Where's the Cheese & Beer Book You Were Writing?

Image kindly created by Simon @ CAMRGB

Its a question I'm often asked and certainly valid, given the number of people I told I would be writing it! Its a difficult topic to write about because it touches on life outside of the beer bubble so take this post outside of my usual sphere of comfort but people deserve some kind of explanation, particularly those brewers who sent me beer samples for potential inclusion and the cheese makers who likewise sent through cheese. Special mention must also be made of Paxton and Whitfield who kindly arranged to sell me cheese at cost; to make it easier for me to afford the project on my own coin. Perhaps a chronological summary would best help explain.

Things kicked off well in early 2012. The idea was fresh in my mind and I drafted  layout of how I envisaged the book to look. Possible pairings were drawn up using previous experience as a guide. I decided early on that I wanted to feature UK breweries and cheeses; to highlight the breadth and quality we have on our own shores. I wanted to challenge the unwritten assumption that the best cheese is French and the best beers are Belgian and US! (I'd very much have liked to included Irish beers and cheeses, and whilst the latter was flourishing Irish brewing was fairly stagnant; an explosion in brewers (and more importantly UK and world class beers emerging) perhaps contributed to what would transpire).

Anyway, I digress, rough pairings hashed out I went about sourcing the best examples of beers and cheeses within the proposed styles. Once sufficient of each had been accumulated I was able to hold pairing sessions (often ably assisted by my friend Julie), determining whether my envisaged pairings actually worked (luckily the majority did!), taking photographs and notes on all of the pairings. These were all completed by Autumn 2012.

At the same time I began submitting my proposal to a number of publishers, with some enthusiasm at first. However when they read in to the detail the majority decided that focussing solely on the UK wasn't going to result in many book sales. Unwilling to change the raison d'etre of my book I decided to go down the self-published e-book/print on demand route. This was the start of the procrastination.

You see, when you don't have a deadline looming over you, or someone to prod you in to action things get put on a back burner. I edited a few photographs, started compiling tasting notes and worked out a rough page order for my pairings. Confidence already knocked by the rejections of publishers it was to suffer further on the release of Vinken & Van Tricht's Beer & Cheese. Aside from having to think of a new title, the calibre and quality of the book and writing was amazing. How could anything I write,a some-time beer blogger and enthusiast with some technical knowledge compete with the years of expertise of a sommelier and affineur? How could self publishing result in anything to compete with a gorgeous coffee table tome like theirs? My photos look crap in comparison. I knew my book would be unique and certainly more from a beer angle than theirs; so I wasn't completely put off. Then Janet Fletcher came along and took "Cheese & Beer" away as a possible title, I've not even been brave enough to look at that one...

Yet I was still keen to get the story of British Brewers and Cheesemakers out there to a wider audience (as well as of course opening people's eyes to the fact that beer and not wine is the best liquid to pair with cheese!). I kept the draft notes at the top of my to-do pile, picking them up, leafing through them but never getting anything substantial written.

The constant realisation I was letting down people who had kindly sent me samples led me further away from getting the writing done, causing me to lie awake at night fretting that I should actually be up and trying to write something...but what was the point anyway because whatever I wrote wouldn't do the beers and cheeses justice and I'd be better off not writing anything and pretend I wasn't writing anything in the first place.*

Alongside this self-doubt & self-loathing my personal circumstances outside of beer changed. I moved house, my fiancée (now wife) moved in with me and my job changed at work. My in-laws also came to stay for a while; so I decided to regroup for a few months and start afresh in the new year. Now almost three years have passed, I still get occasional pangs of guilt but often manage to ignore those notes calling at me from their pile on my upstairs desk. But then I start to get asked when the book will be coming out. I feel like a fraud, no better than that guy scamming loads of free beer for his non-existent book just to avoid having to pay for anything. At the same time some great UK beer writers began to emerge, all keen on food pairing and the writing began to be featured in more publications...did I even need to write the book any more?

At the same time new breweries and beers that I would love to include were cropping up all the time, some of the beers I'd written about were no longer in production, cheese companies had closed and our near neighbours in the South had really pulled their fingers out in the good beer stakes. It would be a tough job to revisit all of those pairings again.

But still the questions about the book continued to come, the "cheese and beer" pairings on my blog business card always garners the most questions, there's still plenty of interest out there for a book. But how to reinvigorate myself to start again? The answer came to me during a  cheese and beer pairing session at Killarney Beer festival. My Co-host Caroline Hennessy (co-author of the splendid book Slainte) asked me about the book and I tried my best to explain all of the above. "Never mind," she said, "Why not serialise it on your blog". What's that now?! "Why not write some of the pairings up and blog them, you've done single posts before, it will certainly be easier to tackle one at a time than trying to get everything together at once".

What a great idea! I can get all the pairings written up as a collection of blog posts then bring it all together as a book when I'm done, tweaking things to use beers that are still available and feature newer breweries, without wasting the work I've done to date. Fantastic idea. So that's what I'm going to do. The long dormant Cheeseandbeer.co.uk will play host to the 50 pairings I had arranged. I'm going to aim for one a week. Please feel free to harass me if I let that slip. That should allow me to pull everything together by the end of summer 2016 with the aim of having something releasable in time for Christmas sales next year. Wish me luck!

