Beer
I have just recently begun to "think" about the beer I'm drinking. Eventually, I'll put up more notes on beers and cheeses.
Ayinger Ur-Weisse with Whiskey Cheddar Cheese. Pretty good. It balanced out well.
Chimay Ale, blue label 9% alcohol. Brewed at Scourmont Abbey. This is a top fermented Trappist ale with secondary fermentation leaving a yeast sediment in the bottle. http://www.chimay.com
*Chimay, bleu with Gorgonzola Piccante. When this beer is aged in a large bottle (result is different from in small bottles), then the beer takes on a port-like flavor. This is known for going with Roquefort. Sweet beer. Sweet and salty cheese. This is good together. At first, I didn't like it, but that full, fruity, malty stuff going on in the beer was really nice with the salty, nutty cheese. The cheese takes away some of the full malty flavor in the beer, but overall, it's good. Some bitterness. The salt really comes through in the cheese. Nice and spicy cheese alongside fruit in the beer. Nice contrast.
Erdinger Hefe-Weizen Dark This
beer is from Bavaria and was fermented in the bottle. It is dark and looks like
chocolate, it is so dense. It doesn't seem to have a huge head, but that may be
how it was poured. It smells a little like soap. It is much lighter-tasting than
it looks. It is not bitter at all. It is very drinkable. It looks like a beer
that would drink really slow, but I am guzzling it. It is good, but it doesn't
have a ton of flavor compared to its color.
Fisher, La Belle Alsace beer from France with Alsatian Munster. These two are like candy together! They were meant to be. They bring out the sweetness in each other. The creaminess of the cheese is good against the bubbles in the beer. This is a huge treat.
Hacker-Pschorr Weisse -- Dark Traditional Dark Wheat ale from Munich. The label has a portrait of Georg Pschorr. Cloudy dark beer. It's not black, but a pretty brown. It smells fruity and malty. It looks like it would be strong being dark, but it is actually subtle.
*Hacker-Pschorr Weisse with Piave. Nutty, roasted tasting cheese. Great! This reminds me a little of the barley wine with Parmigiano-Reggiano. Even though the cheese is nutty, the beer brought even more roasted nutty flavor in the cheese.
Hacker-Pschorr Weisse with Robiola. Not bad, but not so interesting. The cheese seems a little too delicate. However, the beer is pretty mild. It's ok, but the styles don't seem to match so well.
König Ludwig Weiss Hefe-Weizen Light, easy-going Hefe-Weizen. It is fresh tasting, like a green pasture. A little lemony.
*König Ludwig Weiss Hefe-Weizen with Fontina. Very good. Not a perfect match. Somehow, I'd like a thicker, fuller bodied beer with this cheese, but I love the fresh, herbal taste of the beer with the "green pasture" flavor of this young Fontina. This is nice. On second thought, this is very good.
König Ludwig Weiss Hefe-Weizen with Piave. The beer washes out some of the nutty flavor in the cheese.
König Ludwig Weiss Hefe-Weizen with Robiola. Excellent! Kind of weird, though, the creamy cheese and the fizzy beer.
Moretti Brewed and bottled by Heineken, Italia in Comun Nuovo. Pilsner type. Pale golden color, clear, not too much head. It smells fresh, bright, and almost herbaceous. Very light, hoppy. Slightly bitter finish. It is fuller-bodied than Peroni, but still very light.
Moretti with Ramato beer-soaked cheeses from Italy. Very good together. I like the creamy taste and the full texture of the cheese with the light, yet slightly bitter, beer. The cheese is mild, but definitely tastes like beer.
Moretti with Taleggio. Too bitter. They don't compliment each other. They fight, but not too bad. They are sour.
Optimator, Spaten From Munich. 7.2% alcohol. Dark brown and clear. Not much foaming. It smells like meat and chocolate, and sweet. It smells a little like molasses. Sweet, malty, mild, creamy. Lightly bitter finish, but hardly bitter at all. A little spicy. Medium to full-bodied, lush beer.
*Optimator with Scamorza from Dallas Mozzarella Co. Smoky, mild, soft, yet spongy cheese. Delicious together. The cheese makes the beer taste extra sweet, and the beer tames some of the smoke, but then after the sweet malty flavor of the beer is over, the smoke comes back. I love this pairing. As soon as I have some beer, I have to have more cheese and try it all over again. I can't stop eating it. However, this beer could almost take a harder, less delicate cheese.
Old Speckled Hen English Ale with Whiskey Cheddar Cheese. The cheese overpowers the beer a little bit. It’s good and the pairing doesn’t change the cheese or the beer. Still, the cheese has a weird bitter whiskey taste that doesn’t seem right with the beer. Tim at Central Market said this beer would be good with the cheese, but I liked the Hefe-Weizen with it better.
Paulaner Original Munich Premium Lager Dark honey brown, good head. A little bitter, smooth, light, sweet, and something like barley. Yes, strong sweet barley flavor. I think that's barley malt. This was delicious. It was gone in about 2 minutes.
Peroni Brewed in Rome. http://www.peroni.it "It was in 1846 that Francesco Peroni started the brewery that would soon become the leader of the Italian beer market. Today, over 150 years later, the Peroni family still oversees the company's four breweries, making it possible to maintain an extremely high standard of excellence. Brewed with the finest spring barley malts, Peroni is a full-bodied golden lager with a smooth and well-balanced hop taste." Not much aroma. Golden, clear color.
