Beer glass tasting

More than seventy per cent of what we perceive as flavour is experienced through our sense of smell. While we have traditionally been happy to drink our beers from the package they came in, or the standard ‘pot’ glass, if a beer is worth tasting it is worth drinking from a glass – and especially from a glass that will complement and enhance its flavour.

While ‘the right glass’ has long been part of the culture of wine, beer drinkers are only starting to understand the role that a good glass can play in increasing their enjoyment of their favourite craft ales and lagers.

Even as a beer lover convinced of the value of drinking beer from a glass, I was more focused on using a glass rather than the glass, but the range of glasses from Spiegelau changed my views on this entirely.

Join me as we put the Spiegelau Beer Classics range through its paces, trying four different beers in each of the Beer Classics glasses to see how each glass changes the perception of flavour of each beer.

This class is great value. In addition to trying four great Australian craft beers, you will also receive your own Spiegelau Beer Connoisseur Set (RRP $59.99) to take home. And, as an added bonus, you will also receive a copy of the Complete Beer Service and Sommelier's Manual (RRP $29.99), which covers topics such as serving beer, caring for beer, building a beer list and matching beer and food....

When: 6 June, 2013, 6pm (2 hours)
Where: The Golden Pig Cooking School, 38 Ross Street, Newstead
Cost: $75

Be quick, there are just 20 seats to this class.

Bookings.

Stone & Wood Stone Dinner at The Villager

This is always worth checking out, the now annual Stone & Wood Stone Beer dinner. The stone beer itself is a fascinating throwback to medieval brewing techniques and last year's was a cracker. You can read a little more about it here. The menu looks great and you know the beers are...worth checking out. Thursday 6 June, 6.30pm. Bookings via The Villager.

Hump Day: Putting the Do in Corona

These days we hear so much about the US craft brewing industry, the number of breweries and the mind-blowing quality of their beers.

While there are certainly jewels in the US crown, the torrent of beers washing up on our shores hasn't always lived up to the hype. But, in our quest to let no stone go unturned, our next Hump Day gives the US another crack with a selection of beers from San Diego's Coronado Brewing.

From my first sample of the beers, the Hoppy Daze Begian IPA, this is a brewery well-worth introducing to a Hump Day crowd, with maybe even a little gushy praise thrown in...we'll see!

So, Hump Day will feature five beers from Coronado Brewing Company to see if they will all live up to that first sample. We will be sampling a cross section of styles from Coronado, all newly arrived:

• Golden Pilser
• Mermaid's Red
• Islander IPA
• Hoppy Days Belgian IPA
• Blue Bridge Coffee Stout

The usual deal: sample five interesting and flavoursome beers with Matt, all while enjoying great company, light nibbles and getting over that mid-week hump. Tickets are limited, get in quick!

VENUE: Kerbside, Constance Street (Ann Street End) Fortitude Valley WHEN: 29 May 2013, 5.30pm for 6pm COST: $35, includes five samples and food. The fun is free. TIME: 5.30pm for 6pm start, until 7.30 (or later)

17 April | Cooking and Drinking | Golden Pig

Working with the fabulous The Golden Pig Food & Wine School (yes, they are so good I will even forgive them for that title, but beer is food!) we have developed some great cooking and drinking workshops.

These two-hour, mid-week classes are designed to be short, sharp & punchy while being fun and informative. Most importantly, they are great value.

Acclaimed chef Katrina Ryan, cuts the boring bits out of cooking and each class will each focus on an ingredient, dish or cooking style to give you some insight to the techniques involved. We then do the old, "here's one we prepared earlier" and Matt Kirkegaard takes over and matches the dish to a couple of great craft beers, which he explains, and you get to sample. 

The classes start at 6.30 and run for about two hours. So you get an education, a meal and beer tasting all for $49, not to mention great fun. There's a craft beer on arrival too.

The next class will feature Beef Rendang. 

Details

Where: The Golden Pig, 38 Ross Street, Newstead. (Directions)
When: 17 April, 2013
Starts: 6.30pm - Finishes: 8.30pm - 9.00pm.
Price: $49

Bookings via The Golden Pig.

Hump Day | 24 April | Top of the Hops

If beer's ingredients were a rock band, hops would be the sexy and enigmatic lead singer swarmed by groupies and pestered for its autograph while the malt and yeast stand up the back keeping time and the rhythm. But are all strutting rock gods the same?

This Hump Day puts hops where the lead singer belongs, front and centre, with a tasting of seven IPAs from Danish brewer Mikkeller, each brewed with a different single hop.

