The Pacific Northwest Cheese Project blog has a review of an event I’d never heard of before: Rogue‘s Beer, Cheese & Chocolate Dinner & Tasting.

Rogue’s Hazlenut Brown Ale, on the sweeter side for a beer, was really nicely paired with a chocolate chip hazelnut cookie – not something I would have thought of previously, but I will now…. And Rogue Chef Alex Gung’s outstanding pepper fudge combined sweet fudge with spicy cayenne pepper, a great pairing with the light, slightly sweet Tuck’s Cherry Porter.

My favorite cheese/beer pairings were the Widmer Collaborator Kolsch paired with Willamette Valley Havarti and the Rogue Imperial Stout and Rogue Creamery Crater Lake Blue. In both cases the flavors harmonized for me in just the way that Fletcher discussed. Both the Kolsch and the Havarti were initially very mild but both developed flavor after a few seconds, finishing in a remarkably similar mild, tangy bitterness.

I’m having a hard time imagining a better tasting event of any kind…