The idea was to use the list of beers chosen by everybody for each of the three cheeses that were listed in the round-up to try a few more beers with the same cheese. Simply pick up some of the other beers that were suggested, and try them with the same three cheeses and do a follow up blog post on or around Friday, May 20 to explore more fully pairing cheese and beer.

I love the idea of this in making the Session more interactive, though I wasn’t able to invest as much effort into this “second helping” of beer and cheese. But, I picked up some more Rogue Creamery Oregon Blue, and looked over the round-up to find another beer that was paired with blue cheese to taste.

Beer Search Party had paired blue cheese with Stone Brewing‘s Old Guardian BELGO Barleywine—the regular Old Guardian recipe fermented with a Belgian yeast strain, and one I’ve been wanting to try for a while now—so that’s what I went with.

As I did with my previous Session reviews this month, I start with my beer notes and then move into the beer and cheese together.

BELGO is a typical Stone beer—strong, hoppy, and unusual. The “regular” Old Guardian is a great Barleywine, the base for BELGO with a twist:

When our illustrious brewing team spiked a few barrels of the Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine with our Belgian yeast strain last year, we absolutely loved it. So much, in fact, that we knew we needed an excuse to make more. So, in our unending quest to constantly challenge the status quo (even our own), we came up with Odd Beers for Odd Years, a program to release odd beers – e.g. Stone Old Guardian BELGO Barley Wine – in odd years (2011, 2013, 2015…).

Old Guardian BELGO is a big 12% alcohol by volume.

Appearance: Honey-amber and a touch hazy, topped by two fingers of very thick and dense clotted-cream head.

Smell: Slightly boozy with hints of malty Barleywine sweetness but then there’s a tangy funk—a very Belgian nose. Pairs with that cloying character interestingly; a touch of barnyard with a Stone kick, kind of a cognitive dissonance.

Taste: Big and interesting—boozy, slightly hot Barleywine without the cloying body—a touch dry with a fruity, hibiscus thing going on. Nicely spicy like a Saison, white pepper predominantly. Works surprisingly well—would this be similar if you blended a Barleywine, a Trippel, and a Saison?

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied with a dry finish, not what you’d expect for a Barleywine. Nice spicy aftertaste and lingering boozy heat.

Overall: Really, really nice, unusual.

BeerAdvocate: B. RateBeer: 3.6, 96% percentile.

With the Rogue Oregon Blue Cheese: The tang of the blue and the spiciness of the BELGO play off each other to bring out a round, flowery fruitiness; it’s rather intense and complex. The spiciness of the beer is also magnified I think, with less pepper and more… sage? Dandelion? The cheese has nutty flavors enhanced, salty with maybe even a hint of walnut shell. I would have expected a more creamy presence, but not so much. THe aftertaste of the pairing is a tangy, “prickly” coating of the mouth with plenty of Saison-y spice. Quite good, subtle and complex and worth savoring (and trying again).

Very worthwhile; it’s hard to go wrong with blue cheese, in my opinion.

You can read my original beer and cheese pairings from earlier this month too:

• Fort George Brewing’s Vortex IPA with Tillamook Vintage White Cheddar
• Pelican 2010 Stormwatcher’s Winterfest Barleywine with Rogue Creamery Blue Cheese
• Widmer Cherry Oak Doppelbock with Trader Joe’s Goat’s Milk Cheddar

My goal for the three pairings was to go with Oregon beers and cheeses as much as possible; and since my third pairing was a goat’s milk cheese with (suggested styles of) a Doppelbock or a Belgian wheat beer, I thought I’d dip into my “cellar” and select a beer I had on-hand: Widmer‘s Cherry Oak Doppelbock, the first of the “Brother’s Reserve” series beers that Widmer first released back in September 2009. I loved this beer the first time around—so much so that it was one of my top beers of 2009—so I was curious to see how a year-and-a-half would treat this beer.

The cheese, however, wasn’t an Oregon cheese this time: Goat’s Milk Cheddar Cheese from Trader Joe’s, which turned out to be from Canada. Not entirely what I’d intended, but I’m not losing any sleep over it.