We will be sampling India Pale Ales featuring the following hops:

• Galena
• Magnum
• Simcoe
• Tettnanger
• Cascade
• Saaz
• Amarillo

Get a sense for the different flavours that hops can bring to a beer, all while enjoying great company, light nibbles and getting over that mid-week hump.

VENUE: Kerbside, Constance Street (Ann Street End) Fortitude Valley COST: $35, includes seven samples and food. The fun is free. TIME: 5.30pm for 6pm start, until 7.30 (or later)

Bookings via TryBooking.

Hump Day – 13 March – Matt’s Slide Night

As many of you know I spent the Christmas period travelling through Italy, Austria, Southern Germany, France, UK, Belgium and Denmark. It was a fascinating trip and, although I have been lucky to try many of the beers from these countries over here, it was interesting to look first hand at some of the trends that have been developing overseas. So, the first Hump Day for 2013 will feature five beers that really highlighted for me what’s happening overseas. There will be craft beers from Italy, Denmark, UK and Belgium. Please note - no slides will be shown!

There will also be some very exciting one-off lucky door prizes offered as well. I filled a suitcase with beers to  bring back from my travels - not enough to share for a Hump Day, but enough to make for a very, very special prize cupboard. The highlight will be a bottle of Westvleteren 12, rated the best beer in the world on RateBeer.com.

Tickets for this one are limited. As a special one-off you can even claim the number you would like for your lucky door prize entry. When you book and pay, just email me (matt@beermatt.com) with your TryBooking receipt and tell me the number you would like to claim (between 1 and 50). First in, first choice of your number.

Date: 13 March 2013 Time: 5.30pm for 6pm start (til 7.30pm) Cost: $35, includes beer samples and light snacks

Bookings

Last Hump Day for 2012

Hump Day | 14 November | ‘Tis the Saison Despite my best intentions, this will be the last Hump Day for 2012 so we’re going to make it a little bit special.

Saison is a cracking style for summer, refreshing but still satisfying and with plenty of flavour to chew on. Even better, it goes beautifully with a range of cheeses and charcuterie.

So, the last Hump Day tasting for 2012 will feature a selection of Australian and imported saisons paired with some cheese and charcuterie from Fino Food & Wine. To keep the beers a little diverse we will include one or two Biere de Gardes, another farmhouse style.

The beer list will feature:

• Bridge Road Chevalier Saison
• Bridge Road Chevalier Biere de Garde
• Silly Saison
• Trois Monts (Biere de Garde)
• Temple Saison

We will also have a special beer on arrival included in the price, regular finger food in addition to the charcuterie and cheese and loads of give aways and prizes.

Tickets will obviously be limited, so get in quick.

When: Wednesday, 14 Novermber at 5.30pm for 6pm Where: Kerbside, Constance Street, Fortitude Valley Cost: $49, includes beer and arrival,five samples, cheese and charcuterie and finger food

I hope to see you there...

To book.

I was interviewed on ABC News 24's News Breakfast yesterday about the decline  in the beer market and the growth of craft. Bear in mind it was very early and I was talking about beer before I had coffee... http://youtu.be/_Arb-ta4UQA

Hump Day | 10 October | Date with a Dane

There’s so many beer events on in Brisbane at the moment that we will drop Hump Day back to once a month. This means we’ll only have two more Hump Days before Christmas, October 10 and one in November, on the 14th. For those who haven’t joined us for a Hump Day tasting, these are very informal tastings in which we sample a selection of new or interesting (or new andinteresting) beers in the comfort of the lounge room-like Kerbside Bar in the Valley. They are great fun and very relaxed and feature five beer samples, some finger food and some good beer chat. There's also plenty of lucky door prizes.

They are an easy way to sample a range of beers and get a feel for the styles of beer that are available, and to see what you like. We kick off at about 5.30-5.45pm and, for those keen to get home, generally finish by 7.15pm. (Or not if you wanted to become more familiar with Kerbside's extensive bottled beer list).

The next Hump Day will see us head off to Denmark for some beers from Danish craft breweries, Beer Here and Norrebro.