*This also impacted on my frequency of writing other non cheese, beer posts helping to explain the often large gaps in between posts. I have plenty of stuff pre-written but I've lost confidence in my writing and end up not publishing with things inevitably going out of date whilst dithering over that "publish" button.

#CABPOM August Seno RusioKvass and Diplomats Siers

Something a little different cheese and beer wise this month. Perusing my local Eastern European food store I came across a selection of nominally alcohol free Kvass beers. Kvass is fermented from rye bread and a beer style I've been interested in since reading Pete Brown's account in Three Sheets to the Wind. Here's what I picked up:

Yes, the middle one is in a plastic bottle!

These particular examples are from Lithuania and Latvia. I don't expect them to be a patch on the real thing, particularly the one in PET (I suspect this is made with syrup and force carbonated) but its fun to try new things and ranging from 50p- £1.10 in price they don't exactly break the bank.

In drinking order Porteris, Kvasa, Gira Kvass.

Bauska Porteris Bezalkoholisks pours a ruby tinged brown with a lacing of tan head. Lactose sweetness on nose but fairly faint. Fairly sweet with plenty of carbonation, fudgey full bodied, plum, muscavado and toffee finish.

The Sencu Kvass is a sparkling ruby chestnut with lacing of off white head. You can see its fairly similar to the porteris in appearance. Malty with sultanas, dusty flour on the nose. Very fizzy, very sweet but not exactly unpleasant. Sweetened coke.

Best of the bunch is Seno Rusio,unsurprisingly the "strongest" at 1.5%. It also differs somewhat from theother two in that it retains its head. Perhaps this is actually brewed? Dark chestnut with a tan head, retains well, sour aged fruit and christmas cake on the nose. High carbonation with a sweet molasses and fudge flavour, but the body helps to absorb it and prevent cloying. Liquid Edinburgh tablet with stewed plums. I'd love to try a higher strength version of this...I guess that would be a scotch ale.

What better to go with Lithuanian and Latvian beers than the corresponding cheese? I also picked up an unaged and a smoked Gouda style cheese from the same shop. Certainly thefirst time I've tried Latvian cheese.

Diplomats Siers (unaged) first, its waxy with a semi-open texture (holes) Rich milk fattiness and a semi-aged edam quality about it with a hint of smoke. Slightly waxy texture. Would make a good beer cheese for snacking on with a pilsner.

The Rokiskio Suris Rukytas appears to be a smoked cheese,with waxed rind. The paste here is solid and a darker yellow than the first cheese. There's a good level of oak smoke on the nose and immediately smoky in the mouth with a richer depth of flavour and very Edam like, unaged cheese.

So how do they fare with the beers?  Well the Diplomats reduces the porteris sweetness whereas the Rokisko brings outblack forest ham notes. The same cheese coaxes kola from the PET-bottled Sencu whereas Diplomats does nothing much. It does add a lot of depth to the flavour of the Seno Rusio however, the richness of the cheese complementing the texture and taming the sickliness somewhat,could enjoy the whole bottle with the cheese in tow. The smoked cheese, whilst tasting good has an unusual chalky texture with the Seno; so falls down at thefinal hurdle. 

The winner this month? Seno Rusio Kvass and Diplomats Siers. What are your thoughts on kvass (interesting article here from Beer Hunter Michael Jackson)? Have you ever tried any beer /cheese from Lithuania or Latvia or where's the most exotic place you've had beer/cheese from?

A pairing fit for the gods (#CABPOM July2013)

I've stopped writing monthly cheese and beer posts, but every now and again a pairing comes along that I have to share. I'd already intended to blog about the beer, but feeling peckish I decided tohave some cheese with it and this magic match was born. 

The beer, Wild Beer's Ninkasi, by itself is one of the best I've had this year if not ever, even the champagne style bottle replete with white wax seal is a thing of beauty. Named for a Sumerian goddess of beer* this beer is certainly fit for the gods. Loosely a saison in style, but trying to categorise such a beer wouldn't really do it justice and no other beers I can think of blend both barley and apple to such aplomb (a nod to Wild's location in deepest scrumpyland). It pours a resplendent hazy amber with towering fluffy off-white head and a hefty 9%. The New Zealand hops are immediately apparent on the nose with the zippy gooseberries of sauvingnon blanc (Nelson sauvin hops) right to the fore with dusty yeast esters in behind. The spritzy light carbonation makes this a really celebratory beer. It in no way shows its strength, with a medium body, some tart citrus notes plenty more antipodean hoppiness and a complex yeast ester dry refrain.

Taleggio is one of my all time favourite cheeses and introduced to me by my good friend Ben when we had our semi-regular cheese and beer sessions whilst at university. (Ben worked on the Waitrose cheese counter; he's probably ultimately responsible for me writing these posts; so blame him!) I was pleased to find the local Asda has started stocking Tallegio at the very reasonable price of £2, so its now in my fridge more often than not. Yes, the unpasteurised version is more complex but you takes what you can get. Even before I'd swallowed my first gulp of beer I knew that the pairing was likely to be a winner.

