Beer and Cheese: my 5 favourite pairings

Beer blogger Steve Lamond has been matching beer and cheese for the past seven years and has compiled an invaluable guide on his blog Beers I’ve Known. Hare are his 5 all-time favourites which include some cracking combinations.

Fiona asked me if I’d like to do a guest post on beer and cheese pairings. Never being one to eschew blathering on about my two favourite topics I of course said yes. I’ve chosen my top five pairings. I’m not saying they’re the best in existence but they’re the five that have most impressed me over the years.

I’ve not tried to put them in any order as that would be just too hard! Note that all of my favourites are British cheeses and unpasteurised (with the exception of the Colston Bassett) highlighting what fantastic producers of both beer and cheese we have in this country. Most of the beers should be readily available within the UK, but alternative beers have been suggested in case of difficulty (or if you want to try more than one beer!)

Bristol Beer Factory Hefe and Fresh Ragstone Goats Cheese

This pairing was tasted at Fiona’s own Cheese School and just really worked. The creamy lemon in the cheese complemented the wheat spice and yeast clove esters in this Hefeweizen beer. A light carbonation to titivate rather than scrub the tongue. A great lunchtime pairing.

Alternatives: Weihenstephaner Hefeweissebier, Schneider Weisse

Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter and Colston Bassett Stilton

A classic American beer with a classic British cheese, I can still taste this in my mind one year on. Sweet funky blue marries fantastically with the umami of dark malts in the Imperial Porter. The piquant fruitiness of the cheese complements the yeast and malt fruit flavours. Our friend carbon dioxide works wonders at cleaning the palate after each bite. I’d also love to try this with Stichelton for even greater flavour heights.

Alternatives: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

Franciscan Well Bellringer and Sparkenhoe Red Leicester

Until I’d tried this unpasteurised version, I’d written off Red Leicester as plastic and avoided it. This cheese is fantastic however. As pungent as a mature cheddar and with a lot of fruit too the beer pairs very well with the Extra Special Bitter “style” of beers. The beer brings seville marmalade and candied citrus peel to the table on a chunky raft of malt. Just enough alcohol to ensure it doesn’t get lost under the cheese. The unexpected pairings are often the most rewarding.

Alternatives: Fuller’s ESB, Marble Old Manchester

Marble Saison Special 2011 and Stinking Bishop

I have a soft spot for washed-rind cheeses and Stinking Bishop by Charles Martell is my very favourite. Those slightly funky fruity aromas pair oh so well with Belgian yeast used in Saison beers, placed together they enhance each others’ flavours to a new level. There’s a fairly meaty savoury flavour brought to the fore and the New World hops that Marble loves to use are also accentuated by the pungent cheese. I could polish off a whole bottle easily.

Alternatives: Saison Dupont, Dark Star Saison

Fuller’s Vintage Ale and Keen’s Mature Cheddar

Bottle conditioned and released on an annual basis using the best of that year’s ingredients, Fullers Vintage is a fantastic Barley Wine. It changes with age but all vintages should pair just as well with the Keen’s cheddar. Being of higher alcohol the beer is able to deftly grapple with the tongue-tingling cheese whilst the cheese coaxes more fruity flavours from those malty depths. A perfect nightcap.

Alternatives: Thomas Hardy Ale, JW Lees Harvest Ale

Steve blogs as Beers I’ve Known and posts a monthly cheese and beer pairing. He has a guide to beer and cheese matching available at tinyurl.com/beer-cheeses

For more tips on pairing beer with cheese, check out this guide from Culture Cheese.

What are your favourite beer and cheese pairings?

Image by Alexey Klen from Pixabay

Matching food and Priorat

I was reminded about my trip to Priorat almost exactly two years ago by my recent visit to the Roussillon which has a similar terroir. And I think the wines would go with similar kinds of food. These were my suggested pairings at the time . . .

Priorat has some of the most expensive wines in Spain but they’re also high in alcohol and reflect their wild, untamed terroir. There’s a marked difference between wines from ‘hot’ vintages like 2003 and 2005 and the more recent fresher cooler wines of 2007 and 2008 and between older vintages and younger ones. The former can develop quite bosky ‘animal’ flavours, particularly those that contain old Carignan but then, surprisingly some can be quite delicate, almost ethereal.

