On Friday night I headed down to The Four Firkins for a tasting of Crispin cider. There seems to be a lot of hype surrounding Crispin right now, at the very least on the Internet. With Joe Heron the CEO in the house pouring and talking about his cider, it seemed like a good time to see what all the talk was about.

As it  turns out, Joe being there was quite advantageous, since I learned all kinds of interesting things about cider and cider manufacture. Some of them being:

You don’t actually need a special license to produce cider—the bodies regulating liquor sales don’t require one and won’t issue one. Since alcohol distributors were wary of selling unlicensed booze, Crispin obtained a license but were only able to do so by claiming to produce apple wine. You will notice that Crispin cider has a nutrition information label, while beer and wine never do: this is because Crispin cider is regulated by the FDA, rather than the liquor authorities. So that’s why I don’t know how many calories are in my beer! It is also illegal to carbonate cider to the level of beer—it has to be slightly less.

It’s really hard to find cider apples in the US. Sweet apples are not good for cider. As Joe said, the more edible an apple is, the worse it is for making cider. He fantasizes about making a barrel of Cider from crabapples. Crispin uses a blend of apples including Granny Smith, Gala and some others and finish their cider with concentrate. Apparently some brewers make their cider exclusively from concentrate, and this is to be poo-pooed.

There were four ciders available to try. I started with the regular, which was slightly dry but pretty fruity, like a tangy apple juice. Next up was the brut, which as you might expect was drier. This was my favorite. The third was a limited edition that won’t be available in stores for a couple of weeks: the Honeycrisp. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s not actually made with honeycrisp apples—according to Joe you could hardly find a worse apple to make cider with: too sweet and hardly any acid. Instead, the Honeycrisp is regular made with honey. The honey was quite strong; it was the dominant flavor. Finally, after I had had enough free samples to ensure my bike ride back home would be an interesting challenge, Joe offered me a sample of the final variety of Crispin: Light. I liked the light because it was dry like the brut and without a very strong apple flavor.

As is always the case when I’m offered free alcohol, I bought some to take home. I would have liked to buy the brut but they were sold out; instead I bought a four-pack of the Light. Joe recommended to several people to drink the light over ice with a wedge of lemon. After visiting the farmers’ market the next day, I didn’t have any lemon, but I had a bunch of raspberries, so I made a cocktail that I think Joe would approve of.

On my first trip to The Four Firkins I bought several beers, some that I had read about and was excited to try, and others simply because of the awesome packaging. Maredsous 8 Dobbel fell into the latter category; how could I resist a bottle that looks like this?

At the time of my trip I had not reached the Belgian abbey ale section of The Brewmaster’s Table so for a time the Maredsous just sat on a shelf looking pretty. I soon reached the aforementioned section and the Maredsous specific paragraph:

Maredsous 8 Dobbel derives its number from the pld scale of Belgian degreees, referring to the strength of the original wort. The beer has a beautiful garnet color and raises a rocky tan head. The aroma is terrific, a dance of biscuits, rum, and raisins. The beer opens up on the palate with foamy pinpoint carbonation and a light bitterness. It seems sweet at first but then dries as flaors of concentrated raisins, dark sugar, and dark rum combine with a winy acidity to bring the beer to a long finish. At 8 percent, this beer is a bit stronger than most dubbels.

On the color, certainly, Oliver was right on; this beer is beautiful to behold:

Tasting the beer, I realized my palate isn’t nearly as developed or sensitive as Oliver’s (okay, I realized this long before I tasted this particular beer, but it underscored the point). Where he tastes raisins and dark sugar I tasted a very strong roasted, carmelly flavor. Which is not to say the beer was excessively heavy; on the contrary, it had the pleasant floral-citrusy-fruitiness that I usually associate with ales. There was also a slight bitterness from the hops, but it was not strong.

One of the best parts of this beer was the carbonation—it feels spritzy and alive on the tongue with bubbles that tickle, rather than bludgeon, as they burst. And I suppose the 8% alcohol was also a best part, although as you can see I compensated by drinking a smaller glass. All things in moderation.

A great beer on its own, what got me most excited about Oliver’s description of Maredsous 8 Dobbel were the pairing notes:

A fine beer to match with short ribs, beef cheeks, leg of lamb, venison sausages, country pâtés, and wild boar.

Country pâtés! Anytime I see those words my heart brightens up, my brain starts churning and my mouth starts watering (the increased heart activity may be in anticipation of all the fat and cholestorol one of these pork loaves packs into my bloodstream). I’ll take just about any excuse to make a terrine, and a bottle of Maredsous seemed better than most. Terrine is neither a fancy nor a technically demanding dish—it’s just meatloaf!

I used:

• 1# Chicken Liver
• 1# Ground Pork
• 1/4# Bacon
• 1/4# Pork Sirloin Chop
• 1/2 c minced parsley
• 3 sprigs minced rosemary
• 5 cloves minced garlic
• 1 c blanched almonds
• 3 T Bourbon
• Allspice, Nutmeg and Cinnamon
• Salt and Pepper

The main meats (liver and ground pork) are pretty standard for country terrines. I chose the herbs because they were on hand and needed to be used up. I had two reasons for including  the almonds; I wanted the chunkier texture and visual interest  that whole almonds impart, and we recently overbought almonds so I am putting them in everything. The pork chop was also to get a chunkier texture; I cut it into half-inch cubes and mixed it in with the forcemeat. The bacon is there for keeping everything moist and fatty, and the other ingredients are pretty standard.

I really loved the chunky texture of the almonds and diced pork—I prefer coarse terrines to fine. The almonds also gave the whole loaf a strong nuttiness that makes a great counterpoint to the richness of (lots of) pork fat.

The pork fat was really the force that drove this pairing. The carbonation of the beer was great for cutting through all that richness and lifting it off the tongue. The mildly citrusy-fruitiness had a similar palate-cleansing effect. The very slight hoppiness in the beer was magnified by the herbs, and the herbs by the hops. The caramel flavors that were so apparent when tasting the beer on its own were still there but didn’t seem to add or detract from the terrine. A sweeter or more darkly-roasted dish might prove a better complement to those flavors. But with an excuse to both drink beer and make a terrine, I can’t complain. Not that I need an excuse.

Yesterday Martha and I had the pleasure of attending Urban Bean’s Patio Party (Martha heard about it on Facebook). Most days, Urban Bean is an unassuming coffeehouse located on the corner of Bryant Ave S and W 33rd st that, I’ve been told, makes great coffee. But with temperatures peaking over 80 in the Twin Cities yesterday the gloves came off and we had a party on our hands. A party featuring a carnival trailer serving up hot dogs, bison burgers, pulled pork sandwiches, french fries and a really broad condiment station. And free beer. Yes, free beer.

Given those choices, I’m always going with pulled pork. The pork itself was a little dry and not super-flavorful, but the Urban Bean crew partially made up for it with the quantity and quality of toppings available. I was really impressed with the extent to which they home-made everything: the purple cabbage coleslaw with raisins, pickled cucumbers and carrots, and bacon ketchup. Ever since my elementary school cafeteria days a big jar full of free pickles gets me pretty excited, all the better if they’re homemade.

And the free beer? Well, it was PBR, but you don’t look a gift beer in the mouth. Much less a couple of gift beers.

Of course, free PBR can’t help but attract a certain crowd, and the whole time I was there the patio was awash in tight jeans, wife beaters, big sunglasses, and irony, oh so much irony. 

With this 80 degree afternoon coming out of nowhere from what has been a pretty dismal week, Urban Bean couldn’t have picked a better time.

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.