The fruity notes of the cheese play very well with the juicy apples in the beer, they come to the fore a lot more when paired with cheese. As usual the carbonation plays a scrubbing role to refresh the palate. The slightly wild edge to the cheese plays well with equally wild saison yeast.

Try both the beer and the cheese, together if you can, but both stand up fabulously well on their own. I'm considering buying more bottles of Ninkasi to lay down...

Wild Beer Co
@WildBeerCo
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* CAMRA got in trouble for a giant Ninkasi poster a while back but perhaps not quite as much as with naturale a few years before...

CABPOM: Luckie Ales 56/ and Comte

The French and Scots have teamed up before, but never has a pairing been as successful as this (even if I do say so myself!) Luckie 56/ is part of Stuart's Resurrection series, that is beers that have been rescued from the history books and brewed anew. I always enjoy trying these and to my knowledge its the first Scotish brewer to resurrect beers in such a way (please correct me if I'm wrong!). This particular beer was last brewed over 100 years ago by McClays of Alloa, falling out of favour as pale ales grew in popularity.

The beer pours clear deep ruby-garnet with a light off-white crema of a head, giving off a nose redolent of an autumn trek through a forest, with red berries, damp soil and crunchy leaves. The body is fairly full, yet light, with gentle carbonation. Its fairly rich, with a big booze hit up front, slightly astringent burnt toast malt and plenty of dried fruit sweetness afterwards in a long fruity finish.

CC Myrabella

Comté needs no introduction, as probably my favourite among the alpine cheeses I buy it whenever I see it. This particular piece is from Tesco's finest range, (its not half bad youse cheese snobs and certainly one of the better cheeses i can buy in my part of the world!) with a rich fatty milk, slightly sweaty socks nose, firm, chewy paste with a few salt crystal crunchy bits. Fruity and rich, a perfect match for the beer. The mushroomy rind brings a contrast to the rest of the cheese, with more umami notes and a very savoury finish.

But the cheese also helps to neutralise the heavy booze of the beer, coaxing out deeper dark fruits and milk chocolate flavours. In turn the beer makes the cheese more vibrant in the mouth, leaving a sharp mature cheddar punch at the back of the palate. The umami from the rind helps emphasise the malts bringing to the fore something akin to spiced apple compote that I associate with mulled cider, but is welcome here too, whilst our old friend carbonation cleans away all those fatty remains.

I enjoyed mine with a few cheese and basil biscuits from M&S, but you can have yours straight up, with a slice of toast, with an oatcake or whatever works for you: experiment!

So for my first cheese and beer pairing in 6 months I'm recommending Luckie Ales 56/- and Comte.

If you're quick you can pick up a bottle from the excellent Alesella.

Luckie Ales
@Luckie_Ales
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#CABPOM October: Alesmith Old Numbskull and Cornish Blue.

Its been a few months, but that doesn't mean the cheese and beer pairing has fallen by the wayside. In fact its stepped up somewhat as I did 50 pairings in September and October in preparation for the e-book I am writing. I still had some spare time (and more importantly spare cheese!) to do a pairing for the blog though.

 

This month its a Trans-Atlantic mash-up with a beer from across the pond and a cheese from sunny Cornwall. I picked up the beer (a bottle of Alesmith Old Numbskull if you haven't yet read the post title) from Brewdog online. There are still some left if you're quick. At £15.29 its at the pricier end of the spectrum but for an 11% beer in a 750ml bottle its comparable to the price of a bottle of wine (and in my view much tastier).

It pours dark amber with fluffy off-white head. Amazing sticky orange marmalade and underlying ginger-snap biscuits. Quite sweet, light bodied, oranges, crystal malt, orange pith, balanced with malt bitterness. Touch of mango, long dry orange juice fairly pithy finish. It reminds me somewhat of Franciscan Well Bell Ringer with a bigger hop-hit.

The cheese is on the milder side of the blue spectrum, though still fairly funky and creamy. The pale yellow paste has a few slashes of blue bacteria which of course yield the most interesting flavours. Its also on the firm side for a cheese.

Initially the cheese is lost against the hop onslaught of the beer, but it soon regains ground stomping an hitherto unseen fruitiness into the middle of the mix. The gentler carbonation (Alesmith bottle condition expertly, some UK brewers could learn a thing or two) means the cheese sticks around a bit longer allowing a progression of flavours to develop. 

Its a solid, complementary pairing but I think a funkier, stickier blue cheese might even be better still. Try a Gorgonzola piccante or even a Shepherd's Purse Yorkshire Blue. For those of you that aren't blue inclined then you can't beat a good mature cheddar with a barley wine. The hops are pretty brash; so pick something with plenty of flavour.

I also got bottles of Wee Heavy, Yulesmith (summer), X and Speedway stout all of which were tasty, though the darker beers were perhaps a tad over-boozy. The pale ales were exceptional though and the 650ml bottles were finished in short shrift. I was aware of Alesmith from their rave reviews on rate beer, but now I have tried some I will definitely be looking out for others.

CABPOM August: 3 Fonteinen Kriek & Le Chevrot

Logo kindly designed by Simon
of CAMRGB

Something a bit different this month. Fruit beer and white cheese work well together but add some goatiness to the mix and it becomes something special.