In terms of comparison with other wine regions I would think Châteauneuf is a better reference point than Bordeaux despite the presence in many wines of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

Although they obviously appeal to the Asian market to me they’re not the obvious bottle to reach for with subtle, delicate cuisines such as Cantonese or Japanese (although some of the top winemakers are making wines that would match well). The whites (which are again similar to those of the Rhône) are more suited to cooked shellfish, fish and vegetable dishes than to raw or lightly cooked ones.

Like most great wines most would benefit from being served with simple food and as full-bodied reds, grilled and roast meat, especially lamb and beef. The bigger, more broadshouldered wines would pair well with meat served rare with a degree of charring; older vintages with slow roasts like slow roast shoulder of lamb. Lighter more graceful wines from higher vineyards or more recent vintages could work with dishes like braised rabbit. (I particularly liked Sara Perez Ovejero of Mas Martinet’s suggestion of pairing her sumptuous Els Escurcons with braised rabbit wih olives and herbs)

In fact furred rather than feathered game seems a good direction to go. I’d also like to pair Priorat with venison, hare and wild boar (or rare breed pork), again slow-cooked. Think oxtail too. I found a slightly funky 2004 Vall Llach absolutely transformed by a dish of braised oxtail with Priorat and prunes, bringing its primary fruit once more to the fore. It just seems the right thing to do with such strongly terroir-driven wines to pair them with food from the region - or across the Pyrenees with dishes from south-west France. Priorat and cassoulet? Priorat and Toulouse sausages with Puy lentils? Priorat with duck confit? They’d all work.

Then of course there’s cheese. We didn’t have much while we were away but Priorat, which has much in common with rich, brambly wines like Amarone and those from the Douro, would make a good companion for stronger, more challenging cheeses, especially blues. And on the basis of successfully pairing a mature Manchego with some of the wines I’d definitely look at some of Spain’s other excellent sheeps’ cheeses.

What food to pair with Vin Santo?

No visit to Tuscany is complete without a glass of Vin Santo or ‘holy wine’, a (usually) sweet wine that is served at the end of the meal, almost always with hard little ‘cantucci’ biscuits.

It’s left undisturbed for several years in small barrels which gives it a slight ‘rancio’ (oxidised) character which sounds unpleasant but actually gives the wine balance and ‘bite’, preventing it from being over-sickly.

It struck me as I was sipping it that it would be a good partner for many other foods, though when I ventured this to my Italian hosts, the LoFranco family of Fattoria la Vialla they looked at me as if I was mad. But if you have a bottle in the house why on earth not experiment?

I would say Vin Santo resembles more in style fortified wines such as sherry, tawny port and particularly Madeira than other dessert wines so try the following matches:

• Blue cheese (especially Gorgonzola)
• High quality dark chocolate bars
• Nut-based tarts such as walnut tart and pecan pie - and Italian-style chestnut cake
• Tiramisu
• Panforte and other dense cakes made with dried fruit
• Mince pies
• Rich pâtés such as duck liver pâté - and seared foie gras if you eat foie gras (which I don’t).

Image © YRABOTA at shutterstock.com

Why Pinot Gris hits the spot with spicy food

You may think tasting wine sounds arduous but a major wine and food tasting, I assure you, is a much greater assault on the system as I was reminded the other day when Victoria Moore of The Guardian and I ran 14 Pinot Gris through their paces with foods that ranged from smoked eel to chicken tikka masala. Neither of us was able to eat much for several days.

It was all in the good cause of identifying exactly what the best matches were for Pinot Gris, an aromatic white which usually has a touch of sweetness, making it pair with an entirely different range of foods from its cousin Pinot Grigio. It’s original home is Alsace but fine versions are now being made in New Zealand, Oregon and Australia, especially Tasmania. In Alsace it’s often matched with pâté and creamy sauces but it also pairs particularly well with smoked and spicy foods.

