New Beer and Curry

Perhaps the most anticipated UK beer release this year was Magic Rock's Unhuman Cannonball Triple IPA, which sold out in its entirety in less than a few hours. It seems most of the bottles have been snaffled by bloggers and tickers. I luckily managed to get hold of a bottle from Ales By Mail and decided to indulge in a spot of beer and food pairing.But first, the beer.

As you can see the label is lovingly screen printed onto the bottle and surprisingly (given its 12% strength) its a 660ml bomber. I had no trouble polishing off the entire bottle by myself though.

The beer pours super hazy mid amber with a pillowy head. Strong resinous pine on the nose, robust malt sweetness and rasping bitterness, juicy tropical fruits, tart citrus, some warming booze. On warming passion fruit comes over to the fore on the nose and distinctive watermelon notes in flavour. Perfect carbonation and medium body.

I went for the classic India Pale combination of curry, a vegetable rogan josh to be precise, with plenty of added corriander. The medium spicing really played off the hops to bring some tropical fruit flavours to the fore and the corriander seemed to help bring the bitterness to a more managable level. Tasted great with the lime pickle too! Curry and IPA are a much-touted pairing for a reason.

If you missed out, its set to be an annual release so watch out for announcements next year! A fantastic first release of a super-strong IPA from the Magic Rock guys then, catapulting to second-place marginally behind Odell and Thornbridge's Pondhopper and tied for second with Moor's JJJ IPA. Estimable company indeed.

Magic Rock

@MagicRockBrewCo

FABPOW: Mushroom stroganoff and cider

FABPOW=Food& Beer Pairing. I guess that this is really a FACPOW!

Not all food and drink pairings have to be planned out meticulously in advance. Nor do they have to be haute cuisine or use an uber rare/ expensive drink for pairing. Some of the best can be spur of the moment things.

I had a load of mushrooms I'd bought reduced last weekend that needed using; so decided to make stroganoff. This needs something sweet and fruity to help bring out the flavours, which is often wine but I plumped for cider. The cider section in Asda is in sorry shape, not even sporting the likes of Weston's, so ubiquitous on the main land but rarely seen outside of Wetherspoon over here. What I did pick up was a 750ml bottle from McCann's, a Northern Ireland producer, which I must have previously overlooked due to its proximity to Magners and Stella Cidre on the shelf. I used about 250ml in the dish, leaving the best part of a pint as a chef's perk.

It pours a slightly hazy light gold, almost perry coloured with a steady stream of fine bubbles. The nose is sweet mushy golden delicious apples, with richer bramley's underneath and a touch of old straw. 

Fairly sweet in the mouth, certainly a high proportion of eating apples in the mix, but with just enough tannin at the back of the palate to be medium rather than sweet in category. Gentle carbonation and a dry finish leaves you going for more. Not bad for just over £2! 

The stroganoff is fairly simple to make. Fry an onion and clove of garlic in butter until translucent, then reduce heat and sweat down ~400g mushrooms for 10mins. I used a mix of chestnut, portobello and baby button plus dried oyster, shiitake  and porcini to give a good depth of flavour and mix of textures. Remove the lid from the pan and allow the mushroom juices to evaporate, then add 250ml cider or wine, simmering for two minutes. Add a tub of crème fraiche and 1/2 tbs of cornflour made up in 2tbs water*,  stirring well until thickened. Serve with rice and sprinkle with parsley/ chives if you so desire. Simple!

It pairs perfectly with the stroganoff. You'd expect it to make a decent fist of it,what with it being used in the dish but I think it brings more to it than that (certainly a better pairing than wine and stroganoff). The earthy, umami in the mushrooms provides a contrast to the sweet, fresh apples, riffing off each other. The carbonation and alcohol content cut through the crème fraiche, refreshing the palate and the rich sauce is perfectly complemented by the dry, slightly tannic finish to the cider. Such a simple pairing but a classic. 