3 Fonteinen is one of the revered Belgian lambic brewers but they also make kriek. This one is just a bit special as it uses wild forraged schaerbeekse cherries, adding a different flavour than you'd normally expect froma  kriek. Schaerbeekse cherries used to be cultivated specifically for use in brewing, but with the fall in popularity of lambic the orchards fell derelict. 3 Fonteinen tracked down some of these wild orchards and turned the harvested fruit into a traditional kriek. This particular beer is a 35% blend of schaerbeekse and the remainder regular morello cherries. I picked it up at Brewdog Edinburgh in a 750ml bottle.

Here are my notes: Pours pale scarlet with slight fluffy head. Sweet cherry, raspberry, acrid hay, lemon, malt, barnyard. Dry tart cherry, lots of stone character (think almonds and bakewell tart), very sharp lactic, long cherry stone finish.

The cheese is one I picked up from Tesco (they have a much better range in Scotland than here!) not knowing much. Its called Le Chevrot and is quite similar to Crottin apparently. To me its dry and chalky, with a goaty richness and perhaps the tiniest hint of lemon.  A bit dull perhaps.

Works nicely with poppy-seed crackers

When paired with the beer however it comes alive with creaminess and accentuated by the funk to transport you to the dairy at milking time. That light lemon note plays well with the tart cherries and the beers carbonation is more than a match for the slightly clacky texture. I'd like to try this cheese aged as it should be even better.

Guest Post: Dutch Cheese with beer

I'm not the only person with a hankering for beer and cheese, my friend Scuff is also a fan. I've known him for almost as long as I've been drinking beer but met through a different medium...music. Probably my first Belgian beer experience was drinking a Kwak in a Brighton pub with him. So without further ado, here's a guest post

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 I'm a lucky chap! I knew things would improve once we'd moved into our new house and I was proved correct when one of my best friends presented me with a selection of fine aged Dutch cheeses as a housewarming present. He won them in a raffle at a pole dancing competition that his girlfriend took him to - how's that for a back story!? 

These cheeses might not have been to his taste but fortunately they are very much to mine. I've visited Amsterdam several times and I'm a big fan of the food and drink scene out there. I didn't want to waste this good fortune so I set out to pick up some suitable beers to enjoy alongside my cheese. I'm quite the novice when it comes to beer and cheese pairing, though I'm fairly confident I could bore people sufficiently in a conversation about either one on its own, so I took a few wild stabs and this is what I came up with... 

I decided big strong cheese would probably need big strong beers. Unfortunately good Dutch beer is not as widely available as I would like in England and I was rather at the mercy of the supermarkets and a couple of independent off-licences. To the keen beer drinkers out there these will probably seem quite familiar, to everyone else I encourage you to hunt down and try them. 

Beemster (2 years old)

A smooth textured and obviously carefully kept cheese that still managed to retain some sweetness despite the ageing. This was the first one I tried and it was clear from the first bite that these cheeses were of a class that would be offended to be offered up on a biscuit or alongside any condiments. I played it cool on this one and went for something light, but that would hint at all the flavours I wanted to bring through, and picked a De Koninck.

Dutch Sheep's Cheese (4 years old)

As well as the usual nuttiness that you'd expect from Sheep's cheese this had quite a lingering bitterness to it that came through very strong in the aftertaste so it was going to take something powerful to cut through that. I think I made the right choice by going with a good powerful stout, and they don't get much more powerful than an Ellezelloise Hercule Stout. Strong malty pallate and with a sweetness in the aftertaste that brought out the nuttiness of the sheep's cheese whilst balancing the bitterness. 

Old Amsterdam (3 years old)

Last time I went to Amsterdam I bought a huge chunk of this back with me. It's a lovely cheese made with milk from dairies in and around Amsterdam. I knew exactly what beer to drink with it, unfortunately I couldn't find any. My recommendation for this would be the Natte made by Brouwerij ’t IJ (pronounced "Brewery eye"). It's a red/brown double beer, well hopped and with the sweetness of caramel malt that would compliment this traditionally aged cheese well. However I've found that the beers brewed in this converted windmill in Amsterdam don't travel particularly well and you rarely see them in the UK so I made do with one of my favourite beers of all time, Pauwel Kwak. Simply because a) it's a suitable substitute, b) I'm a sucker for challenger hops, and c) I'll look for an excuse almost any day of the week to sit back and enjoy a Kwak in my traditional stirrup glass. 

Aged Gouda (2.5 years old)

Wow, what a fine cheese this was. All the fine creamy flavour of gouda with a mature bite to punctuate it. This was the easiest pairing for me though. I have always enjoyed gouda and trappist together and I don't care if its 2.5 or 25 years old, I'm not making an exception this time. If this hadn't been a strong enough cheese to look after itself I would have brought in the dijon mustard and a gherkin or two, but as it was this little cheese stood up to the mighty Trappistes Rochefort 8 all by itself. Good for it. 

If I was to pick a favourite I would have to say I particularly enjoyed the Old Amsterdam and Pauwel Kwak. The flavours transported my back to fond memories of sitting in Amsterdam's fine drinking establishments enjoying a plate of cheese alongside a fine quality beer whilst deciding which pub to hop to or which canal to stroll alongside next, or whether to simply order yet another beer and a plate of ossenworst and some pickled gherkins.

