{"id":8,"date":"2008-08-09T10:39:45","date_gmt":"2008-08-09T17:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/?p=8"},"modified":"2009-07-02T09:39:21","modified_gmt":"2009-07-02T16:39:21","slug":"cheese-beer-pairing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/cheese-beer-pairing\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheese & Beer Pairing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inspired by the New York Times<\/em> article I wrote about previously, I started looking for some recommendations for cheese and beer pairings. We like beer near as much as we like cheese so it seemed only natural to put these two together. I came across a recommendation to pair summer beers like a wheat or hefeweizen with fresh young cheeses like chevre or fromage blanc. Since we had just made a batch of chevre that morning, I thought this would be perfect. Thom, my incredibly smart and handsome husband, who also happens to be a homebrewer and writer over at the BSBrewing Blog<\/a>, came along to help me choose the beers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For the young chevre we ended up choosing two beers, both from Widmer<\/a>. I really like both their Crimson Wheat (an ’08 summer seasonal) and their old standby Hefeweizen so we got a couple bottles of each for the sampling. The second recommendation was to pair a slightly aged cheese like Humboldt Fog with a Belgian style Saison. Thom picked out the Farmhouse Ale from Bison Brewing down in Berkeley. It comes in a really lovely bottle with a sweet label. The last recommendation was to pair a firmer, more aged goat cheese such as a Garrotxa (ga-ROTCH-ha) with a porter or stout. We hemmed and hawed over this choice. Darker beers are sometimes difficult for people. My first inclination was to go with the reliable Deschute’s Black Butte Porter — it’s easy to drink and generally pleasing to most palates. However, we ultimately decided to go with Laurelwood’s Tree Hugger Organic Porter. Laurelwood Pub and Brewery<\/a> is local here so I have no idea if you can get this outside of Portland or a well-stocked beer shop.<\/p>\n

On to the tasting notes:<\/p>\n

Fresh Chevre with Widmer’s Crimson Wheat and Hefeweizen<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"First<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hefeweizen is a crisp, lightly-colored, summery beer with a slight tang. Served best cold with a wedge of lemon for the rim. The Crimson Wheat is a nice maple color and tastes slightly malty with a touch of caramel and perhaps banana — a truly lovely summer beer. I seriously am in love with this beer. We sliced up some bread and mixed a taster of the fresh chevre with rosemary (from Amanda’s garden), left one plain (all were mixed with cheese salt) and a third we mixed with chives (from Sarah’s garden). We felt that this was a good pairing, nicely complementing and counter-balancing the chevre. It was noted that the Crimson Wheat seemed most delicious paired with the rosemary chevre and the Hef really shined next to the chives.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Humboldt Fog with Bison Brewing’s Farmhouse Ale, Belgian-style Saison<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Humboldt Fog from Cypress Grove<\/a> is a creamy, slightly dry chevre with a ribbon of vegetable ash running through its center. It has a creamy layer at the rind and has a slight tang to it. We complemented this with the Farmhouse Ale Belgian-style Saison. The Saison also has a tang with a very fresh taste and is slightly bitter. There was nothing wrong with this pairing. Everything was right!
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Spanish Garrotxa with Laurelwood’s Tree Hugger Porter<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Larelwood<\/a><\/p>\n

The Garrotxa is a light cheese with grainy “crystals” and slightly nutty flavor and was very complementary to the very drinkable and chocolatey porter from Laurelwood.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

All in all, I think the lesson here is that cheese and beer are a happy pairing. I think for summertime especially, when rich wines might not be as welcome, that putting out some beers to go with the cheese plate is a good idea. Having said that, I didn’t really get a transportational effect with the beer as I do with some wines. At the goat cheese tasting we did at Curds & Whey some months back, they paired the St. Olga with a lively red wine and the two together were divine. However, it’s easier and cheaper to have a couple beers on hand and rely on them as a cleanser to better enjoy the cheese.<\/p>\n

You can read more about beer and cheese in this San Francisco Chronicle<\/a> article which has the recommendations we followed as well as more pairings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspired by the New York Times article I wrote about previously, I started looking for some recommendations for cheese and beer pairings. We like beer near as much as we like cheese so it seemed only natural to put these two together. I came across a recommendation to pair summer beers like a wheat or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,1,5,14],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amanda","category-beer","category-cheese","category-goat","category-tastingnotes","tag-humboldtfog-garrotxa-chevre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27,"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fucheese.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}