Widmer Cherry Oak Doppelbock and Trader Joe’s Goat’s Milk Cheddar

The beer: As a refresher for the beer, this is Widmer’s description:

Cherry Oak Doppelbock is a rich ale, cold-fermented with dark sweet and red tart cherries, then conditioned on new, heavily toasted American oak. The result is a dark lustrous brew with up-front malty sweetness and cherry fruit notes completed by caramel, dark chocolate, and toasted oak undertones. The complex flavor profile balances the impressive 9% ABV and 40 IBUs.

I reviewed this beer back in ’09, and my overall note was:

Overall: Wow, this beer is amazing—the cherry is perfect, the Doppelbock is perfect, there’s nothing harsh or overplayed here—it’s fantastic.

It’s worth reading my original review to compare to the aged bottle—go ahead, I’ll wait.

Back? Good! Since I had already written up the full review previously (and we had friends over, drinking beer as well), my notes this time around are more summarized:

It’s a deep ruby brown, fairly still now. Still has a bit of cherry in the nose, but it’s muted and more cherry pit than fruit; sweet. Much more tart and dry in flavor, and it has woody character and some sherry oxidation but not in a bad way. Oaky tannin character.

The cheese: The goat cheese is gamey and earthy, mellow and creamy with that distinctive “goat” character; not as intense as a straight chèvre, I suppose the cheddar aspect of it is what makes this a bit mellower.

Paired with the beer, however, doesn’t work entirely: they are not bad together, but there is a bit of a clash. The cheese seems to bring out strong wood notes in the beer, a bit harsh. Almost like it’s drawing out the woody notes from cherry pits, and the fruit character of the beer is lost amidst the tannin, wood flavors. I think a straight Doppelbock would have worked better with this cheese, or perhaps a Witbier of some type; or, selecting a creamier chèvre, perhaps a brie, might have worked better.

I did have a bit of the Rogue Oregon Blue left, so I tried some of that with the Cherry Oak Doppelbock as well. Much better fit, the tang of the cheese played well off of the tart fruit of the beer.

Great Session this month! Jay has already got the roundup posted, and also outlined the plans for “Session 51.5″:

Use the list of beers chosen by everybody for each of the three cheeses that are listed above to try a few more beers with the same cheese. Over the next two weeks, simply pick up some of the other beers that were suggested, and try them with the same three cheeses and do a follow up blog post on Friday, May 20 — which I’m calling Session #51.5 — to explore more fully pairing cheese and beer.

You can write about how your choices compared, or what you learned from the other suggestions, or which out of all the ones you tried worked best. What recommended pairing most surprised you? Which didn’t seem to work at all, for you? It’s my way of taking the Session concept and making it more interactive and collaborative, essentially an “online cheese-off.” First, we made our best recommendations for pairing a beer with these three cheeses, and now we have an opportunity to try as many of the suggestions as we can, and discover which worked best. I’ll then do a second round-up and report the findings of the group as a whole to the beers and the three cheeses together.

I did say this was the most involved Session yet!

Besides the cheese suggestions, Jay also posted notes suggesting what styles of beer might pair well with those cheeses, and since I’m still fairly ignorant of cheese pairings, those styles were what I went with. For the record, they were:

• Cheddar, with IPA
• Blue cheese, with an Imperial Stout or Barleywine (or similar strong and complex beer)
• Goat cheese, with Belgian Wheat or Doppelbock

The Vortex IPA and Tillamook cheddar already reported on, I turn my attention now to the blue cheese; since I had the idea of loosely “theming” the pairings on Oregon cheeses and beers, the blue cheese I ultimately selected was Rogue Creamery‘s Oregon Blue Cheese. And given the suggestion of a strong (or “Imperial”) beer to pair, I had the perfect beer in mind: the 2010 Stormwatcher’s Winterfest Barleywine from Pelican Pub & Brewery.

Like my first post, I’m presenting my beer review notes first, then I’ll talk about the cheese.