Scuff Blogs at Scuff's Kitchen

Mmmmm Cheese

Just a quick one today. I've a guest post up over on Matching Food and Wine listing my favourite five cheese & beer pairings (that I've tried so far!). Let me know what you think of my choices!

The site is run by the fantastic Fiona Beckett, Wine columnist for the Guardian, cheese fanatic (she organises a cheese school a few times a year), and good food and drink lover. She's also very friendly and welcoming to new food and drinks writers and quick to offer guidance when needed. Check out her work!

On Twitter as @winematcher and @food_writer

CABPOM July: Roquefort and Rochefort 10

Well, gorgonzola, actually, but I liked the wordplay.

Trappistes Rochefort 10 is one of those beers I've had before and will certainly have again. Its been about three years since my last bottle; so this is long overdue. Its the strongest of three produced at L'abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy in Rochefort. Held in high regard (and rightly so) its fairly widely distributed in the UK; do go get yourself some if you've not had it!

Resplendent in its chalice

It pours dark chestnut with a luscious, mocha foam. Fantastically complex nose, plums, stewed apples, molasses, toffee and vanilla. Mouth coating, sweet crystal malt at first, followed by a big boozy note, touch of buttered popcorn, increased vinous fruit towards the end, a touch of noble hop and more vanilla.

It slips down far too easily.

Gorgonzola is an Italian semi-soft salty blue cheese, often using the same peniciliium roqueforti bacteria for its blue streak as the eponymous French cheese. Its salty and sharp and an acquired taste. Certainly I had to first overcome my dislike for Stilton before Gorgonzola and Roquefort even got a look in. Looking back I can't even see what my issue with it was!

Gorgonzola (left) and Mature Cheddar

At first it jars slightly with the hops and looks to be a duff pairing, but try a second mouthful and its transformed. Suddenly there's a lot of sweetness and fruit in the cheese which just serves to accentuate all those vinous flavours in the beer. The salt here has a part to play too, seemingly accentuating the alcohol in the beer in a complementary way, lifting it to sherry territory. Pears and other orchard fruits also dance on the tongue as the cheese is washed away. Not so much evidence of that umami of blue cheese and dark beer here, those fruity flavours being the strongest players. Nevertheless, superb beer, great match.

The beer also works well with mature cheddar, the older the better and of course if you can get hold of something unpasteurised like Keen's you're on to a winner.

CABPOM June 2012: Theakston's Old Peculier and Blue Cheshire

Its come to my attention that far too many of my cheese and beer pairings use exotic bottles from specialist off-licences and these may not be available to everyone: so its back to basics this month, with a beer ubiquitous on supermarkets up and down the land - Theakstons Old Peculier

Now the bottle doesn't measure up to the beer on cask (not surprising as its filtered and pasteurised) but is still a decent drop. Its a dark ruby brown ale with light brown head and a lovely vinous, caramelised aroma. Medium body and mouthfeel, a fruity taste with a sweet malty middle and slightly bitter finish.

Blue Cheshire was the first cheese I tried. This is a good match. Almost like a coloured cheddar with a slight hint of the blue fruitiness, its sweet caramel flavours complement the malt and the blue veining picks out and accentuates the fruit. A complementary rather than contrasting pairing then.

 I also picked up some aged edam (from Asda). Fruity and nutty it complements the malt bill perfectly but the blue cheese just edges it as the better match.

I was still feeling thirsty so opened my last bottle of Magic Rock Bearded Lady. I love this beer, its probably my favourite UK Imperial Stout; so its time to try some cheese with it. As expected, the blue cheshire works really well, those umami flavours in both coming together to elevate the flavours. The edam works pretty well too, which I wasn't expecting. Those caramel flavours in the cheese pull out some increased fruity hop notes and malt layers that before were obscured. Very nice.

So a close call again this month, but the CABPOM for me is Old Peculier and Cheshire blue cheese. I expect blacksticks blue would do just as well.

Classic Vintage

Last month I reviewed the larger Goose Island vintage bottles and this month I'm back again with the four smaller brethren to the sistren*. These are a more disparate group of beers with a dark and light saison, a Belgian Abbey style and a pale ale.

Goose Island's Vintage Collection

Goose Island thinks they pair well with cheese; so I'll take them up on the challenge. Everyone knows I'm a cheese fiend so don't need an excuse really!  I headed to M&S and picked up a couple of Irish cheeses and a French brie.

Sofie is a Belgian-style saison that works well with brie. Brewed with orange peel and aged in white wine barrels with wild yeast its supposed to be a substitute for champagne. It pours hazy pale blonde with a fluffy white foam. On the nose its quite lactic with acidic pineapple and a touch of Brett. Its a light touch in the mouth, reminding me of the hibiscus flavours from Goose Island Fleur with a touch of white pepper in the finish. Sparkling carbonation as fine as champagne.
The brie is pungent, with mushroomy rind, uniform, slightly squishy paste but the right side of ammoniac-al. The flavour is delicate and not so pungent as an unpasteurised brie but works well enough. When sampled together the two cancel each other out somewhat, but the earthy mushroom rind is enhanced by the spicy note and of course that carbonation does its thing in cleansing the palate. An alright but not outstanding match.

