Cider and cheddar

Cider and cheese are natural bedfellows.

You may have had a pint of cider with a ploughman’s but if you want to elevate the combination to another level try this.

It’s a collaboration between one of our best cider makers, Tom Oliver and Sam Wilkin aka Cellarman Sam who came up with the idea of crafting a cider to go specifically with cheddar - called, appropriately, Cheddar on my Mind.

It’s a rich fruity cider that tastes almost like a tarte tatin and is just perfect with a mature farmhouse cheddar such as Montgomery’s, Keen’s or Pitchfork - and with other cheeses as I discovered to my cost.

Tom paired it with a Teifi gouda style cheese in the second round of our Battle of the Beverages at the Abergavenny Food Festival (me on wine, Tom on cider and Pete Brown on beer) and it won hands down despite my fielding a really good Ribera del Duero, the 2108 Pradorey Crianza from Finca Valdelayegua.

He also showed it at a 'cheese and cider summit' last week - an initiative to link cider with cheese in people’s minds. I certainly don’t have a problem with that!

For other cheddar pairings click here and for other food pairings with cider here 

Welsh rarebit and a glass of organic milk

This week's pairing is for all those of you who are having a dry January this month (although here’s why I’m not).

You may think of milk as a kids' drink, especially with food but actually it can be delicious with certain foods especially biscuits (think of that all-American treat milk and cookies), boiled eggs and, as I discovered last week, Welsh rarebit.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the dish it’s basically cheese on toast. Grated cheddar, mixed with a little milk or beer and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, spread over toast and flashed under the grill until it’s golden and bubbling*.

The milk makes a smooth creamy accompaniment and one which makes total sense when you think about it. It heightens and complements the flavour of the dish just as it would if you were drinking the wine you had used in a sauce or a stew. I do urge you to use organic milk though which has a much better flavour. It doesn’t really matter if it’s full cream (whole) milk or semi-skimmed which is what I used. Up to you.

I grant you beer (a good British bitter) is the more conventional pairing but if you’re not drinking at the moment - or generally - milk will hit the spot.

*There are, of course, many versions. Other cheeses than cheddar, mustard instead of Worcestershire sauce etc, etc ...

Image © Monkey Business - Fotolia.com

Westcombe cheddar and apple pie and Blenheim Superb dessert cider

Last week we had one of our periodic Cheese Schools - an event where we explore the best artisanal British cheeses and pair different drinks with them. A regular feature is a beer vs wine ‘smackdown’ but I sneaked in this amazing Blenheim Superb dessert cider* from Once Upon a Tree with the pud.

It’s quite different from other ciders you’ve come across - more like a dessert wine or even an ice wine - luscious, sweet and appley. It seemed to me the perfect match for the Westcombe cheddar and apple pie that Source Food Cafe had cooked up as the final leg of our 5 course cheesy feast. And it trumped the opposition - a Domaine Durban Muscat-de-Beaumes-de-Venise dessert wine and Ninkasi sparkling apple-flavoured beer from the Wild Beer Co, brilliant though both those drinks were.

The other pairings, if you're interested, were:

Wild Beer Co’s Epic Saison and Domaine Begude ‘L’Etoile’ chardonnay from Limoux with Gorwydd Caerphilly croquettes with roast onion mayo (the Chardonnay won)

Colston Bassett Stilton arancini with an oak-aged old ale Modus Operandi and a Cava Brut reserva (the Modus Operandi won but I confess I preferred the Cava)

Ragstone (goats’ cheese) tart with Bliss - a beer aromatised with roasted apricots - and Mahi Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand (thumbs up to the Mahi though I rather liked the Bliss)

Comté Tartiflette with Scarlet Fever red ale and Domaine Belluard Gringet ‘Les Alps’ (the Gringet - just - but it is the obvious terroir-based match.)

I wouldn’t say the wines outperformed the beers because it was generally much closer than that - more perhaps a question that people were more familiar with the flavours in the wines and less used to beer pairing. But do try the Wild Beer Co's beers if you get the opportunity - they’re widely stocked in and around Bristol. And the wines came from the newly opened Red & White who have a really interesting range.

If you want to be put on the mailing list for Cheese School email enquiries@cheeseschool.co.uk

* Interestingly it was also a winner at a wine v cider event at The Thatchers Arms near Colchester at the weekend.

British cheeses and cider

I suppose I shouldn’t say this coming from the West Country but I often forget about cider when I’m thinking about cheese pairings. Not that I don’t enjoy it but there always seem more complex drinks with a wider range of flavours to experiment with.

But last week I was tasting a range of Somerset-based ciders from a producer called The Orchard Pig with cheese and was struck by just how well they went.

Standout matches were their Dry Table Cider with one of my favourite cheeses Gorwydd Caerphilly, Medium Table Cider with Keen’s cheddar (although I thought it would have worked still better with a slightly milder, mellower cheese like Hafod or Lincolnshire Poacher) and most interesting of all a new lighter 4.2% sparkling cider (the others are 6.5%) with Stichelton, an unpasteurised version of Stilton. (I wouldn’t draw the conclusion from that that all light ciders go with blues: Stichelton is exceptionally creamy in texture which worked particularly well with this palate-cleansing style)

The Orchard Pig also has a range of apple juices, one of which - an off-dry blend of Jonagold and Bramley - was absolutely delicious with the Keen’s.