Pelican 2010 Stormwatcher’s Winterfest and Rogue Creamery Oregon Blue Cheese

The beer: Several months ago, Pelican began officially distributing their beers here in Bend, which gave me the opportunity to pick up the bottle of the Stormwatcher’s Winterfest, one of the Pelican brews I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to try. (Regular readers know I’m a big fan of Pelican and Pacific City, where they’re located—you can see past write-ups here and here—but I’ve missed most of their highly-touted seasonal beers simply due to the inconvenient distance between Bend and Pacific City; so I couldn’t pass up their Barleywine, even though it carries a heftier price tag than I usually go for in a 22-ounce bomber—$13.99.)

Here is the Pelican’s description of the Winterfest:

Stormwatcher’s Winterfest is the perfect brew to savor on a stormy Oregon Coast day. Its deep amber-red color, massive toasted malt, toffee and caramel aroma, and full-bodied malty flavor lead to a smooth, soft and warming finish. The floral aroma and flavor come from Hersbrucker & Goldings hops, while a rich toasted malt sweetness balances a mild, subtle bitterness in the finish. Its big, warming flavor makes it the ideal complement to nasty weather!

The beer is a whopping 12.7% alcohol by volume(!).

Appearance: Nice deep brown color with orange tints (makes me think of maple syrup), with an orange-tinted tan head.

Smell: Deeply malty with dark fruits all over the place and a prominent burnt-wood alcohol heat. Hot with a touch of sherry.

Taste: Brown sugar, raisins, leather, woody heat, lots of molasses-infused fruits, sweet and hot. Pleasant alcohol heat which grows in the back, almost spicy. Some of the sherry from the nose is here too, nicely complex.

Mouthfeel: Sticky but not quite full-bodied (well attenuated); dry finish from the alcohol even as it presents sweet.

Overall: Excellent; aging would be well founded, but it’s really nice right now.

BeerAdvocate: A-. RateBeer: 3.8, only two reviews so far so no percentile, though previous vintages were as high as 98%.

The cheese: The Rogue Creamery (not related to Rogue Ales) is located in Central Point, Oregon, just north of Medford in Southern Oregon. They make a variety of artisan cheeses but primarily focus on blue; you can order eight different varieties from their site directly, and they’re usually found in (good) cheese coolers around Oregon. If you like blue cheeses, you should definitely seek them out if they’re available in your area.

Of their Oregon Blue, they say:

Created a half a century ago, Oregon Blue Vein cheese has been the West Coast’s exemplary award-winning Raw Milk Blue cheese.

Aged at least 90 days in our Roquefort modeled caves, its semi-soft texture is smooth and its flavor subtle.

Richly hued blue-green veins randomly  highlight the wheel.Pairs nicely with figs, red silk pears, fresh spinach, Viognier wine,  rustic peasant bread and coffee.

The cheese itself is a nice, lightly intense blue with milky, creamy flavors full of that savory “bleu” character—pungent, tangy, earthy, a little bit reminiscent of flavorful mushrooms (moldy? which doesn’t sound nearly as appealing as it tastes).

It seems to draw out a strong toffee character in the beer, while the beer cuts into the pungency and brings out creaminess—but they also stand up to and complement each other really well, particularly in their respective complexity. Big earthy flavors come out of the cheese, moreso because of the beer I think. Meanwhile the beer’s heat (intensity) is dampened by the cheese—remember, this is a hot, young beer at 12.7% abv—allow those toffee flavors to be drawn out. Lingering aftertastes from both is intensified.

I liked this combination of beer and cheese better than the previous, not because the beer or cheese is inherently better but largely because I love Barleywines and big bold, intense flavors. The Blue-and-Barleywine combination really works for me, and I’m curious as to trying other “big” beers with blue cheeses—in particular, I have an apricot Stilton from Trader Joe’s that doesn’t have big “bleu” flavors but is very good that I think would pair well with an Imperial Stout. So much to explore!

Next up: Goat cheese and Doppelbock!

Jay Brooks is hosting this month, and he’s chosen a topic and set guidelines to make this probably the most engaging Session yet: Beer and Cheese.

Below are three cheeses. I chose ones that I believe are available throughout the U.S. and quite possibly beyond our shores. And they all sell via mail order, too. So pick up some of each, or if you can’t find those specific cheeses, choose similar ones. Pick a beer to pair with each one and post your results on the first Friday in May.