Matilda is a Belgian style pale ale, suggested to go with washed rind cheeses and Camembert. It pours mid-amber with sweet peach and perfumed violet nose. Sweet candy sugar with a slight burnt caramel in the finish. Little in the way of carbonation.
I chose aardharan for this, a grainy, salty rind with soft and tacky paste, very buttery with strong rind. This time the beer acquires some fruity and peppery spice notes with the cheese.

Pere Jacques is a Belgian abbey-style dubbel which pairs to aged Gouda or Stilton. It pours mid-ruby brown with a strong nose of apple orchards, so much so that with your eyes closed it could be a cider. Its quite sweet with plenty of higher alcohols and a burnt sugar/ solvent finish. I'm not too keen.
Chose to pair it with cashel blue, another Irish cheese. Its salty and funky with a rich creamy finish. The cheese is perhaps a little strong for the beer, the beer losing what little character it did have and leaving a residual sweetness. The full flavour of the cheese is still apparent

Last but not least is Pepe Nero, the black saison. No cheese suggestion here, but I'd go for a crumbly Lancashire or Cheshire. Pours dark brown with fizzy tan head that doesn't hang around. On the nose its black pepper spice and toffee malt. Sweet up front with chocolate malt and a hint of vegetal horseradish. A long sweet and spicy finish.


With the exception of Sofie I'm not sure that these beers better any of the Belgian greats and the cheese pairing suggestions aren't particularly good, with the exception of washed rind & Matilda. So CABPOM for may would be Ardharan and Goose Island Matilda, another win for the washed rind cheeses. I'd suggest they're all still worth trying, but probably not at the expense of the Belgian brewed classics.

*yes I'm aware that's not a word in much use these days but its real - look it up!

April CABPOM: Ballyblue and Great Divide Belgian Yeti

Ten months in and I'm still enjoying writing this feature, regardless of how many people find it interesting. I have a summary page in the works for the anniversary.

Ballyblue and Ballyoak

I've noticed that I'm yet to feature any cheese from Northern Ireland; so this month rectifies that. Fivemiletown is a  dairy that takes milk from a local collective of farmers and produces a variety of cow and goats milk cheeses. I picked up a couple of these this week and in perusing their website discovered some tasty sounding recipes which I decided to make and pair a beer with.

First up then, the Ballyblue which is very similar to cambazola (a blue-veined brie). I chose a Great Divide Belgian Style Yeti to pair with. Now not everyone will have this bottle lying about, but a good substitute would be Guinness Foreign Extra Stout or Bristol Beer Factory Ultimate Stout, both strong rich variations on regular stout. The beer pours deep black with a chocolate tinged tan head. It has a fruity milk chocolate nose, with hints of roast barley and plenty of vanilla. There’s a fruity sweetness to the beer (no doubt from the Belgian yeast) and a gentler mouth-feel than those others in the yeti family. Warming but not boozy with a long gentle roast barley and chocolate finish. A lovely beer in its own right, but how doe sit pair with food?

Monster beer for a monster dish of food.

I chose the Ballyblue and wilted spinach pasta to pair this with. I think I probably used only half the amount of pasta suggested so ended up  with a sauce that was very rich indeed. This was no problem for the stout which was able to cut right through the fat and refresh the palate for the next bite (carbonation is key!). The roast barley was able to extract the earthy spinach from within that cream and cheese and the touch of lemon zest interacted with those yeast esters adding some extra "zing". Chocolate and cheese is now an accepted pairing and those chocolatey notes in the beer bring out some of those ripe fruit notes in the cheese.

Next up is the Ballyoak, which is similar to those tubes of Austrian smoked cheese but with a better texture. Omelette is the order of the day for this dish.I'm lucky enough to have a selection of fresh herbs so chose sage, lemon thyme. curly parsley and coriander for the omelette. The cheese is tricky to grate so do it in advance, rather than when the omelette's waiting for it (like I did!) I would pair this with a Trappist Tripel but have none to hand, so a regular Abbey style will have to do instead. I've a bottle of both Tripel Karmeliet (reviewed here by Pete drinks) and Mikkeller's Belgian Tripel in the fridge; so will try both out.

 Two very different looking beers here but how do they compare? The Karmeliet pours effervescent hazy blonde with fluffy white head that collapses to a lacing. Spicy wheat and banana toffo yeast esters on the nose. High carbonation, honey malt, spicy wheat and smooth oats combine with a warming esteric finish.The Mikkeller beer is one-dimensional in comparison. It pours dark amber with thin off-white head. Aroma of bread, caramel and burnt sugar. Very sweet with strong boozy note and a hint of lemon. Sweet and alcoholic finish.

Omelette and two Tripels.

 So how well do they pair with the omelette? The boozy Belgian tripel stomps all over it hiding the flavours whereas the tripel karmeliet complements the dish well. Those spicy esters and wheat bring out the herbs, the sweetness pulls out the smoky cheese, the oats and yeast really highlight the asparagus in ways I can't quite describe and our old friend carbonation cleans the palate between mouthfuls. A lovely pairing again, showing complementary flavours are just as valid as contrasting.


However for me the ballyblue and Belgian Yeti pips it to the post, just; so that becomes this month's CABPOM.

