The primary audience for Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmaster’s Table may be beer enthusiasts who are looking to find new flavors in their beers through the magic of pairings. I, on the other hand, approached the book as a food enthusiast and cheap wine drinker who had always been curious about beer but never bothered to “get into it”. So where most of Oliver’s readers might look up a beer they love in search of a food will heighten the experience of drinking it, I usually run into a food that I want to make and then seek out beer that will go with it. All credit to Oliver that this book can serve both approaches very well.

I have enough culinary curiosity to consider most of Oliver’s pairing suggestions, but it was as I was reading the chapter on Belgian-style ales that one dish in particular jumped off the page: pasta carbonara. This dish did not stand out to me because it is exotic or technically difficult; no, it appealed because of my long history with carbonara, going back to my youngest memories. There are certain dishes that, when I was younger, my mom would make with regularity and carbonara was one of them (at least until my dad rebelled). Although I don’t like to repeat dishes for the most part, in carbonara I take after my mom and make this at least every two months. I think it’s a great pasta sauce in its own right, but I am sure my childhood memories play some role in my regular enjoyment of it. 

And what’s better than nostalgia for youth? Nostalgia for youth with beer! Really strong beer. The beer that Oliver recommends specifically with pasta carbonara is one Golden Monkey, as brewed by Victory Brewing Company of Downington, PA:

…a bottle conditioned pale orange beer with an eager carbonation. The nose is rich and distinctly Belgian—oranges, spices and hops in a nicely meshed interplay. The American influences shows up front—a thin whack of hops wakes up the palate. Then Belgium takes over and drives this beer through a dry, full-bodied fruity center and a graceful dry finish.

I don’t know why but almost every beer I’ve been drinking lately has been pretty orange and this was actually not so crazy orange, but certainly somewhat orange:

I am still having trouble remembering to take a big pretentious whiff of my beer before tasting it, so I can’t comment on the nose. Otherwise, though, my own tasting notes agree completely with Oliver, although not expressed so precisely. This tasted first and foremost like an ale (surprise!), by which I mean it was fruity and floral and just a little hoppy, not very bitter and even with a light sweetness. There is definitely something citrusy in there too, but all the flavors were nicely balanced and subtle. Nothing overwhelming about this beer, and that is a good thing.

Since carbonara is so fundamental to my life experience it seems a little odd to describe its flavors, but for the sake of the uninitiated and the logical structure of this post I will try. The first thing you should know about carbonara is that it is bacony. Probably the original recipe called for guanciale, which isn’t smoked, but since this is America, damnit, I use smokey bacon that contributes its hazy, sweet porkiness to the dish. Beyond the bacon, the other flavors are perhaps more subtle; a slight sweetness from the bacon and the milk and a little bit of sour dryness from grated Parmigiano Reggiano (ok, Grana Padano). This is also a very rich dish thanks to: bacon fat, butter, whole milk and eggs. If this sounds like breakfast pasta that’s more or less correct; I would in fact happily take this over most breakfasts.

After my shrimp salad experience I was a little skeptical of Oliver’s pairing genius, but this combination redeemed him a thousandfold (maybe even a millionfold). It was PERFECT. The slight sweetness of the pasta was balanced by the very subtle bitter hoppiness of the beer just as the beer’s own sweet-fruitiness helped to enliven some of the musky flavors of the cheese in the pasta. All that fat in the sauce has a way of coating your mouth and a spritzy beer is great for cutting through that fat, refreshing your palate and getting you ready for more. The beer’s relative lightness was also a huge asset; carbonara’s sweet, light flavors would be overwhelmed by an intensely malty beer (or, God forbid, red wine) but this beer had just the right weight to stand up to the flavors in the pasta without overwhelming them. Each bite and the swallow of beer that followed it created a perfect balance such that one could hardly imagine one without the other. 

