A fervent beer lover I know was sitting in a multi-starred restaurant. He’d made his food selection, and was studying the drinks menu. After glancing at the beer list, he scanned the wine pages before calling the sommelier.
“I was looking for something in a jug red,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” asked the startled sommelier.
The pairing of beer with chocolate seems recently to have gained a life of its own. Among other signs are reports from New York that hint this lovely combination is “the next big thing.” Actually, during the past year, our stout ice cream float made inroads in the Big Apple, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Instruction for pairing food with beer is a little like scripting sex. In both, “common senses” should prevail. Each is a lot of fun with little direction, yet The Joy of Sex and the Playboy Advisor vie in readership with the Koran, Torah and New Testament. Similarly, books about the appetizing subject of food and beer, like Michael Jackson’s Ultimate Beer and Garrett Oliver’s Brewmaster’s Table, are delicious reads that add pleasure to something we already enjoy.
Behind the Norwich Inn’s parking lot, the Jasper Murdock Ale House produces just a few hundred barrels of luscious ales each year. And as refreshing as the beer is the brewery’s garden. Surrounded by twining vines laden with hops, several tables are set for dining in the beer garden. Besides the living green screen of hops to shield the view from diners, gigantic terracotta planters towering with flowers add perfume and color. A glass of golden ale adds its own spicy aroma.
First, let’s have a round of applause for the wine guys—we have to admit they’ve done a really great job. The average American is fairly convinced that wine is the best beverage for food and that beer is best suited to washing down hot dogs and potato chips. Of course, the readers of this magazine know better, but how much thought do we give to matching our beer with our food?
It’s widely assumed that wine and cheese are compatible friends. They’re paired together so routinely that phrases like “the white wine and Brie crowd” can be used to define a social set. But all is not well in this friendship. At least one wine writer has recognized this, according to brew master and gourmand Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewing: Willy Gluckstern, a somewhat cranky New York wine critic, called wine and cheese a “train wreck in the mouth.”
Tue May 15th, 2012
On Counting Beer
I found myself scrolling through a blog based on the goal of drinking 100 different beers in a month, an odd variation of the theme behind Julie and Julia. Put...
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