As long as I've been seriously into beer, I've been enthusiastic about the pairing of beer and cheese. I've had some fantastic chance matches, but I hoped to someday host an event that would allow adventurous friends to explore the possibilities with me. But I hemmed and hawed about actually hosting such an event—how could I ever assemble the beers that would make this more than just a party where people were drinking beer? But folks who are passionate about beer do find each other over time and friends who were less familiar in the world of beer were willing to join me, so once I had developed a coterie of friends and acquaintances who were a hard core beer geek basis for the party, I decided to host Cultured Brew: A Celebration of Beer and Cheese at my home over Memorial Day weekend. Cheesy flyers were developed. A Beeramid of Contribution designed and superbly executed by hand in desktop publishing software to help guide guests toward bringing interesting beers (think the food pyramid—but of beer!) with the most treasured contributions of home brew and aged beers at the top of the beeramid and the loveliest growlers and craft beer in bottle and can forming the solid base). I promoted. I cajoled. I lobbied. I prayed. And hoped the beers would come.
I supplied the cheeses. My friends supplied the beers. The better the selection, the better the opportunity to see what beer and cheese can do together. I sought out a friend's expert consulting services in obtaining fourteen (!) different cheeses from the superb selection at the Cheeseboard in Berkeley. An intense 70 minute session yielded the following incredible selection:
Cabrioulet – a washed rind goat's cheese from the Pyrenees in southwestern France
Vendeen Bichonne – a cow's milk cheese made in an abandoned tunnel in Brittany, western France
Reggiano – a cow's milk cheese from northern Italy
Oregonzola – a cow's milk blue cheese from Oregon
Echo Mountain – 20 percent raw goat's milk, 80 percent cow's milk blue cheese from Oregon
Camembert Le Châtelain – a cow's milk cheese from Normandy, northwestern France
Carré de Chevre – a goat's milk brie from Loire, western France
Besace du Berger – a goat's milk cheese from Dordogne in southwestern France
Tradition Jacquin Chevre – an ashed goat's milk cheese from Loire in western France
Fiscalini – a cow's milk cheddar from Modesto in the central valley of northern California
Clisson – a goat's milk washed rind in Sauternes, in Normandy in northwestern France
Beaufort – a cow's milk cheese from Savoie in eastern France
Tête du Moine – a cow's milk cheese from Switzerland
Beemer – an aged cow's milk gouda from the Netherlands
The cheeses in hand, I decorated. My housemate is very much into beer and tries new stuff regularly. Very regularly. I save the bottles so I can get the refund on the bottles, but the redemption bottle center that was within walking distance closed and I just keep collecting the bottles, but never return them, so we had about 8 months worth of empty beer bottles on hand. Bottles of cool beer. Bottles that look cool. Bottles that tell a story. About 120-150 bottles, with tons of 24 ounce and 750 ml bottles. So the stunning larger bottles formed the centerpiece for the cheese buffet—with a magnum of Anchor Chrismas Beer forming the, well, anchor of the centerpiece. Russian River, Port, Mikkeller, Dogfish Head, Ranke, Sierra Nevada, Dupont and so many others filled the table. Daisies and oversized sunflowers went into the bottles. Still plenty left, so bottles lined the front porch, went on each of the steps down the porch, lined the mailbox, the steps and path all the way down to the sidewalk. Frenzied, as I just had gotten off work and had but two hours to have the party ready to go, I ran about our yard picking fresh flowers (it's flower season right now in the East Bay and it is beautiful) and filling each and every beer bottle with a flower. No mistaking what this event was about.
The buffet set up is something I have a bit of knack for, though to my own particular tastes. I definitely needed wooden cutting boards to present the cheese, but didn't have any. So I sought them out in local thrift stores. Problem with wooden cutting boards is that they can be quite big and difficult to transport via bicycle. Suffice to say, I can say from personal experience that you shouldn't try to transport them by hanging them in bags from the handlebars of your bike. But $140 in bicycle repairs and an ungodly expensive trip to the ER later, I had my four used wooden cutting boards. Filling out the rest of the buffet was easy. Baguettes and herb slabs from Acme and La Farine, Ak-Mak (or was it Af-Pak?) crackers from Trader Joe's. Cherries. Ungodly amounts of cherries. Plums. Peaches and nectarines. Delicious strawberries. Blueberries. Dried figs and apricots. Dates. Walnuts, filberts, and another nut I can't recall all in their shell and mostly for show (though our lack of a nutcracker did lead my housemate to go and get his hammer to open a few of them during the party). The buffet looked full and fantastic.
