Another Testament to Pairing Beer and Food

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Flying Dog Doggy Style Classic Pale AleIn an earlier post I related a story about the power of good beer and food pairing. When well paired the two really do raise each other up, creating a combination that is better than the sum of its parts. At a beer dinner that I facilitated last night for a corporate Christmas party I witnessed yet another example of this. For the second course we were pouring Flying Dog’s Doggy Style Pale Ale, a classic American Pale Ale with a lightly cracker malt character and explosive citrus/pine flavors and aroma from loads of Cascade hops. It was paired with a warm escarole salad with mustard-sherry vinaigrette, brioche croutons, and crumbled blue cheese expertly created by Chef Philip Dorwart of Create Catering.  As I moved from table to table working the room and discussing beer and food with guests, one particularly outspoken diner had this to say about the pairing. “I hate hoppy beers. But with this salad, this is fucking awesome.”

There you have it. Another straightforward testimony to the power of pairing beer and food.

Two Brothers Brewing Co Profile

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Two Brothers Brewing Company in Warrenville, Illinois is growing rapidly. Started in 1996 with two donated bulk dairy tanks and a first-year production of 163 barrels, the brewery has expanded into a major regional player with around 20,000 barrels of capacity and current annual production of 12,000 barrels. Owners Jim and Jason Ebel have big things in store, with plans to expand on their already excellent line-up that includes Domaine DuPage, Ebel’s Weiss, Hop Juice, Moaten, and one of my favorite beers Cane & Ebel among many other great beers. A large number of newly purchased oak foudres will be used to develop a new line of sour beers.

Read all about Two Brothers Brewing Co. in the Brewery Profile posted today on the Perfect Pint Website.

Goose Island Christmas Ale 2009

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Continuing with the Christmas/Holiday beer theme, I tried the 2009 edition of Christmas Ale from Goose Island Brewing Co. in Chicago. The base style for this beer is an American brown ale. The folks at Goose Island change the recipe slightly each year to make it interesting. Starting this year Goose Island is donating a portion of the profits from this beer to charity. Nice touch for the holiday season. Here’s my notes:

2009 Goose Island Christmas Ale2009 Christmas Ale
Goose Island Brewing Co., Chicago, Illinois
Style: American Brown Ale
Serving Style: 22 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Nutty toffee malt with bright minty and apricot/tangerine hops. Hints of raisin. Smells of English yeast. Light alcohol.

Appearance: Chestnut brown and brilliantly clear. Full, off-white and persistent creamy head.

Flavor: Caramel, toffee, and brown sugar lead off, with toasted bread, nuts, and hints of chocolate rounding out the malt. The bitterness is moderately high, but balanced. Minty/herbal hop flavors. Nice tangerine citrus fruit. Whiffs of ginger spice and of cinnamon. Long lingering finish of bread and fruit.

Mouthfeel: Very drinkable. Medium body and medium carbonation. Slight alcohol warming.

Overall Impression: Wow! I really like this beer. Light and tasty, yet warming on a cold and snowy winter’s evening. Nice interplay of malt, hops and fruit. Balanced. Minty hops are cooling like a peppermint stick. Tangerines make this a festive Christmas candy. My burps tasted of tangerine. Nice

Bell’s Christmas Ale

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Bell’s Christmas Ale made its debut last season. According to the bottle label it is a Scotch ale brewed with 100% Michigan barley and a blend of Pacific Northwest and Michigan hops. It is one of those “Christmas ales” that is so by virtue of the fact that the brewery calls it one. A pretty straightforward example of the style, there is nothing about it that specifically screams “Christmas.” It’s a fairly tasty beer nonetheless. Here’s my notes:

Bell's Christmas AleChristmas Ale
Bell’s Brewery Inc., Comstock, MI
Style: Scotch Ale
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Caramel malt leads into loads of fruit, cherries, raisins, and figs. A faint whiff of roast. Cola-like. Perhaps a bit copper metallic.

Appearance: Amber/orange with a full, rocky, off-white head that collapsed quickly into a thin film on the surface of the beer. Crystal clear.

Flavor: The flavor very much follows the aroma. Nutty caramel malt dominates with a good deal of cherry and raisin fruitiness. The roast flavor, though still distant, is fuller than in the aroma coming on especially in the finish. The bitterness is higher than expected and there is a nice earthy/spicy hop flavor, though it remains a malt forward beer. It gets better as the initial carbonation settles and the malt character is allowed to come through more fully. Nice herbal and vanilla notes begin to come through as well. Finishes fairly dry with distant roast. The metallic notes from the aroma are there in the flavor as well, but faint.

Mouthfeel: The high level of carbonation gives this beer a carbonic bite that detracts from the rich malty flavors. Better after it has de-gassed a bit. Medium body.