You can read Victoria’s account and wine recommendations in The Guardian today. Here are my comments and conclusions, rated as follows:

*** Great match, the best of the tasting
** A good match
* An OK match but one which slightly diminishes the food or the wine
No stars: A misfiring match

Smoked eel and horseradish sauce
I was rather more excited by this combination than Victoria. I thought it went particularly well with the lighter, crisper styles of Pinot Gris such as Pirie’s South Pinot Gris 2006 (**) from the Tamar Valley in Tasmania and Josmeyer’s rather expensive Le Fromenteau 2004 (***) from Alsace. A Finca Las Higueras Pinot Gris (*) from Lurton, an inexpensive Pinot Gris from Argentina, and a useful all-rounder was OK too though not if you're not into eel, obviously.

Gravlax
Always a tricky match because of the herbal notes of the dill and sweetness of the mustard sauce. When it works, as it did with the 2006 Waimea Estate Pinot Gris (**) from New Zealand which had quite a marked touch of sweetness, it’s great. When it doesn’t, as it did with some of the other bottles we tried, it totally misfires.

A Brussels-type pâté with mushrooms
Not a great success with any of the wines but it wasn't a particularly interesting paté. We suspected a foie gras terrine might have been a better match (though given the volume of food we had to try, thankfully we didn't have any handy . . . )

Creamy mushrooms on toast.
This is the kind of sauce that would be served in Alsace so no surprise it worked with our two Alsace wines, an inexpensive Pinot Gris 2004 (**) from Turkheim and the Josmeyer above (***). Victoria was less impressed.

Pan-fried salmon with nam phrik num dressing
The salmon on its own wasn’t a great match but once Peter Gordon’s exotically, sweet, spicy dressing was added (for recipe click here) it was a different story. Possibly the best match of the tasting especially with sweeter styles like the Waimea Estate (***) above or the floral Tamar Ridge 2006 (***), another Pinot Gris from Tasmania.

Roast scallops with pancetta
An OK match with the lighter, drier styles but a decent Chardonnay would have worked better.

Thai fish cakes
Although shop bought, these were quite hot and aromatic, making them a natural for Pinot Gris. The styles that worked best were the simple wines like the Turkheim (**) or the more fresh, floral styles such as the Pirie (**) and Tamar Ridge (**). A rich, tropical Pinot Gris from Tim Adams (**) in the Clare Valley was also good but the Waimea tasted too sweet.

Thai Green Chicken Curry
We souped up this supermarket version with some extra lime juice and coriander to make it taste more authentic. On the whole most of the wines worked pretty well, the best matches being the Tamar Ridge 2006 (**) from Tasmania and the Villa Maria Private Bin 2006 (**) from New Zealand, both of which were quite aromatic.

Chicken Tikka Masala
Surprise, surprise! So this is what goes with CTM! A really good match for a number of the wines, including the Villa Maria (**), Tamar Ridge (**) and full bodied Elk Cove Pinot Gris 2005 (**) from Oregon.

Fried goats cheese with membrillo
A new one on me. I usually serve membrillo (a Spanish quince paste) with a sheep’s cheese such as Manchego but it’s really delicious with warm oozy goats cheese. And with a crisp Pinot Gris. The Turkheim (**), Josmeyer (**) and Tamar Ridge (**) all worked well, as did the off-dry Waimea (**).

Pinot Gris with Spicy Food: Overall conclusions

1. Pinot Gris is potentially a really useful match for spicy food, especially Indian, Thai and fusion dishes with a touch of sweetness.
2. Inexpensive bottles such as the Turkheim and Finca Las Higueras are a good place to start especially with ready meals. More expensive wines - and we particularly liked the two we tried from Tasmania - play better with the cleaner, brighter flavours of home-made dishes
3. Spot-on matching with Pinot Gris is tricky because of the fluctuating levels of sweetness between different bottles so if you want to show off the wine to best effect, have a dry run first. (Note the hotter the dish the more sweetness you need in the wine)
4. This was far too much food for any rational human being to taste on one occasion. Don’t try this at home!

Image credit: DXT_91