As I finished working on the floral arrangements in the living room, my cheese consulting friend arrived and helped me arrange the cheeses on the buffet. As friends starting arriving, beers started to open as I frantically finished the last of the preparations. Another good friend arrived with some oysters freshly drawn from the ocean that morning. As he shucked, I greeted new arrivals and dipped into my own first beer, a homebrew produced by a boyhood friend who I discovered (quite randomly) lives but a mile from me here in the East Bay. And he's a master brewer—brewing crazy styles (including a schwarzbier that his colleagues evidently drink like it's, well, schwarzbier—sehr schnell!)
John's Raspberry Lambic homebrew was indeed one of the beers of the night for me. The nose was stunning. Complex and interesting, great raspberry, I smelled it for more than a minute before working my way into it. Refreshing and interesting. A wow beer. I moved into the breakfast nook to see the first growler had been popped, a growler of the Green Dragon. My recollection is faint of the story behind this, but I think Green Dragon is an Oregon brewer who was obtained by Rogue and a limited amount found its way to the Rogue brewpub in San Francisco where this one was obtained. Great solid, almost blocky flavors, not quite hoppy but intense in flavor. People were wooing over it. It's the kind of beer that needs an evening and a fireside chat. Serious beer. Whilst chatting away in the nook, I took a few sips of Schneider Weisse, a Bavarian hefeweizen in bottle. I visited the brewpub/restaurant for the brewer when I lived in Germany and it was a stunning experience. Oddly enough amongst all the hard to find eisbock and doppelbock and whatever else they had, I wasn't so taken with the ubiquitious hefeweizen. But every time I've sampled it away from the brewery, I think it's a beautiful and artistic expression of hefeweizen—a style of beer that is admittedly not my favorite. Artistic yet classic hefeweizen. Not sure how they do that. Delicious as ever—lip smackingly good. Back into the kitchen, for another homebrew, Kate's Belgian-style Dubbel homebrew. Kate is John's wife—married well, they have a friendly rivalry as both are accomplished home brewers. This beer reminded some of Chinato or Sasparilla, a bit of quinine and herbs, interesting, interesting stuff. And easy to appreciate. Evidently not intended for this party, my housemate's Deschutes Mirror Mirror found its way into the mix. (Suffice to say the fridge during the party was a thing of beauty—bursting at the seams with wonderful beer—made me want to cry). I don't remember much about the Deschutes except that it was wonderful. Must revisit. Every experience I have with Deschutes makes me more and more impressed with this brewer. Back to the top of the beeramid, for comparison of two more homebrews—identical in every way except for the yeast used. John's Porter homebrew with Californian yeast was really not my thing, I found the flavors limp and barely giving (the debate about the beer, however, was far from settled) while John's Porter homebrew with British yeast was superexpressive and bubbly (not in texture, but in personality). A lovely porter. Back into the breakfast nook, where a friend who had spent time with the Peace Corps in Paraguay (and is probably the only non-Paraguayan I know who speaks Guarani) brought a bottle of the Mate Verza Yerba Mate IPA. Fantasticly herbal stuff. Makes me feel healthy just drinking it.
As circles of beer geeks conversed in the kitchen, I reached for my first contribution of aged beer—the beer that had convinced me to start aging beer: The 2008 Gouden Carolus Cuvée Van De Keizer has developed nicely—quite attractive in its adolescence it's developed a bit from last year when I visited it last. It's amazing how much richness is shed within that first year. Great beer. Back to the top of the beeramid for Elsa's 60 Minute IPA homebrew. Just a few days in bottle, it screams freshness. It feels like drinking the Berkeley Bowl. Not quite integrated, but explosive in flavor. (When I sample a bottle kindly left in my fridge a week later, it indeed has settled down quite a bit, chilling into a late night jazz feel.) God, it's so interesting to taste beers like this—and this one was quite a crowd pleaser. Another friend, who told me he was just getting seriously into beer, somehow brought a bottle of the 2006 Orval Trappist Ale. Four years have treated this beer very well. If there was to be a beer of the evening, I think everyone who had this would pretty much have this on the top of their list. This beer was incredible—could nurse a small amount of this in my glass all evening. This beer is what beer can do. For the folks I've bumped into since the party, this is the beer everyone references. Bravo.
