A long night of research

Ear­lier this sum­mer I was invited by friends at the FCI to give a demon­stra­tion on beer and cheese pair­ing for their stu­dents. The only thing more fun than hav­ing a cap­tive audi­ence for 90 min­utes as I went on about my two favorite food groups was the research. Many good cheeses were eaten and many fine beers con­sumed, but here’s the lineup I set­tled on.

The was no clear crowd favorite, but rather lots of mixed, strong opin­ions (a good thing I think). I thought ched­dar and IPA were a nat­ural match. Many agreed, but some folks just weren’t tast­ing it. My per­sonal favorites though were the tripel with aged goat cheese and then the stil­ton and bar­ley­wine. The Belgian/goat pair­ing was a recent rev­e­la­tion for me, while the stinky blue and bar­ley­wine is a beer and cheese pair­ing classic.

Pair­ing 1: Ger­man Hefeweizen (Sierra Nevada Keller­weis) with Fresh Goat’s Milk Cheese (Ver­mont But­ter and Cheese Cream­ery Chevre)

Pair­ing 2: Amer­i­can Amber Lager (Brook­lyn Lager) with aged Fontina (used a last-minute sub and I for­got the name)

Pair­ing 3: Amer­i­can IPA (Union Jack IPA) with Sharp Ched­dar (Tillam­ook Extra Sharp Cheddar)

Pair­ing 4: Bel­gian Tripel (Alla­gash Tripel Reserve) with Ripened Goat’s Milk Cheese (Cypress Grove Hum­boldt Fog)

Pair­ing 5: Amer­i­can Brown Ale (Rogue Hazel­nut Brown) with Manchego (El Tri­gal Aged Manchego)

Pair­ing 6: Amer­i­can Bar­ley­wine (Green Flash Bar­ley­wine) with Blue Stil­ton (Col­ston Bassett)

Give me a shout if you want to chat about beer and cheese. I’m more than happy to go on at length about it.