It’s worth reading the full post, but in essence the three cheeses are a blue cheese, an aged cheddar, and a goat cheese (Jay also includes some beer style suggestions to pair with the cheese). Then: taste the beer and cheese together!

Of course, as Stan has noted, “nobody has ever been kicked out of the Session for showing up with the wrong cheese”—so if you didn’t end up with exactly the cheeses that Jay picked out, that’s perfectly okay. (I didn’t.)

I’m a relative newbie to the beer-and-cheese tasting —at least in any intentional sense—but I love the idea and spent probably far too much time ruminating on the perfect cheeses to match up with some beers that I had in mind. In the end, I thought it would be interesting to stay local if possible—in this case, within the state of Oregon—and decided on the following combinations:

• Tillamook Extra Sharp Vintage White Cheddar (aged two years) with Fort George Vortex IPA
• Rogue Creamery Blue Cheese with 2010 Stormwatcher’s Winterfest Barleywine from Pelican Pub & Brewery
• Goat cheese with Widmer’s Cherry Oak Doppelbock

In fact (most of) these beers are also ones I’m drinking for the first time, so my notes on each pairing reflects my review of each beer as well as the cheese pairing notes.

And, this is a first for me—my Session post was getting so long that I decided to split it into three parts, each one covering a beer and cheese tasting. (Right now this first part is already over 1,000 words! Yikes!)

Fort George Vortex IPA with Tillamook Extra Sharp White Cheddar

The beer: Fort George Brewery is located in Astoria and Vortex IPA is one of their very first packaged offerings (the other is their 1811 Lager), which they are packaging in 16-ounce cans. It’s been ages since I’ve been to Astoria—predating Fort George Brewing—so except for a taste of some of their stout I had in Portland last year, Vortex IPA and 1811 Lager are the first of their beers I’ve had. Of Vortex, the Brewery says:

India Pale Ales were designed to withstand the long voyage to India. Our IPA is made with generous additions of Cascade, Simcoe and Palisade hops throughout the brewing, fermentation and conditioning phases, balanced with heaps of organic pale malt. We designed this to not rip your taste buds off your tongue, but rather to vigorously stimulate them and your palate into a lupulin-ecstasy of pleasure. During the cross-country truck trip our brewery made to find its home in Astoria, it was nearly scattered to the cornfields of Nebraska by a tornado. We try to capture some of nature’s intensity in every pint.

Vortex IPA is 7.7% alcohol by volume.

Appearance: Terrifically clear and bright copper in color; two fingers of dense, creamy head piled up; nice legs.

Smell: Citrus and tropical fruits along with a nice green spicy hop note to it; very fresh and appetizing.

Taste: Sweetly malty with extremely well-balanced hop bitterness, spicy and clean. Sweet caramelly malts are pleasant and toasty, and make you want to keep sipping. Nice rise of the hops again in the back.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, clean, with lovely hoppy aftertaste that’s a touch sticky and pleasantly bitter on the back of the tongue.

Overall: Truly excellent IPA.

BeerAdvocate: A-. RateBeer: 3.54, 94th percentile.

The cheese: Tillamook Cheese is of course the most well-known cheese producer in Oregon, located on the Oregon Coast (just north of Pacific City, where the Pelican Pub and Brewery is located). In addition to their ubiquitous orange cheddars, they also have a full line of aged cheddars, jack cheeses, blends with various ingredients (garlic, herbs, spices, etc.), and even ice cream, yogurt, butter, and sour cream. The Extra Sharp Vintage White Cheddar is one that we already had in the refrigerator, making this an easy choice; it’s aged for over two years.

Patience is the last ingredient in Tillamook Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar. Each batch takes over two years to age into a creamy, crumbly texture that blossoms with flavor in your mouth. There isn’t a food in the world that doesn’t go well with this cheese.

And out of curiosity, I also decided to pair the beer with some of their regular medium cheddar cheese, which is aged only three months I believe.

Medium cheddar: The IPA brings out a creamy note to the cheese, and at the same time the cheese cuts the bitterness of the hops, seeming to accentuate the sweetness of the malts.