I have not yet felt so strongly after trying a beer with a food that I would say everybody needs to try it, but that’s how I feel now. Golden Monkey seems to be widely distributed, so you should be able to find it. Pasta carbonara could not be much easier to make and you probably have everything for it in the fridge. The recipe I use comes from Jeff Smith’s The Frugal Gourmet (in fact this is the only recipe I use from this book). I’m providing it here so you have no excuse not to try this. You’ll need:

• 1/4# Bacon, chopped or sliced thin
• 1/4# Butter (can use less if you are planning to see old age)
• 1 c whole milk (whole milk curdles less than skim when you add acid to it, which you are about to, so whole results in a smoother sauce. Skim can be used, however)
• 2 T Wine vinegar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and Pepper
• 1# pasta (spaghetti is best but almost anything works)

Bring a lot of seawater (or your closest imitation of it using salt and tap water) to a boil. While it’s heating, fry the bacon until it just starts to get crispy and heat the milk to just below a simmer in a small saucepan. At this point, determine your risk for heart disease and drain or do not drain most of that sweet, sweet bacon fat. Add the butter and let it melt. Add the butter and bacon to the milk. Add the vinegar, which will curdle the milk, and stir. Simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes; hopefully it will become a little more smooth. When the water is boiling add the pasta and cook until al dente. Lightly beat the eggs together. When the pasta is ready, drain it, then toss it in a bowl with the sauce, the eggs, the cheese and salt and plenty of pepper. Serve it, passing the pepper grinder and additional cheese at the table.

As the gainfully employed among you are no doubt aware, Friday was just two days ago. That meant, for those of us walking in the path of the Lord this Lent, meat was out. Beer, on the other hand, is very much in for Lent. And for those of you who find the idea of drinking during this solemn season a tad irreverent, witness the Paulaner monks of Munich who fast during Lent and Advent, eating no solid food but instead consuming a nutritious beer they brew themselves. That’s religion you can believe in!

The beer for the evening was Lindemans Cuvée René, a gueuze, created by blending young and old lambics and then allowing the resulting beer to undergo a second fermentation in the bottle. For this particuar beer, Garrett Oliver has strong words of praise:

Lindeman’s only traditional lambic shows the brewery’s true mettle in the form of Lindemans Cuvée René. This beer is a hazy deep gold, with orange highlights. The nose is a complex riot of bright and dark aromas—green apples, Seville oranges, lemon zest, damp leaves, wet wool, and fino sherry. On the palate the beer is as tart and bright as fresh lemonade, bone-dry and flintily fruity with an acidic pale sherry finish. Other beers may pay the bills, but René Lindemans likes this beer best, and he named it after himself. Try it with shrimp, crab cakes, or ceviche.

Looking at this beer, it seemed like pretty standard territory for a European-style ale, and I expected the flavor to be generally beery and aley. As soon as this hit my tongue I realized how wrong I was. This beer really tastes nothing like beer we are used to; this was cider, and dry cider at that. As far as I know this gueuze is made with barley like most beers, but if you couldn’t see the label you would most likely mistake it for Strongbow or some kind of very lightly carbonated sherry. I didn’t bother to review Oliver’s tasting notes before opening the bottle so this was a huge surprise, in Martha’s case an unpleasant one. I actually liked this beer once I could accept it for what it was, rather than what I expected.

Although I didn’t look at his tasting notes carefully enough to know what to expect, I did pay attention to Oliver’s pairing notes when planning this meal. Shrimp, crab cakes and ceviche are all mildly ocean flavored and also usually involve some kind of acidic accompaniment (in the case of ceviche the acid is integral), probably to compliment the acidic notes in the beer. With a whole bag of it in the freezer from a previous meal, shrimp was the obvious choice. I decided to make shrimp salad; the lemony dressing would supply the wanted acid. Following the recipe in Cook’s Illustrated #87, I cooked the shrimp until just opaque in a court bouillon and let it cool. My dressing consisted of mayonaisse, lemon juice, tarragon, parsley, scallion, celery and salt and pepper, which I mixed with the chopped shrimp. Served on freshly-baked white buns with a leaf of escarole included for purely aesthetic reasons, this was a nice seafood salad. The shrimp flavor was mild; the strong flavors were the lemon, the onion and the tarragon. Apparently shrimp salad gives people trouble when it is rubbery, but I was very careful about not overcooking the shrimp and this was not a problem.

And the pairing? This was the first time that I felt that Oliver’s pairing idea just didn’t work. The beer was so forceful and strong and that of the shrimp so delicate and subtle that taking a swig of beer after a bite of salad knocked all the salad flavors off the palate. It could be that Oliver had a different shrimp preparation in mind, like fried shrimp, that would give it more oomph, but I could never see this beer working with ceviche. It might work better with a fruit dessert, perhaps even worked into a sauce. With fish, I bet it could stand up to something more assertive like salmon; but it might stand up and fight rather than achieving some kind of ideal harmony. This was a really good beer and a pretty good salad, but together, they did nothing for each other.