CABPOM March: Brooklyn Brown Ale and Ossau Iraty

From www.artisinalcheese.com

Cheese pairings don't have to be anything fancy. Last week I picked up a bottle of Brooklyn Brown Ale from the Vineyard in Belfast and some cheeses from Sawyers Deli. On tasting the beer I knew that it would work well with Ossau Iraty, a cheese I've had many times before (you can get it in Waitrose).

Non-boring brown beer

The beer pours a russet-brown with brief beige head and smells like cadburys whole nut chocolate, with hazelnuts and cocoa powder on the nose and plenty of toffee. The body is quite thin and well carbonated with a nuttiness from brown and chocolate malts and a sweet finish. As the beer warms up a resinous pine note is evinced.

Those nutty, earthey flavours are what work so well with the aged sheeps milk in ossau iraty. The savoury cheese helps to tone down that malt sweetness and the carbonation from the beer helps to pull some redfruit notes from the cheese.

#openit

#OpenIt is a multiparticipant Twitter organised beery event, much like #Twissup and #TheSession. The aim of it is to get you to open those beers that you've been hoarding and get writing about them. Andy over at Beer Reviews has declared this weekend to be the first such event in 2012. As with many people I have a fair few of these sat around so chose to go for the (lucky for some) target of 7 bottles to review. I did not drink all of these on the #OpenIt weekend, but they were enjoyed in the spirit of the event in any case!

Ballards Duck House

The first beer is a case in point for why its not necessarily best to hoard beer! Ballards Duck House is the annual  barley wine released by Sussex brewer Ballards. Bought from the brewery on the release date dec 2009. Its passed its BBE. This beer is a crib-sheet of off-flavours.Pours completely flat, no head whatsoever. Dark ruby. There’s balsamic vinegar and sherry on the nose. Very complex medium body reminiscent of an oud bruin. Oxidised of course with a lot of vinegar, some soggy cardboard, autolysed yeast marmite flavours, a hint of lactic acid, rounded body, quite sweet, vinous fruit. Long savoury finish with more marmite. Despite these seemingly jaring flavours the beer was quite enjoyable!

In addition to the Gales Prize Old Ales we got through at Alan's last weekend I took a number of other beers along.* Enjoying the evening too much to make copious notes I did however do some cheese pairings (how unpredictable(!)).

Law of diminishing returns?

Sparkenhoe
(http://www.norbitoncheese.co.uk

First up is Bell Ringer by Franciscan Well covered here by Reuben from Tale of Ale in much better prose than I could ever muster. To me it was very redolent of Fuller's ESB and to pair with this some sparkenhoe red Leicester was enjoyed, which really brought out those marmelade hops.

Langres

After the Gales were polished off we went onto Deschutes the Dissident. This is one complex beast of a beer. Taking inspiration from Belgian brewers this ends up as a kriek/ Flemish red hybrid. Its fruity and bretty on the nose, but without the lactic character put plenty of acetic acid. Some Langres washed rind cheese helped to take the edge off a bit.

That evening was rounded off nicely by The Lost Abbey The Angel's Share. This has all those oaky flavours in abundance but the robust malt bill is big enough to handle it. Milleens cheese is a great pairing, pulling out those fruity depths from under the vanilla. (This also went very nicely with the Gales Prize Old Ale).

And finally onto a beer style that everyone has in their cellars, the Imperial Stout. To link cleverly with the last beer reviewed, these two are also barrel aged, as brewers of big stouts are wont to do.

You knew there'd be cheese involved!

Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti is the brewery's top rated beer on ratebeer and one inside the top 50 on the nose initially a hint of dry cocoa powder giving way to rich malted milk biscuits or horlicks. On the next waft the perfumed sweetness of vanilla asserts itself, almost custard-like and a touch of alcohol. Opaque black  with bubbled tan head. Slipping down with the smoothness of milk and a gentle carbonation  at first there's molten milk chocolate followed swiftly by roast barley and acrid coffee leading to a fairly dry finish. After eating some blue cheese the vanilla is coaxed out from the bitter depths transforming the beer from espresso to mocha latte, whilst at the same time the beer embraces what was a fairly timid stilton and cajoules it to release those salty, slightly funky peniccilium roqueforti flavours finishing with some pepper. I reckon this beer would match well with a custard tart. Beware...the ABV is certainly well hidden!

Evil black depths

Mikkeller brews a lot of imperial stouts, perhaps the most well known of which being Black Hole.

Dark brown-black with thin brown tinged cream head that soon collapses to a lacing. On the nose its caramel and vanilla with a hint of beechwood and fruity coffee. Very full bodied and warming with coffee up front and booze following on quickly. Then we get biscuit and charcoal, vanilla and burnt toast. The finish is rich and boozy, lengthy, a hint of red apple. Fairly lively carbonation

*Having only just acquired the Goose Island Bourbon County it has ended up back in the cupboard with some other Impys for a future supping occasion.

Gales Prize Old Ale

@beersiveknown Well i managed three weeks off...