*I used the liquid from rehydrating my dried mushrooms for extra richness.

A food and beer dinner.

I like to try beer and food combos out, but they tend to be spontaneous, selecting a beer from the cupboard based on what I'm cooking. This time I decided I would decide what I'm cooking based on what beers I wanted to drink. I tried to arrange it so that the beers would go with two courses each then used my girlfriend as the guinea pig. They seemed to all go down okay so here's the details:

Vegetarian ceviche

Starter:Vegetarian ceviche...

Regular ceviche is a seafood salad originating in Mexico, so I found a vegetarian recipe using hearts of palm to look like octopus. And I don't have a martini glass so made use of my St Stefanus Glass.  

...paired with Lindemans Cuvee Rene

Garrett Oliver suggests gueuze with regular ceviche (that's how I found out about the dish) and it certainly works well here. The lime juice accentuates the gueuze sourness which acts as a great palate refresher. I'm now eating fish again so will certainly try the more authentic seafood version, which I reckon will make an even better match.

Goats cheese bruschetta with rocket and balsamic tomatoes

2nd Course: goats cheese bruschetta...

I already know geueze works well with goats cheese, those bretty funky barnyard flavours pick up on that capyric acid in the cheese to give you full on farmyard, but the lactic acid in the beer also helps to bring out those hidden citrus depths.  

If you're not a fan of the gueuze then try a hefeweisse or (as I chose) a biere de garde.

...paired with 3 Monts Biere de Flandres

I had a disappointing experience with Jenilain ambree but glad I didn't give up the style as a lost cause because this was a superb beer. The slight wild yeasts again accentuate the goatiness but the herbal sage and slightly peppery flavours in the beer work well with both the cheese and salad. Last but not least the all important carbonation helps to cleanse the greasy cheese from the palate between mouthfuls.

Fruity salmon and tasty veg.

Main Course: Cider Poached Salmon...

Having bought a fillet of salmon and at a loss of how too cook it I turned to my Traditional Beer and Cider recipes book. I found this recipe and it works well with a simple tomato sauce, roast new potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli.

...paired with Thatcher's Somerset Vintage Cider. 

The the unused cider is an obvious pairing choice, accentuating those fruity flavours in the salmon and with enough sweetness to counter the acidity of the tomatoes.

 The 3 Monts didn't hold up quite so well, 

but was by no means a poor partner for the food.

Now with Minieggs

 Dessert: Key Lime Pie...

A dessert I've long enjoyed but never attempted to make until now. I was surprised at how simple the recipe was, the hardest part is waiting for it to set!

Melt 100g of butter and mix in 250g of crushed digestive biscuits. Spread into a 20cm loose bottomed tin, shaping the edges to 4cm. Chill in the fridge for 30mins. Combine the zest and juice of five limes with a carton of double cream and condensed milk and leave for a few hours to set. Simples.

Purple hued.

...paired with Shot in the Dark Blackberry lambic

This was the only sensible choice really, a nice fruity lambic to contrast the lime sharpness and condensed milk sweetness of the dessert. This is my second and final bottle of the beer and its drinking even better than a few months ago. blackberry, sweet cream, sour lambic, tart citrus - its a great match and probably my favourite of the lot.

If you've not tried food and beer pairing at home then give it a go and why not try converting a few sceptical wine drinkers whilst you're at it?!

FABPOW: Beetroot Soup and St Stefanus Blonde

@beersiveknown  Food and Beer Pairing of the Week (another Mark Dredge Creation)

 A few months ago a group of bloggers were invited for an all expenses trip to the Brouwerij Van Steenberge in Belgium for the the UK relaunch of their beer. Badged as St Stefanus (@StStefanus) instead of Augustijn the artwork and bottle underwent a redesign. Upon their return they received a glass and two bottles of beer through the post, as did some other bloggers who didn't attend. A whole host of reviews left me salivating to try it; so I cheekily asked if they had any sample packs left. A few weeks later and I'm sat with the package on my coffee table.

