- Bottoms Up (RSS)SF Beer Week ’09 Open Thread for Friday
By Jessica Yadegaran
Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 9:56 am in what's on tap.
If anyone’s going to the Beer & Chocolate dinner tonight, please post and let me know how it is. I’m particularly interested in how that scallop and chocolate-citrus sauce would do with a Malheur 10.
Not sure how it works in beer circles, but in the wine community there is a never-ending uncertainty about the pairing. Does it really go with dry red wines, like Cabernet Sauvignon, or do we just wish it would? Or do you need ample sugar to match that sweet flavor, making Port and late-harvest reds such as Mourvedre and Zinfandel the only reasonable choices.
Hope everyone enjoys ending the week with a brew in hand and a toast to Bill every night at 7 p.m. Thanks for being such a great community. I’m sure his family really appreciates the support.
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February 13th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Toasted to Bill last night with an discussion he brought up a few weeks back in mind:
http://www.brewedforthought.com/?p=1060
On the topic of food and beer, British beer writer/blogger/drinker Pete Brown tackled the issue twice:
http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=6&storycode=62578&c=1
http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=6&storycode=62743
Here’s Pete’s blog: http://petebrown.blogspot.com/
For those that care about beer and food pairing, I think it is a discussion, but I don’t think there’s ever a better answer than “Well, just try it.” Bill and I did a little searching, beers in hand at Sheana’s Winterfest last month searching for the best cheese to go with Marin’s Bourbon Barrel Dipsea. There were some good, some bad, but the fun is in the search, right?
February 13th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Not many people at Elixir last night to try the Barrel-Aged Snakeoil IPA, bet there’s some left!
Surprisingly there were still Russian River -tions on tap at the Toronado
February 13th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Missed the Chocolate tasting, but I was at Speakeasy for the Meet the Brewers event. Big crowd! What a great week this has been! I’m looking forward to seeing Bill at future tastings. He has taught me a lot about beer. I read his blog everyday.my thoughts are with his family. Get better, Bill.
February 14th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
One of the events I was looking forward to was the Bruery tasting with Patrick Rue at Alembic. Was supposed to be from 1-5 PM yesterday, but not only was it not going on when I got there, nodody who worked there knew anything about it. Anyone know what happened?
February 14th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I’ll bet the Toronado finished those today at the Barleywine Festival.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I think beer and chocolate is an outstanding pairing. There are a couple of ways to approach it:
- you can pair them as a match, such as a dark chocolate with a Russian Imperial Stout, which will have espresso and cocoa flavors in the beer – this works especially well with cocoa nibs. Try this with Magnolia’s Smokestack.
- you can pair them as a compliment – like a fruity sour lambic with a chocolate and fruit dish.
- or my personal favorite, you can contrast them, by using a sour geuze beer (fermented with wild belgium yeast – it’s like the sourdough of beers) to cut through the fat. I’m a particular fan of a really tart sour, like New Belgium’s La Folie or Russian River’s Temptation with white chocolate.
In all of these pairings, the caronation is really key, since it cuts the fat, and scrubs the tounge as you eat.
For more on chocolate and beer pairings (and cheese sneaks in here too):
http://beerandnosh.com/2008/10/gabf-pairing-sessions/