Next up was a fantastic contribution from a Pacific Northwest fan the 2010 Deschutes Once a Decade Ale. I've had this one a few times in the past months—and despite it's 'drink after' date, I can't keep myself away. Malty deliciousness that is balanced, complex. Must . . . age . . . . some. Very popular around the room. The beautiful and imposing growler of Russian River Noble Experiment was subtle and interesting—and really refreshing on the palate. I need to find a way to obtain RRB growlers more often—this one growler alone would be a great way to spend an evening. The 2007 J.W. Lees Harvest Ale, which I've been cellaring for the past two years was a beer, pardon the expression, that makes the ladies swoon. Sweet, rich, slithery smooth. If only butter could be so good . . . Palate refresher again with a growler of the Russian River Pliny the Elder (bravo E&M for making the trip!). Always hopsy goodness. I drink this beer on the average once every two weeks and it never disappoints—a welcome guest at the party. The Malheur Brut Reserve was a very interesting experience. You pour. You sniff. You drink. You enjoy. You're talking with your friends, chatting about this and that and suddenly you look into your glass. It's like having that person in a room who's dressed for the occasion and doesn't necessarily look flashy until you get a look at their shoes. The amazing art of their shoe choice makes you reevaluate their whole outfit and makes you realize they are actually the best dressed person in the room—though the lack of flash almost, but only almost, made you miss that fact. Must return to this biere de champagne sometime in the future . . . and who brought this? A fantastically singular contribution.
Back to my collection to grab the Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA which I've been aging for two years in my cellar. Too much of everything on release, I still liked it though it takes fortitude to drink as the richness and power of the beer is among the most extreme of beer experiences. This was my first chance to check in on my stash of it. Status? Blech. Unanimously voted the worst beer of the night—foul nail polish, disjunctured, not falling apart but hard to see it heading in any direction. I might think less than perfect storage or an off bottle, but someone else recounted a very negative vertical experience with the 120 Minute in the past. I've still a few more that I'll let sit considerably longer, but at this point, I have a purchase and aging moratorium on this beer. Very disappointing.
Next up was a new brewer to me, the Bruery Saison Rue was unfiltered and bottle conditioned brewed with rye and brettanomyces. Fantastic interpretation of a Saison, wild, earthy and very, very interesting. A good friend made a fantastic entrance clutching 750 ml bottles of Collesi ImperAle Bionda and Collesi ImperAle Rossa. I've never had Italian beer that I've found interesting before, but that's no longer true. I can't recall much specifically about those beers, but I think I was really entranced by the Rossa, while I found the Bionda pretty boring. But my recollection at this point is greatly suspect, and I gladly revisit both. Evidently some brewers in Italy are doing interesting things. One of the highlights of the night was a vertical of Russian River Salvation—what a fantastic contribution by my housemate's überbeergeek friend. The 2009 Russian River Salvation and 2008 Russian River Salvation were a close match for my palate, with a slightly more settled feel for the 2008, whereas the 2006 Russian River Salvation was a beautiful thing—really coming together into its own. The complexity and integration were stunning for me, but the contributor preferred the 2008—I think due to some of the fresher and zippier elements that it contributed. This comparison was fantastic and continues my education on what beer does as it ages. In that vein, the 2005 Thomas Hardy's Ale I've been aging is in a beautiful, beautiful place. Tender, rich, telling. A beer to share with someone. Another swoon-inducing beer. Its earned a permanent place in my aging collection. The night was getting late and I focused on beers open—one of which was the Triple Rock Dragon's Milk in a plastic beer bladder. Rich, milky, really well balanced, excellent flavor and still holding together beautifully when I revisited it two days later. Conversations continued, cleanup started. The party was a success. I was actually so enthralled with the beers available that I never myself focused on pairing the beers with particular cheeses. I munched a little, but to be honest I was like a kid in a candy story. But others did sample away with pairings and I think my friends had a great time trying it out.
Cleanup occurred the next day, and the beautiful thing about being the host of such a wonderful event (in addition to not needing to stumble more than 25 feet to one's bed) is the fridgefull of wonderful beer that people leave. The great contributions I sampled from that gracious gift included the Drake's 1500 Dry-hopped Pale Ale which is superhoppy, bitter, and really really fresh. Delicious and refreshing. Similarly styled, the Speakeasy Big Daddy IPA showed the beautiful side of hops—cleansing, providing a great bitter backbone that pairs so nicely with spicy food. The Flying Dog Raging Bitch is labeled as a belgian-style IPA which we debated at the party as to what the meant—but it turns out it is a stunning delicious and interesting beer. Some depth, great focus, particularly interesting as I have difficulty placing it. This is stunning beer and this is the leftovers. Finally the Augustiner Bräu Edelstoff Munich Helles Lager is classic great German beer—reminds me a fresh fruit pie nestled within a crust of subtle hops. Delicious.
And so was the success of my first foray into pairing beer, cheese, and great friends . . .