The bottle shows the
expected flavour changes over time

As others have mentioned its well put together, a snazzy box replete with carboard holder for two bottles of beer and an attractive stemmed glass. Theres also some beer mats and a bit of the info behind the beer. The bottle as you can see is stylish, with info about how the flavour profile changes over time and a colourful cap. All the bottles are aged for three months before release, so my bottle dated november 2011 is 6months old on tasting. I'll keep the second for another six to see how it changes.

Glorious golden beer with thick head
and attractive glass.

The beer pours an attractive ever so slightly hazy blonde with half inch dense white head that lingers. Slightly dusty with banana esters on the nose it's highly carbonated and full of fruity yeast notes. Fairly sweet without being cloying as some can and a good robust body. It finishes with a spicy earthy bitterness.

Its a long lasting finish and a sipping beer, despite the alcohol being hidden. A very enjoyable beer, its reminded me that I need to get back to Belgian beers this year after a few years off. I'd be keen to try some of the rest of their range, especially if I can find them to drink at home.

Beetroot soup with beer bread

Its still cold so I was after a soup again. I had a great beetroot soup starter on cheese school so decided to try it out myself. The fact that I found some reduced fresh beetroot at the shops sealed the deal. I looked up a recipe online and added some English goats cheese instead of feta plus a good pinch of chilli flakes. (Caution: grating beetroot leads to purple hands!) Served with home made beer bread its great on its own but with the spicy fruitiness of the beer the sweet and earthy flavours of the beetroot and sweet oven-roasted tomatoes. Those sweet goaty flavours with a hint of pepper are really allowed to shine through too, the carbonation scrubbing the tongue to refresh the palate.

A glance at the ever-reliable Brewmaster's table suggests that I'm not the first to pair a Belgian with beetroto, though actually it appears wheat beers are a more common choice. I can certainly see that working with this dish too, as goats cheese and wheat beer (especially weiss) goes very nicely together too.

Other beers to try: Bristol beer Factory Weisse, Thornbridge Weisse Versa, Schneider Weisse, Duvel, Piraat.

A NogneO FABPOW

@beersiveknown FABPOW stands for "Food and Beer Pairing of the Week", a term coined by Mark Dredge of the excellent Pencil and Spoon blog.

I'm a big fan of soup. Its pretty easy to make, filling and gives me an excuse to fire up the breadmaker (not that I need one). For Christmas I got Madhur Jaffrey's excellent Curry Easy book, which to my delight has a number of Indian soup recipes within its 70s wallpaper inspired covers. I decided to make the tomato and lentil  soup (I'm not sure I can reproduce it here, due to copyright issues, but its similar to this one). Its pretty spicy; so decided to try it out with some IPAs. Double IPAs in fact.

Two boozy bottles 10% ABV each.

 What could be better than a 10% double IPA? That's right two of them! Brewed by Nogne O for the 100th and 500th brews respectively they proved popular enough to remain staples of the range. As you can see from the picture above, both #100 and #500 are very dark for IIPAs.

Mmmmm Tasty soup

#100 had a strange nose of soapy coconut and the body was just too much sticky caramel and little malt, with a bitter finish. Paired with the soup however the sweet tomatoes and fragrant corriander combined to coax out some previously unseen hidden flavours of chocolate and citrus. I'd class this beer as an American style barley wine rather than double IPA.

#500 on the other hand worked quite well on its own. It was very mameladey on the nose (think good quality spicy seville orange) with dark burnt sugar and candied orange peel in the taste and a treacley finish. When tried with the soup it picked up an unpleasant earthy hop/metallic flavour which jarred with the tomatoes.

Of the two I marginally preferred the #500, being closer to an IPA, though conversely #100 paired better with the soup. They're very boozy though so I'd like to see them in a 330ml bottle, though probably wouldn't buy either again.