We will be trying the following:

Beer Here

• Wicked Wheat  4.7% This is a wheat beer, but not your average yeasty mess. This kitten's got claws. Boldly hopped with Citra
• Dead Cat – Single Hop Amber Ale             4.7% Hopped exclusively with American Simcoe – giving pine needles, melon and catty notes to the caramel base
• Executioner IPA                7.0% Flavoursome, yet thirst quenching . Light caramel backbone with a grapefruit and citrus edge
• Sod – Baltic Porter 7.5% A pitch-black porter brewed with a dash of smoked malt. Roasty bitterness, cocoa and smoke highlights

Norrebro

• Kings County Brown Ale 5.5% A deliciously dark, medium body, fruity ale with the scent and taste of nuts, chocolate and dried fruits.

I hope to see you there.

When: Wednesday, 10 October at 5.30pm for 6pm Where: Kerbside, Constance Street, Fortitude Valley Cost:$30, includes five samples and finger food

Unleash your inner Bavarian this Oktoberfest at Bavarian Bier Cafe

I do enjoy the Bavarian Bier Cafes. Even though there is a rapidly developing world of craft beer with the huge range of hoptastic beers that is bringing, the Germans are still the masters of the everyday culture of beer. The well-made, but flavoursome lagers, the hefe- and dunkel weizens, the dunkel and the bock are classics and worth a place in every beer fridge alongside the latest hopbomb. I was lucky enough to be invited to present at the Bavarian Bier Cafe's Oktoberfest launch at Brisbane and the Gold Coast, including tapping the first keg at Brisbane. This was a big honour, performed in Munich by the mayor. As you can see from the photo on the link Munich Mayor, Christian Nagy, was photographed before the tapping started. I wonder whether his tapping was as spectacular as mine however!

Anyway, however inelegantly it was done, O'zapft (The keg is tapped!) Head along to the Bavarian Eagle Street or Broadbeach to check it out. I will be hosting a dinner at the Eagle Street Pier BBC on 18th October from 6pm if you'd like to come along and join us. Details and booking info below.

Media Release

Unleash your inner Bavarian this Oktoberfest at Bavarian Bier Cafe

It’s time to release your lederhosen-wearing, pretzel-loving, stein-swigging, yodeling inner Bavarian because Oktoberfest is coming to town!

Oktoberfest will be officially launched at Bavarian Bier Café – Eagle Street Pier on Saturday, 22 September, and gives you the chance to join in the world’s biggest festival, which first began in Munich in 1810 to celebrate the marriage of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

Throughout its six-week long Oktoberfest celebration, Bavarian Bier Café will bring the best of Bavaria to you with hearty menu specials, fun and family-friendly events, entertainment, and a range of authentic Oktoberfestbiers imported directly from Munich.

“We are absolutely passionate about all things Bavarian and want our guests to have the chance to celebrate the world’s greatest festival in true style,” said Dom Dighton, Bavarian Bier Café’s bier professor.

“That means simply choosing your venue, gathering a group of friends and being prepared to celebrate Oktoberfest properly in our contemporary settings.”

Here’s the lowdown on what to expect at Oktoberfest’s ‘home away from home’:

The Bier

• Each week of Oktoberfest, one of five exclusive Oktoberfest biers will be highlighted for patrons to enjoy - Spaten, Paulaner, Hofbräu, Hacker-Pschorr, or Lowenbräu.
• Bavarian Bier Café’s Bier Meisters will also host impromptu mini bier academies and educate bier lovers in the best way possible - tastings!

The Food

• Bavarian Bier Café will continue its reputation for perfecting Pure Bier and Pure Food matches with an authentic Oktoberfest menu of a la carte specialties all the way from Munich, and Bier Meisters available to recommend the perfect bier to complement a meal.

The Parties

• Join Beer Expert Matt Kirkegaard for a sit down 3 course Bavarian dinner perfectly matched with PURE Bavarian Oktoberfest bier and learn the secrets to brewing and tasting, Bavarian Style! $50 a ticket, Thursday 18th October from 6pm.
• Get your dirndls and lederhosen on for the inaugural Alpine Party! From 6.00pm on Saturday, 29 September, the ticketed event will be THE event of Oktoberfest, with a piccolo of Henkel sparkling wine on arrival, Bavarian canapés, and party tunes set to amp up the Alpine-themed atmosphere. Tickets are $20. Tickets to both events can be purchased by telephoning 3339 09 00.

The Family-friendly fun

• Family-friendly Oktoberfest activities will ensure parents enjoy an Oktoberfest outing as much as the kids!
• Face-painting: Every Oktoberfest Sunday from 12 noon to 3pm (starting 23 September)
• Sweet pretzel making: Every Oktoberfest Sunday from 10am to 2pm (starting 30 September)
• Kinder menu: Available every day, Bavarian Bier Café’s Kinder menu offers perfect meals for little tummies – think chicken schnitzel, fish, Frankfurter sausage, Bolognese, linguine and more – and all for $7.00 or less.