*Peroni with Asiago. Mild, tangy, buttery cheese. Delicious. I like the fresh taste of the beer with the creamy-tasting cheese. The beer shows off the milk taste in the cheese, and the cheese brings out a hoppy finish in the beer.
Peroni with Malga. Sweet, herbal, minty cow's milk cheese. Cheese is too strong.
Peroni with Mozzarella Fresca, cow's milk. Boring, but ok. The cheese gets wiped out by the beer, and that's hard to do because this beer is really weak. Nice and fresh with a Caprese salad, though.
*Peroni with Ramato. Really good and well-balanced. The cheese is mild and the beer is really mild. Still, sometimes it seems like the cheese is stronger than the beer. It's good. Milky cheese, fresh, mild beer. I like the beer aftertaste in the cheese...and the beer. Mild and creamy-tasting, but with an acidic, lemony, fresh beer.
Peroni with Robiola. Not great. It tastes like vomit. I don't like how the beer is trying to be light, and even though the cheese is fresh and light, it overpowers the beer. It is too creamy and fills your mouth up, without anything really nice and acidic to cut into it.
Peroni with Taleggio. I had read that Pilsner was supposed to be good with Taleggio. This Taleggio is a little stinkier than some. Good. Refreshing. The cheese overpowers the beer, though. Salty cheese. This works if the cheese is way at room temperature, like almost melted it has been out so long.
Salvator Double Bock by Paulaner 7.5% alcohol. Ale. On the label, there is a picture of an evil-looking monk giving a nobleman a stein of beer. Smells hoppy. It is a medium amber color and very clear and pretty. Bright smell. Fizzier head. Roasted smell. The smell is robust, but the taste (at least the weight in the mouth) is light. Then there is a good bit of hoppy bitterness on the finish. Fruity, fermented fruit. Rotten fruit. Maybe apricots.
Salvator with Fontina. Great Fontina. Not too fruity of a Fontina. Rich cheese. My husband thought this was rich and fruity together. I thought it tasted like compost. The beer ruined the cheese, and the cheese ruined the beer. It made me make faces. Maybe it wasn't so bad, but it wasn't really a match. Foul flavors at the end. Bitter. I'm not wild about it. It brings out the bitterness in the beer. The fruit shows up at the end, and I taste spices like pumpkin spice, allspice. The creaminess is good with the rustic beer. There is a flavor of an electrical fire.
Salvator with Provolone. Not bad, but not so good. Too bitter together.
Val-Dieu Triple Made in an Abbey. Belgian style abbey ale. 9% alcohol. This came in a huge bottle like a wine bottle. It was $5.99 for the bottle at Central Market. It has a cork in it. The beer is golden and cloudy with not much head. It smells floral, hoppy, and wheaty. It has nice smooth bubbles and a medium weight. It tastes about like it smells. The finish is not too bitter. It is smooth and a little sweet. Ale is made with malt and hops like beer, but produced by rapid fermentation at a relatively high temperature.
Young's Old Nick Barley Wine Style Ale 7.2% alcohol. Brewed in London, in the classic English tradition, this award-winning dark barley wine style ale is a malty, velvetysmooth and full-bodied winter warmer with a rich ruby color. Old Nick is overflowing with sumptuous flavours of fruit and hops with a subtle bitterness on the finish." http://ww.youngs.co.uk Dark amber and foggy with light foam at the top. It smells sweet and malty, floral, fruity. It tastes chocolatey and sweet with some bitterness on the finish. The end is chocolatey. It is full-bodied, rustic, but also fairly smooth.
*Youngs Old Nick Barley Wine Style Ale with Parmigiano-Reggiano. Robust, salty, sharp cheese. Excellent together. The beer could even be a little stronger. The bitter is a nice addition to the sharp richness of the cheese. Chocolate and tangy. It is like eating Vella Dry Jack with the cocoa on the outside. Spicy and rich tasting. It is definitely a "sit by the fire" kind of pairing.
Wild Raspberry Ale by Great Divide Brewing Co. Ale fermented with raspberries. http://www.greatdivide.com From Denver, CO. No head at all. Amber/red color. It smells buttery, musty, rotten red fruit, like when you get a strawberry that has rotted. It smells a lot like raspberries. It almost smells like a wine cooler, but not quite as sweet. It tastes like watery Kool-aid. It is supposed to be in the style of Kriek Lambic.
Wild Raspberry with Provolone. Awful. The cheese tasted like a tire with this and I lost all the fruit in the beer.
*Wild Raspberry with Fontina. This is ok. The raspberry and fruit flavors in the beer get cancelled out a little, but it's still a good pairing. Bitter at the end. Fresh-tasting combination. Nutty, creamy cheese. Fruity beer. It's sweet! But it's not.
Wild Raspberry with Fresh Mozzarella. It tasted like a sponge and Kool-Aid together. The beer was a little light tasting. It was pretty bland. I thought I would be into the textures, but it was kind of boring overall.
List of goat cheese and beer pairings at http://www.redwoodhill.com under "Recipes"