be able to grab. I was expecting big things from the Liberty Ale, I guess just because Anchors Steam Ale did well before with Temaki, another Japanese dish. It was good, but as it turned out a bit too big, the beer overwhelmed the dish, just a bit, in terms of malt, hops, and even carbonation. The looser of the night was the pilsner. I think this specific pilsner has a very delicate and slightly sour taste, which while probably amazing with other dishes clashed with this one. The london porter and XXX bitter we also satisfying in their own rights, but they both quite overwhelmed the dish, no meshing of flavor.
The winner of the night was Nests Pale Ale. I am not a fan of this beer, I have drunk it before and found it to be satisfying but not special. This time it worked though. Not 100% sure exactly how, but I think the light body and slight sweetness matched the impact of the dish well. Then I would say that the flavor of the hops worked well with the dish, but that is really to vague to be all that useful. I do remember distinctly that combined with the nabe, the beer tasted much sweeter, providing a nice balance to the foods general saltiness. So next time I think I will try a few more Pale Ales and see if I cant reach a clearer conclusion.



-Eric

Baird & spicy pizza

Today on the blog I pair a few beers from Baird Brewing with a spicy pizza. The phenomenon of how spice and beer interact has really intrigued me ever since I had some great mexican and a bottle of 90min IPA. So after getting some great hot sauce from a friend back in the states I promptly decided to use it on some pizza.

Beer and pizza are a fantastic match up for many reasons. First off roasted malt and pizza have similar flavors, baked bread, a slight sweetness. Then you have the spices in the pizza playing with the hops in the beer. Finally pizza can get a bit heavy, and beer is happy to wash away those heavy flavors with its carbonation. This is not complicated, most college students already know this simply by instinct.

My thinking was that I would try two beers from Baird Brewing. Their flagship, Rising Sun Pale Ale and a favorite Angry Boy Brown Ale. American brown ales are usually thought of as a good counterpart to pizza and I figured that since it was a fairly light pizza (just cheese, and a light sauce of tomatoes, onion, garlic, and mushrooms) the Pale Ale might also work well (BA Review). I also thought that the hot sauce would be fairly mild and work well with the bitterness, especially in the brown ale.

Unfortunately, the hot sauce was really far too hot. The heat was tasty, and not without depth, however it was a bit much for the beers. To be honest I am not sure if anything could have paired with hot sauce this hot, maybe a very malty and very bitter DIPA. What I ended up with was two beers who's subtitles were washed out by the heat. Oh well, lesson learned next time less hot sauce.