For more information about Oktoberfest 2012.

Note to editor: While each venue is distinctly different, all Bavarian Bier Cafés are united by a commitment to Pure Food, Pure Bier and Pure Passion. By sharing our passion for the very best bits of Bavaria, our guests get to experience fresh and flavoursome food, first-class beverages and the warm hospitality for which Bavaria is renowned.

4BC Beer Talk - 13 Sept 2012

Tonight on 4BC Beer Talk, host John Scott and I tasted two ciders from Thorogoods Cider in South Australia. You can buy the two ciders, Sparkling Medium Dry Cider and Billy B's Dark Cider Beer on the website for posting to you. If you would like to try them, they will be featured at my Hump Day tasting at Kerbside next Wednesday (19th) or as part of the Beer, Cider and Cheese tasting at Black Pearl Epicure's cooking school on the 27th.

Beer and cheese, with maybe a cider or two

Fresh from our appearance at the Brisbane Cheese Awards, Black Pearl's Peter Gross and I will be holding another beer (and cider) and cheese tasting on 27 September.

I am thoroughly enjoying the masterclasses that Peter and I have been doing recently, his cheese knowledge is absolutely phenomenal and his presentations are not only informative but great fun. We have great fun presenting them together - I just hope that everyone who comes does as well. The best bit is you get to try some of the most amazing cheeses, as well as the beers I have chosen - which I think are pretty good as well.

We will be having seven cheeses, matched to seven beers and ciders with Peter and I both presenting - which is pretty good value for $75.

You can book here.

You can also read about the Cheese Awards (which were last weekend) here.

Hump Day | 19 September | Marvellous Mish Mash

For readers who have't been to one of my Hump Day tastings, about twice a month I run a Wednesday evening tasting featuring four of five interesting beers. It's designed as a fun way to sample new beers that catch my eye. We kick off at Kerbside about 5.30 pm and it's all over about 7...unless you want to kick on. Next week in a departure from my usual ‘we all try it together’ policy, this is a special Hump Day where I will be bringing some beers that I want to showcase, including two beers brewed to celebrate seventh birthdays.

In an even greater departure, I will be featuring a couple of ciders. Don't worry, I'm not surrendering to the oceans of dross hitting the shelves. These aren’t the sweet, fizzy ciders the kids are drinking, these are extraordinary ciders and unique beers blended with cider.

Birra del Borgo ReAle Anniversario 7

Brewed to celebrate the Italian craft brewery’s seventh birthday, this is an American-inspired amber ale brewed with ingredients from 7 different areas of the globe.

Bridge Road B2 Mach 2.0

Brought back by popular demand, this Black Belgian IPA is a melding of a Belgian yeast with lots of hops and dark, roasty malts. Fewer than 1000 bottles of this once-off brew were made. Don’t miss out.

Thorogood’s Medium Dry Cider

Think you know cider? A beautifully fruity, dry champagne-style cider full of apple flavours. Unlike commercial ciders Thorogood’s do not use water or sugar but real apples grow in their own orchard.

Billy B's Golden Apple Beer

Billy B's Golden Fruit and sour lemon flavours enhance a big malty hit.

Billy B's Dark Apple Beer

An Australian lambic? Very possibly. A blend of dark beer and apple cider this is rich malt with a sour, malt cider finish. Words don’t describe it, not all will like it, those that do will love it, but you will definitely remember it.

This will be a unique Hump Day not to be missed!

Numbers will be strictly limited for this one due to the availability of the beers.

When: Wednesday, 19 September at 5.30pm for 6pm Where: Kerbside, Constance Street, Fortitude Valley Cost: $35, includes five samples and finger food

Cocktails and beer

I don't often write about cocktails, and I'm not really even doing so on this occasion, but I just received the media release below and it is well worth sharing. Some of the best beer palates I have met in Brisbane over the last few years have been some of the city's best cocktail guys. I'm not sure whether it's they just have an appreciation of flavour or that they are open to new things, but they certainly have taken to craft beer and have been really doing it well.

I recently went to a beer dinner featuring in which Perryn did the food matching at The Euro and it was one of the bet that I have been to. Being The Euro, part of the Urbane/Euro/Laneway restaurant conurbation, the food was excellent, but the matches were interesting and very inventive. One even featured Fosters...ina  can.

Anyway, congratulations to Pez and, if you love beer, don't forget to put his matching skills to the test at The Laneway, it's a much overlooked beer destination.