Overall Impression: This beer grew on me as I drank it. It definitely benefited from being allowed to de-gas a bit. Nice caramel malt and fruit character. Even some hints of spice, although the label does not indicate that any were used in the brewing. It’s a nice beer but I think there are better examples of the style to be had. Would go well with warm shepherd’s pie on a cold wintery day like today.

Congratulations to the First Master Cicerone

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Cicerone Certification Program

The Cicerone Certification Program™ today announced awarding of the first-ever Master Cicerone™  certification to Andrew Van Til, Account Manager at Elite Brands Michigan, a division of CKL Corporation. Van Til earned the certification through a series of exams culminating with two days of intense written and oral questioning about beer styles, draft systems, beer evaluation, brewing technology, and beer and food pairing.

Van Til becomes the first person to earn the Master Cicerone title—the third and top level of the Cicerone Certification Program. Founded in 2007, the program tests and certifies beer expertise similar to the wine world’s Master Sommelier program. The Master Cicerone exam included 8 hours of written questions, 2 hours of oral questions and 2 hours of beer tasting and evaluation. Candidates needed a score of 85% across all three areas to pass.

The Cicerone Certification Program is a service of the Craft Beer Institute, the Chicago-based beer and brewing education organization.  The program is directed by brewer, author and beer educator Ray Daniels. A variety of breweries, beer distributors and retailers sponsor the program.

To date, the Cicerone Certification Program has given more than 1000 exams across the three levels of the program. Approximately 800 individuals have earned the first level title of Certified Beer Server and about 75 individuals have achieved the title of Certified Cicerone™. Van Til was one of seven beer industry professionals who took the Master Cicerone exam and the only one who passed.

A Perfect Pint’s Michael Agnew was one of the first 17 individuals to achieve the Certified Cicerone™ level.

Shiner Holiday Cheer

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Tucked away in the south Texas hill country between Houston and San Antonio, Spoetzl Brewery has been around since 1909. It survived prohibition. It survived the arrival of the mega-breweries after prohibition’s repeal. It even survived the great brewery consolidation of the 1970s. Spoetzl’s Flagship beer Shiner Bock has been brewed since 1913 and could be seen as a holdover of an earlier and mostly lost American beer style. I have never beer a great admirer of the Shiner beers. However, last year a friend sent me a bottle of Shiner Holiday Cheer. I loved it. He sent more this year. Here’s my notes:

Shiner Holiday CheerShiner Holiday Cheer
Spoetzl Brewery, Shiner, Texas
Style: Dunkelweizen with peaches and roasted pecans
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Peaches, peaches, and more peaches.

Appearance: Dark amber and clear. Creamy, off-white, persistent head.

Flavor: Malt balanced with brown sugar and caramel flavors. Hop bitterness and flavor are low. The real star of this beer is the fresh peach flavor. POW! Juicy, peach/apricot nectar. Nice background note of cinnamon, clove, and toast. Peach cobbler anyone?

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body. Medium carbonation. Very drinkable

Overall Impression: If you like peach cobbler this is the beer for you. The peach flavor shines but blends well with the malt and background spice notes. Light body and low alcohol make it an incredibly drinkable holiday brew. I could down a few of these.

Sam Adams vs. Brew Dog…Not so fast

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I have no further verification of this, but I just read an article about an even stronger beer that is going to be released soon. Schorschbräu Schorschbock 40%. It’s an Eisbock from Germany. The company claims another beer at 31%, which already had Utopias beat. I’ve never heard of this particular brewery. Some additional investigation seems warranted.

I was thinking though that these new world record beers don’t seem as impressive to me as Utopia. Using the “ice” method of distillation seems like cheating. Sam Adams actually ferments Utopias to 27%. Oh well…

In the meantime, here’s the link to the original article.

Utopias No Longer World’s Strongest Beer?

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Sam Adams Utopias, long the strongest beer in the world at 27% ABV, has been knocked off of that throne.  Scotland’s Brewdog has announced the release of Tactical Nuclear Penguin, a 32% ABV barrel-aged, iced, imperial stout.

To make this beer they brewed a 10% ABV Imperial Stout and aged that in barrels for eighteen months. This aged beer was then taken to an ice cream factory where it was frozen. The water content of beer freezes at a lower temperature than everything else, allowing them to run off a concentrated version of the original beer. After a couple of freeze/runoff cycles they ended up with Tactical Nuclear Penguin. The website claims that the year and a half of aging has left them with a super-strong beer that is nonetheless smooth and drinkable (in small amounts and from a snifter of course).

They are only releasing 500 330ml bottles, so don’t count on seeing it in your local liquor store. The first 250 bottle will sell for £30 ($50). The remaining 250 bottles will sell for £250 ($412) and will include shares in the Brewdog company through their Equity for Punks program. And you thought Utopias was expensive.

Here’s some video from the Brewdog Blog.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin from BrewDog on Vimeo.