Serge the Concierge

What Beer Will You Drink With That Cheese, A Few Answers

April 22, 2010 by serge the concierge

I just noticed this evening that my friends at Artisanal Cheese in New York are offering The Diverse, Unique and Superb Beers of Belgium as their Friday, April 23rd Cheese Class Event.

Led by Candela M. Prol, their Certified Beer Instructor, attendees will have a chance to taste Gueuze, Lambic, Red, Abbey and Ales paired with a fine selection of our cheeses from Belgium, Luxembourg and beyond.

Since I share this on short notice, most of you will not be able to make it.

You can still find quite a bit of advice in the Beer and Cheese Pairings pages of Artisanal.

They suggest Ossau Iraty Pardou Arriou, a classic sheep's milk cheese from the Pyrenees Atlantiques with a Pilsner while Coulommiers, a soft cow cheese close to Brie does it best for a Stout or Porter.

Janet Fletcher was a bit more provocative in Forget wine and cheese parties -- the true soul mate for fromage isn't made from grape juice (SF Chronicle, February 2005).

Here's her opening salvo:

"The crowds munching nachos at America's ballparks all summer don't need convincing that beer and cheese go together. It's the die-hard wine enthusiasts, myself included, who resist the notion that beer may in fact be cheese's better match.

As a longtime cheese aficionado, The Chronicle's weekly cheese columnist and a nightly wine drinker, I've reluctantly concluded that many cheeses give wine, especially dry wine, a rough time. But after several weeks of "research, " including two marathon tastings, I'm convinced that beer as a partner for cheese rarely stumbles. It takes some knowledge of beer and cheese to engineer the most harmonious marriages, but intolerable mismatches are rare."

Wisconsin had an event dedicated to this marriage, the Isthmus Beer and Cheese Fest on January 30, 2010.

This Midwest fiesta was open minded as it left room to explore Beer and Chocolate.

Who said talking food and drinks had to be boring?

Posted on April 22, 2010 in Consumer Products, Event, Food and Drink, Personal Organizer, Serge the Concierge, To Do Lists | Permalink | Comments (0)

Previous Post

Vegetarian Kaiseki Restaurant in Spotlight, Sustainable Tokyo, Earth Day 2010

Apr 22

Robbie Swinnerton writes about Vegetables given pride of place in upmarket kaiseki cuisine (Tokyo Food File, Japan Times, April 16). He describes Yasai Kaiseki Nagamine in Ginza this way: "The idea is simple but profound. Japan's traditional multicourse cuisine has always been based on the bounty of the vegetable kingdom. Increasingly, though, kaiseki meals have become loaded up with meat and seafood, with vegetables, herbs and mushrooms treated as mere seasonal accents. Nagamine winds the...

Next Post

King Tut Visits New York, Spends a Month in Times Square, Starting April 23

Apr 23

More than 30 Years after his last visit King Tut returns to New York. The Egyptian pharaoh is staying in Times Square at the Discovery Exposition Center for a month starting April 23, 2010. Amongst the highlights: See the boy king’s golden canopic coffinette and the crown found on his head when the tomb was discovered Learn about the extraordinary discovery of Tut’s tomb and the beliefs and funerary processes of ancient Egypt New scientific...