Extra Sharp cheddar: This cheese has a sharper, more pronounced “tang” to it, and is rich and nutty; interestingly my first impression is that this one accentuates the dry rather than the sweet—both in the cheese and the beer. The beer seems to cut the sharpness of this cheese quite a bit, while the hops seem more pronounced in a drier bitterness but not floral quality. They each seem less intense, as they play off each other. The cheese also seems creamier, like the medium cheddar.

Overall I was fairly pleased with this combination, and interesting to note, the rest of the beer after the cheese seemed to taste sweeter and maltier almost like I was still combining it with the cheese—I don’t know if that was the aftertaste of the cheese lingering on the palate or perhaps as the Vortex IPA warmed it brought out the malts. Either way, Fort George makes a pretty fine beer, and Tillamook a pretty fine cheese; I’d recommend trying these two together if you get the chance.

Next up: Barleywine and Blue Cheese!

It simultaneously sounds gross and intriguing.

This month’s Session honors falls to Beer 47, and the theme is Beer Desserts:

Beer may not be a common ingredient in desserts but when it is used properly, the results can be very delicious. A couple of desserts that I’ve tried making in the past have been beer brittle (pictured above) and stout chocolate cake. Another common beer dessert is a beer float.

For the August 2009 edition of the The Session, Beer 47 will hosting a discussion about Beer Desserts. What beer desserts have you tried and liked? Disliked? What beer styles work well with dessert and which ones do not? Do you have any beer dessert recipes that you enjoyed and would like to share?

Cooking with beer is something I do infrequently, and I’ve only made one dessert type dish: beer cupcakes, made with Guinness Stout. (The original recipe doesn’t appear to be online anymore.) And frankly I’ve not had many desserts using beer as an ingredient—though I’ve drooled over the beer ice cream, beer cheesecake, and Irish stout cake, and love the idea of the beer float. The only desserts I can think of that I have had that probably qualify are of the baked variety, but I’d hardly turn down the opportunity to try others.

I would imagine that the beers you would ordinarily pair with a dessert (stouts, fruit beers, chocolate beers, and so on) would also work rather well as an ingredient. For instance, here’s a recipe for Cherry Beer Cake that uses “cherry wheat” beer; though I have to say I think a chocolate stout would work very well too.

Some other style/recipe ideas: a crème brûlée made with a Porter or Brown Ale; fruit cobbler made with a fruit beer (something with blackberries or raspberries would be delicious); artisan cheese made with beer (for those who like a more savory dessert—and there’s a cheesemaker local to me who makes a beer cheese); carrot cake with cream cheese frosting made with Imperial IPA.

(I stole that last one from Randy Mosher, who recommends the unlikely pairing of Imperial IPA with carrot cake in Radical Brewing.)

And really, let’s not overlook beer itself as the dessert. Pour up a snifter of an Imperial Stout or a Barleywine, something rich and strong and complex, and that for me would be as good as a slice of cheesecake.

Beer may not be a common ingredient in desserts but when it is used properly, the results can be very delicious. A couple of desserts that I’ve tried making in the past have been beer brittle (pictured above) and stout chocolate cake. Another common beer dessert is a beer float.

For the August 2009 edition of the The Session, Beer 47 will hosting a discussion about Beer Desserts. What beer desserts have you tried and liked? Disliked? What beer styles work well with dessert and which ones do not? Do you have any beer dessert recipes that you enjoyed and would like to share?

Beer as an ingredient, but I would think beer as a dessert accompaniment—think Lindemans Framboise with chocolate truffles—would work just as well.

I took the camera along and snapped a few pictures, though they were mostly of the food (and beer). One picture I didn’t take and I wish I had was of the brewer, Jimmy Seifert, who was the one who created all of the beers on the menu and who talked about each beer as they were served. We were sitting at the same table as him, actually, and in addition to writing up a review of the beer and food we had, I’ve got a few notes about the brewing process on some of these beers and some interesting info on The Dissident, of which Jimmy is the brewer.

In addition to the beer, they were also serving up (free) wine. Someone was telling me later that last year, wine cost $6.50 per glass, but I think making it complimentary, like the beer, is the way to go.