Does anyone else have beer and (veggie) soup pairing suggestions? 

You can see my other NogneO reviews here and here.

CABPOM September: Southern Tier Iniquity and Isle of Man Oak Smoked Cheddar.

Baked beans are a notoriously difficult food to match beers with as they have multiple elements, whilst certain flavour components work with certain beers, other characteristics jar on the palate. In response to Mark Dredge's original search I suggested a dark mild. When it came to the actual pairing Mark chose the Kernel mild, which was perceived to be too bitter. My suggestion was more along the lines of a traditional mild a la Greene King XX Mild or Brains Dark. Fast forward a few months and I decided to revisit the challenge myself.

Being a vegetarian my sausages didn't contain any meat, and my ovenbaked chips are not a patch on Mark's home-made masterpieces (still waiting for a dinner invite ;) ) but the comparison still holds. I like cheese on my beans; so used the tasty oak-smoked mature cheddar from Isle of Man. I also added some chipotle sauce to the beans. The smokiness of the chilis really helped to bring out the smoke in the cheese.

On to the beer pairing then. Rather than going with one of my own suggestions I decided instead to try something completely different Black "IPA"s have become a bit of a fad recently. One brewery that was perhaps ahead of the curve was  Southern Tier who first produced their Iniquity a good to and a half years ago now. Iniquity is by far the best example of the style I've tried. As you can see from the pic its a black-brown beer with frothy brown head. Roasted barley and chocolate on the nose, followed by a burst of tropical fruit activity. First sip gives a quick chocolate attack, followed by mango and pine resin. Enough alcohol that you can feel its effect on the back of your throat as you breathe in and see the legs on the side of the glass; so I'd not recommend this with a lunch meal, unless you plan on lying down to sleep for a few hours afterwards! Bitterness balanced  the malt bill and it finished with roast coffee and dark chocolate.

Together these are truly something special. The fruit flavours compliment the tomato sauce of the beans, whilst the dark malts help to accentuate the herbiness of the sausages and the smoked cheese enhances the chocolate notes in the beer. The thickness of body compliments the potatoes. The carbonation and aggressive hops tackle the fat of the cheese and sausages. In short each of the elemnts in the beer tackle different facets of the dish and the dish helps bring each aspect of the beer to the fore, a perfect match!

Another beer that I thought would go well with the dish is Panther Black; so will try this at a later date and get back to you with my findings. This one is more of a lunchtime beer, at exactly half the alcohol content!

Of course this wouldn't be a proper cheese and beer pairing post without tasting the beer and cheese on their own.The initial maturity of the cheese drys the tongue but the beer scrubs this off well making each new mouthful seem like the first. The smokiness really accentuates the chocolate flavours of the beer, whereas the mature cheddar itself serves to bring out more bitterness than in the beer alone. I didn't try this melted on toast but that would probably be the best way to try this CABPOM.

I know I promised no blue cheese and dark beer this month, one out of two can't be bad. Those of you needing a blue cheese fix, try Cornish Blue with Rochefort 8, mouth full of fruit, yum!

CABPOM June: Riptide Stout and Cashel Blue

Finally the first of many cheese and beer posts has arrived! CABPOM stands for "cheese and beer pairing of the month" and takes inspiration from Mark Dredge's Food and Beer Pairing of the week "FABPOW" invention. Actually, his first match was a CABPOM too!

After Glastonbury Festival was over I had a few days to spare before having to head back to Northern Ireland. I used them to my advantage to return to my old stomping ground Southampton.  I visited my favourite local then visited the excellent beer shop Bitter Virtue , where I may have spent slightly more than I had intended...ahem. I also visited my favourite supermarket Waitrose (none of these in Northern Ireland yet!) where I purchased a number of different cheeses. What followed was an evening of food and beer matching fun alongside an interlude of pouring unusual beers for a bewildered French student.