Media Release

The Laneway’s PEZ takes Global Gin Mare Award in SPAIN last Night!!!

We all knew The Laneway’s PERRYN COLLIER (Pez) could mix a sweet cocktail, pour a great beer and talk for hours about drinks; and now the world agrees. Last night on the Spanish island of Ibiza Pez beat out the best in the world to take the Global Gin Mare Award, one of the hottest cocktail competitions on the planet. This means he’s the new Official Gin Mare Ambassador for Australia and South East Asia – and he’ll be flying all over the world representing not only The Laneway, but Brisbane and Australia.

Only recently introduced to Australia, Gin Mare is the first super premium Mediterranean Gin, created using botanicals from the Mediterranean basin - Arbequina olives, thyme, rosemary and basil. The competition saw Pez create two cocktails – the first inspired by the concept of “Mare Nostrum” or the lifestyle and gastronomy of the Mediterranean; and the second, was his version of a Dirty Martini.

The Laneway is the bar that started Brisbane’s small bar itch (or revolution as the case maybe!) so it’s only proper that The Laneway has been announced as THE ONLY QLD BAR up for BAR OF THE YEAR in the 2012 Australian Bartender Awards – the be announced on September 24! AND, both Pez and his fellow The Laneway bartender in Kal Moore are up for Bartender of the Year …. It’s a MIX OFF of the highest standards.

Beer and cheese at Black Pearl

I was excited last night to present the first of what will be a regular tasting class at Brisbane's Black Pearl Epicure. Working with my good friend and cheese expert Peter Gross we matched six cheeses with six great beers.

My approach to beer and cheese matching rarely involves sitting down with Peter in advance and working out the perfect matches. Instead, he tells me what he's going to bring and gives me a brief description and I then select a beer. There is never a guarantee that the match will work perfectly but, at the same time, I know that the cheese will be great and the beer will be great so no-one is getting short-changed if the pairing is less than perfect. Instead, I think that  there is more value in this approach in a demonstration class.

The real value is that I believe you often learn more from an imperfect match than you do from a tightly controlled, pre-planned tasting with a perfect match assured. It lets you discuss your thought process for the match, what you were hoping to achieve and then discuss whether that came to pass. With taste being so subjective, I believe it also demystifies the process and lets people know it's ok experiment and find the matches that they like. I sometimes find that wine leads people to think there are things that are objectively perfect matches, and there just never are.

Last night provided a perfect example of this. I had planned to take a Bridge Road Chevalier Saison to match with the Kingaroy Bunya Black triple cream brie. Somehow, I grabbed a carton of Bridge Road Biere de Garde instead and was horrified to see a much darker beer than I expected being poured into the glasses. However, the match proved inspired - and was much better than the saison would have been.  The richer maltiness of the Bridge Road also proved a much better match than the 3 Monts, a French biere de garde that followed and worked wonderfully with the Marcel Petite Compte but just didn't work with the brie. Same beer style, very differnet flavours and very different outcome in the match.

As usual the Roquefort with  Brew Boys Seeing Double was just heaven on a cheese knife, but all the matches worked well.

The only secret is eat and drink widely, experiment and be prepared to have the odd matching failure. You lose nothing - the beer and the cheese are still great!

Click on the Black Pearl logo above to go to their site and register for their newsletter, which will keep you updated with all of their cooking classes, including upcoming beer tastings. You can also subscribe to the Good Beers newsletter here.

Matches:

Burleigh Brewing (Burleigh Heads, Qld) Hef with Mt Vikos Barrel Aged Feta

Bridge Road Brewers (Beechworth, Vic) Chevalier Saison with Bunya Black

Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre (Saint Sylvestre Cappel, France) 3 Monts With Marcel Petite Comte

 Notre-Dame de Scourmont Abbey (Belgium) Chimay Blue (Grande Reserve) with Fire Engine Red Jindi

 McLaren Vale Beer Co. (Willunga, SA) Vale IPA with Cabot’s American Cheddar

Brew Boys (Adelaide, SA) Seeing Double with Carles Roquefort

Tasting notes:

Burleigh Brewing (Burleigh Heads, Qld) Hef Hefeweizen 5% abv

A classic Bavarian unfiltered wheat beer. The style name translates as hefe (yeast) weizen (wheat) and this beer is cloudy through the yeast in suspension. Bursting with yeast-derived aromatics of banana and a little clove, the texture is creamy and full but never heavy. Slight citrus tang and good, but fine, carbonation.