Old ales are beers that have been kept for a period of time before being bottled. Very few true old ales remain within the UK today, of those Gales Prize Old Ale is one of the most well known but perhaps least tried of the beers. Originally brewed at Gale's in Horndean it was worried that the beer would be lost when the business was sold to Fullers in 2005. People need not have worried however as Fullers cotinued to brew the beer, keeping back a little of the previous years brew to innoculate each fresh batch and thus preserve the flora and fauna or "wee beasties" down the years.

 The three beers I'm writing about today, although the same in name vary subtley. I shared these bottles with my beery partner in crime Alan (traPISSED) as a pretext to visit his beer cellar (stay tuned for more info). Roger Protz wrote about them here. Des de Moor Reviews a 2007 bottle here and Jeff Evans here.

Gales bottles were smaller and crown-capped.

Older bottles are probably going to be harder to find these days, and certainly the fullers Brewery Shop is out of stock. I picked mine up from Bitter Virtue, but I've been hefting the 2006 around for a good five years. A glance at the price labels leaves me pleasantly surprised as they only cost me ~£2.50 each...surely a bargain for such a complex and hefty beer.

As many people will know, in 2006 Gales sold to Fuller's and the historic brewery in horndean was closed. Here the Prize Old Ale was aged in ancient oak tanks, with all the wee beasties that provides. This gave the beer an understable lactic character necessitating the blending of fresh with old. 2006 was the last beer to be brewed and bottled at Gales in this way. In 2007 the beer brewed at Gales the previous year was shipped to Fullers and bottled without blending. This proved to be too sour for the taste of the marketing men and the following year John went back to the blending method, though odf course the beer is now aged in regular fermenters.

The 2011 (Fuller's) Gales Prize Old Ale

The 2011 was both brewed and bottled at Fullers. I actually had a bottle of this 6 month ago, so it will be interesting to see how it has changed with the extra time in the bottle. It pours a dark amber with fruity sherry notes on the nose. In flavour its closer to rum with toffee, burnt sugar, caramelised apple plus some juicy pear, which I'm beginning to recognise as hallmark of some Fullers aged beers. It finishes with a fairly astringent bitterness which suggests its not quite in its prime yet. In fact I think I preferred it younger.

The 2007 was of course a different kettle of fish. That lactic acid was immediately present on the nose as expected. This helped to make the beer lighter in body. Flavours much the same as the 2011, though with an unsuaul watermelon flavour at the finish.
Star of the show for both me and Alan was the 2006. This was a relief for me after the aformentioned disturbances including moving to Northern Ireland and a previous loss of liquid through the cap. Lactic acid again but a greater rich fruitiness like a good christmas cake, a touch of oxidation balsamic vinegar, heavy mouthfeel, some raspberry in the finish. Could easily have had a few bottles of this each.

From: http://www.gourmetbritain.com/

The stinky washed rind cheese were bought to bear for this session and for me the Irish cheese Milleens worked the best. Full of fruity flavours it accentuated some of those flavours too delicate to assert themselves from beneath the malts.

This seems to suggest that the beer improves with age (production location aside) and I'm tempted to get a case of the next release (this year?) and lay them down for a good few years. If you've not yet had the good fortune to try these then may I suggest you look out for them!

CABPOM February: Marble Special 2011 & Stinking Bishop

Mixed marinated olives

February's CABPOM is similar to lat month's in that its the same style of beer paired. A beer I kicked myself for not buying whilst in York in December just so happened to be available at the Marble Arch on a visit recently. The beer in question is of course their 2011 Special, a saison brewed in collaboration with Mark Tranter of Dark Star (whose saison was one of the first brewed in the UK and I'm still yet to try!) Saison is one of my favourite styles and a number of UK breweries have produced them recently. A stalwart feature of the Marble Arch is their legendary cheese boards. We opted for a 9 cheese selection as a starter to our planned meal at Zinc Bar and Grill.

9 cheeses and a bottle of saison

1. Hereford Hop
2. Desserts de Trappistes
3. Cropwell Bishop's Stilton
4. Barber's Cheddar
5. Northumbrian Baltic unpasteurised ale washed cheese
6. Stinking Bishop. perry washed rind
7. Epoisses de bourgogne. unpasteurised washed rind in marc de bourgogne
8. Cotswold Blue
9.L'alpini

Cheese menu front

cheese menu reverse

Cotswold Blue Brie

blue brie: Slightly metallic, very ripe ammonia. Not a particularly good match and I think probably overripe.

l'alpini: no notes made. I think the cheese was quite delicate and overpowered by the saison.

Stinking Bishop

Epausses: sweet pineapple esters, rich strong aromatic...lovely

cheddar. bread and chutney.

hereford hop, very drying, bitter jarring with the beer

stinking bishop perfect match, meaty flavours, accentuated hoppiness.

barber's cheddar

northumbrian very gentle gruyere style reminds of Caerphilly, beer too powerful.

Trappistes almost as good with the beer as stinking bishop.

colston basset. not one for saison but a great finale cheese

  

That seems to suggest that it will go well with washed rind cheeses, its a difficult choice but I think CABPOM this month has to be Marble Special 2011 and Stinking Bishop. I Dare-say any washed rind with a saison may be a good match. If you've not yet had a cheese platter from the Marble Arch, do get along there and remember, the most fun you can have with beer and cheese is just to try something out and see what works for you!

Thus concludes my Manchester series and blog posts until March (except for any major news of course!)