I’ve matched cheeses and beers before, but this time I also took a look at some of the ideas in the brilliant book “The Brewmaster’s table” by Garrett Oliver and the Brewers Association’s Food and Craft Beer Leaflet. The matches and their relative success were as follows:

First up was Schlosser Alt and Old Amsterdam Gouda. The maltiness of the beer worked well with the fruity flavours in the cheese, which was consumed rind and all. Perhaps an un-aged gouda would have been better as some of the subtleties of the beer were lost in the power of the cheese.

St Georgen Brau Doppelbock Dunkel paired with Mura's Pecorino Fiore Sardo

This Sardinian sheep’s milk cheese was chosen on the tenuous link with manchego, a sheep milk cheese from Spain and its apparent ability to match with Dunkelweisse. It too had a fruity flavour like manchego and less saltiness than a normal pecorino which would have been undesirable with this beer. The match was tasty but not outstanding.

 

The next match was more interesting, a head to head porter and cheese comparison from both sides of the Atlantic. First up was Salopian Entire Butt, but that was swiftly followed by an Anchor Porter. Two French-named cheeses were chosen as potential matches, Swiss cave aged gruyère and French Comté (an unpasteurised cow’s milk cheese). Each cheese worked very well with a single beer and jarred with the other. Salopian paired perfectly with comte, the sweetness of the cheese balancing the roasted coffee and acorn notes from the beer. The richer, stronger Gruyere on the other hand was the perfect accompaniment for the stronger anchor porter and moderated the rich toffee flavours which may be off-putting if drunk alone.

The next match was another wildcard that worked particularly well in my opinion Duchesse de Bourgogne and Tallegio. The soft and salty washed rind cheese helped to balance the sour wood flavours in the Duchesse and bring out the sweeter malt character of the beer. On the other hand the beer moderated the washed rind character of the cheese meaning the texture could be fully appreciated.

 

Turning up the intensity the next match brought together Brewdog Riptide Stout and Cashel Blue cheese. I eschew the conventional wisdom and always match blue cheeses with stouts rather than the usually suggested barley wines. Unlike stilton, cashel blue is a less pungent blue cheese, using Roquefort mould with a mellower taste. I love how the saltiness of blue cheeses works well with dry stouts but the hops in the riptide really added another dimension to this pairing. The chocolate flavours of the beer also complemented the fruity blue veined character in the cheese.

Having set our taste buds tingling with previous combo we had to go for something pretty distinctive.  Schlenkerla’s Rauchbier Marzen matched with smoked cheddar hit the spot. The oak wood smoke from the cheese accentuated the beech wood smoke in the beer and the beer turned the already mature cheddar into something vintage. Smokey foodstuffs may be an acquired taste but I love them. (No phenolic whisky for me though please!)

What better way to finish off the evening than a bottle of the new batch of Fuller’s Gale’s Prize Old Ale (2011). Plenty has already been said about this beer; so I’ll avoid lengthy analysis here but it is certainly one to be savoured for its complex interplay of malt and aged wood character flavours and a hint of lactic acid from barrel flora. A complex beer had to go with a complex cheese so the Cashel blue was brought into play again and scored another hit. Looking forward to my comparative tasting of original 2006, Horndean brewed, London Bottled 2007 and Fullers brewed and bottled 2011 later in the year. Stay tuned folks!

Prior to this tasting I already knew which cheeses I enjoyed but some of the matches took these to a whole other level. Favourite matches of the evening were Cashel blue and Riptide and Salopian and Comte. Cashel and Riptide just pip the post as CABPOM. The only one I’d probably avoid in the future is the pecorino and dunkel but would like to find a better match.

With hundreds more potential cheese and beer combinations out there this is to be the first of many blogs on the subject. For anyone who has not matched cheese and beer before, or not ventured beyond the conventional wisdom of Stilton/ strong cheddar and barley wine I strongly urge you to explore further!

None of the images are my own as I managed to kill my camera’s memory card at Glastonbury. Images taken from linked websites.