Continue reading “Chocolate Beer Pairing Dinner: Deschutes Brewery” »

MENU:
Passed appetizer – Cocoa and Ancho Dusted Scallops on a Plantain Chip
Paired with St Abe Belgian Artisanal Ale

Plated Appetizer – Duck Enchilada with Mole Sauce
Paired with Chocolate Pale Ale

Salad – Blueberry and Micro Green Salad with White Chocolate and Lavender Vinaigrette
Paired with Black Butte XX

Entrée – Misty Isle Filet Mignon with Seville Orange and Chocolate Demi Glace
Paired with Chocolate Irish Export Extra Stout

Dessert – White Chocolate Panna Cotta with Balsamic Roasted Strawberries
Paired with Black Butte XX

$65 per person - all inclusive.

Reservations Required, Please Call Sharon @ 541.385.8606

I’ve been invited to attend by the good folks there (thanks, Jason) [disclaimer: I'll be covered by the brewery], and I’m really looking forward to it. I should have lots to write about and plenty of pictures to post.

I am looking for posts about pairing beer with food or using beer as an ingredient in food. I hope to see recipes, pictures, tasting notes, stories, menus, reviews or anything else that fits the bill of fare. Whether you write about which beer goes best with chili dogs or give your family’s secret recipe for vegan stout stew or post pictures of those ale braised lamb shanks you had last week, I want to know every mouth watering detail.

I have to confess, this isn’t a topic I’ve spent much time focusing on, beyond a casual interest. I’ve not attended any formal beer dinners, nor do I generally select a beer based on what food I’m eating.

So I was wondering what I’d be able to contribute this month when I realized that I did, in fact, cook recently with beer—not something I often do, either. So I’ll talk about the two recipes I made.

First, though, I have to mention Michael Jackson’s awesome Ultimate Beer, because it has an extensive section on beer and food pairings—it’s my go-to source on the subject (what I do know about it). He has style recommendations for most categories of food (smoked foods, fish, beef, pizza, desserts, etc.) and ones I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of (salads and starters, pickles and pâtés). It’s also just a beautiful book. Go buy it.

(I’ll give a plug to Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmaster’s Table, too, because I’ve heard good things about it—though I’ve not read it yet.)

Anyway, on to the recipes.

The first of the two recipes was this one I blogged about: beer cupcakes. I followed the recipe verbatim, and they turned out to be delicious: rich and moist, the Guinness and the cocoa worked to give it a velvety, dark chocolate flavor, very decadent. I highly recommend this recipe; it’s easy to follow and I promise the cupcakes will be a hit.

Beer Pairing Suggestion: Stout or Porter, particularly a chocolate variety.

The second foray into beer cooking was Sunday dinner last week and I was thinking along the lines of an Oktoberfest flair, so I went with a pot roast—using Spaten Oktoberfest as the braising liquid.

I followed a basic recipe as a guideline, but I improvised a bit as well. Here’s what I did:

• 3.25 lb. beef chuck roast, seasoned liberally with salt and pepper
• Chopped onions, carrots, and celery—about 1/2 cup each
• 1 cup beer
• Seasonings (I used thyme, oregano, parsley, and a dash of sage
• Several small whole onions, potatoes (cut into chunks), baby carrots

You’ll need a Dutch oven or other similarly heavy pot with a lid for this.

First I browned the beef over medium-high heat on all sides, about 10-15 minutes worth. Remove from heat, add several tablespoons of olive oil and sauté the chopped veggies for about 5 minutes, then add the beer and seasonings. Bring to a boil, add the beef back to the mixture. Cover the pot tightly, and turn the heat down to low. Now leave it for about 2 hours, then add the whole vegetables, cover and leave it for another hour. (Add more liquid as needed—do not let the pot dry out.)

When it’s done, take the roast out and let it rest for about 15 minutes, then slice it up. Serve with the whole vegetables. Additionally, you can make a gravy out of the remaining liquid in the pot, but I didn’t do that (this time).

Verdict: It was good—you can’t go wrong with pot roast!

Beer Pairing Suggestion: Well, an Oktoberfest goes well with this, obviously. But I think any malty, more-sweet-than-hoppy beer would pair well with this; it’s comfort food and deserves a "comfort beer."