Despite the impression you might get from reading this blog, sometimes I don’t feel like cooking. Luckily, I have a lot of options: I can go out or Martha might cook. Or hot dogs.

Hot dogs are not all that exciting, but that is no reason not to try a beer pairing—in fact it’s a great reason to try a beer pairing! Beer is such a great beverage because is that it is fit for the feasts of kings and peasants alike.

A trip to Trader Joe’s yielded the night’s beer: Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery Pale Ale. Since I had just finished the chapter in The Brewmaster’s Table on British beers it was the perfect bottle to try.

Here are Garret Oliver’s notes on this particular brew:

…a copper-colored beer with a big fluffy head. There’s that Yorkshire nose—hay, apples, butterscotch, and hops. The beer hits the palate with a mineral tang, then softens and rounds out to a dry biscuity malt enter. The finish is clean and flinty. This beer is big enough for steak, juicy enough for roast beef, and subtle enough for lamb. I also enjoy it with terrine en croûte, as do the British, though terrine en croûte sounds a lot better than “pork pie.”

Copper color, fluffy head, check.

Pork pie, huh? That’s basically a hot dog. Actually, the hot dogs are all beef, but it sounds like this beer is up for anything. Even harissa? I slathered some on my bun along with  some of the excellent Trader Joe’s Dijon and then sprinkled on some relish and raw onions because, after all, this was a hot dog.

The pairing worked pretty well. The affinity was mostly due to the beer’s carbonation’s ability to break through the spicy harissa. I also thought the smokiness of the hotdogs was pleasant when contrasted with the slight fruitiness of the ale. I was pretty surprised after finishing my hot dog that as I was drinking the last of my beer I noticed a very strong taste of licorice. I’m not sure if it would have helped the hot dog at all but I was excited to be able to actually identify this very specific flavor on the beer.

Peter recently recommended The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food by Garrett Oliver and as Martha would undoubtedly tell you I am getting into it. While I haven’t gotten my homebrew operation up and running yet (yet!) I have been inspired to try to think about beer and food pairings. Oliver makes a very good case for pairing beers and food although his constant assertions of beer’s superiority to wine belie some kind of deep inferiority complex. I think his best point on that front is that a decent Barolo will cost you upwards of $80 while an outstanding, even superfluous lambic beer can be had for $12.

Oliver describes in detail the various styles of beer and the history of their production. He then offers general food pairing notes before going into a discussion of the most notable producers of a given style, with specific pairing notes for each brand he discusses. In a book on wine such detail would be useless since it is usually difficult and expensive to obtain the very same wine an author discusses but I can actually act on most of Oliver’s notes, especially since I discovered The Four Firkins in St. Louis Park. This store, while a tad on the claustrophobic side, is a beer lover’s paradise. I was able to find all of the styles discussed in the book as well most of the actual brands and specific beers.

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of posts where I explore beer and food pairings, with the help of Garrett Oliver and my local beereries.

Of the beers I brought home from the Four Firkins I was most excited about a French Abbey Ale (bière de garde) going by the name of St. Druon from Brasserie Duyck:

This beer was not specifically mentioned in Brewmaster’s Table, but the brewery was. According to Oliver, bières de garde are notable for their earthy, herbal notes. Tasting this beer, I definitely could get the earthiness, but the herbs were probably too subtle for a coarse palate like mine. This beer was very floral and bright in the way you’d expect an ale to be. You can see that the color is a golden orange and the head is foamy but nor formidable. A very refreshing, interesting beer.

Oliver insisted that this French beer be served with the herbiest, garlickiest, Frenchiest dish I could manage, and that screamed to me  Poulet aux Quarante Gousses d’Ail, Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic. I didn’t actually use forty cloves of garlic, just two heads worth.

Roasted garlic, roasted chicken, a vermouth sauce, and plenty of thyme and rosemary: the perfect match for a winter Sunday evening and a large bottle of beer. All you need is crusty bread for spreading that golden garlic. Excuse the blurry photo but this was so delicious that I literally could not stop shaking.

I thought this pairing worked very well; I almost felt transported to a rainy evening in a farmhouse in Provence. Bière de garde was an excellent first step in my exploration of “Real Beer with Real Food” but there are many more to try.