Suggested Match: Mt Vikos Barrel Aged Feta Origin: Mt Vikos, Greece Milk Source: Ewe and Goat Approximate Age: 4 – 6 months

Almost all the feta exported from Greece today is mass produced and sold in pre-cut slices (feta means to cut), or in moist firm salty lumps lifted fresh from a large tin. But it is still possible to find traditional Feta matured the old fashioned way in barrels made of beech wood.

The barrel subtly influences the flavour and texture of the cheese through natural cultures growing in the grain of the wood, and unlike tinned cheese, the wood also enables oxygen to reach the cheese inside as it matures. This authentic Feta is nothing like the industrial cheese and develops a wonderful soft, creamy, milky taste, intense aromas, soft melting textures with a complex peppery finish.

Storing Feta: The best way to keep feta is tightly wrapped in rice paper in a plastic container in the fridge. The paper quickly hydrates and keeps the surface moist and protected. Some people recommend immersing feta in a home made brine solution but this invariable leeches flavour from the cheese, reducing its creaminess and increasing its salt content. If rice paper is not available, then cling film can be used instead for short period of time.

Bridge Road Brewers (Beechworth, Vic) Chevalier Biere de Garde Biere de Garde 6.5% ABV

From the French for ‘season’ this is a rustic farmhouse ale, once brewed to keep the farm workers fed during the harvest. Spices with some citrus and a dry finish.

Suggested Match: Bunya Black Silver Medal Winner – 2004 Melbourne Royal Show

A cellar door favourite, this triple cream style brie hides a layer of vine ash which adds complexity to flavour and provides a visual treat for cheese platters. Don’t be fooled this is not Blue Vein; this is a rich creamy Brie and something very different.

Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre (Saint Sylvestre Cappel, France) 3 Monts Biere de Garde 8.5% ABV

The style, which comes from northern France, translates to ‘beer of keeping’ and these beers normally undergo a lengthy conditioning and storage. The style is rustic and earthy. This beer is spicy with clove and aniseed, malt bodied but dry finishing.

Suggested Match: Marcel Petite Comte Origin: Franche-comte, France Milk Source: Cow Approximate Age: 12 months

This large cheese from the Jura Mountains in the Franche-Comte has a diameter of 75cm and a weight of 35kg. It takes about 530 litres of milk to make one cheese. The reason for its large size is due to a long tradition. In earlier times, large wheels of cheese had the advantage that they could be stored for long periods of time, keeping throughout the long winter.

The method and the area in which Comte is made, have not changed for centuries, and are now controlled by the AOC. Comte is consumed by 40% of the French population and has the highest production figures of all French cheeses.

Beneath its hard rind, Comte has a firm and supple centre which melts in the mouth. Its flavour is sweet and floral with a nutty tang. A versatile cheese, it can be eaten in salads, with fruit, in sandwiches or fondue.

Notre-Dame de Scourmont Abbey (Belgium) Chimay Blue (Grande Reserve) Belgian Strong Ale 9% ABV

Ripe fruit, some spice and brown sugar. A rich beer brewed under the Trappist appellation.

Suggested Match: Jindi Fire Engine Red Origin: Jindivic, Victoria Milk Source: Cow

In honour of the Fire Engines and the Firemen who fought tirelessly to defend the Jindi factory in February 2009. This cheese expresses many of the characteristics of those wonderful people. It’s powerful, and courageous, aromatic and at times challenging, but let it work over the palate and the memory will linger on.

The red rind occurs by regular scrubbing with Brevibacterium linens. The affect of the bacteria contributes to the strong and at time over powering aroma of this cheese. One might well ask ‘how can a cheese that smells so bad taste so good? In true French tradition it is recommended for first timers to peel the rind back and scoop the cheese from the middle. Its flavour characteristics will include caramel and cauliflower and cabbage, it has a soft texture and is a truly flavour driven cheese.

McLaren Vale Beer Co. (Willlunga, SA) Vale IPA India Pale Ale 5.5%ABV

A fragrant, hop-driven beer bursting with citrus but revealing some stone fruit. Solid toffee malt profile balances the bitterness for a very satisfying IPA.

Suggested Match: Cabot’s American Cheddar Origin: Vermont, USA Milk Source: Cow Approximate Age: 12 months

A simple, approachable, balanced cheddar that impresses with layers of lingeringly nutty, slightly fruity and nearly buttery flavour, while finishing with the mellowness of caramel undertones. Made by Cabot Creamery and aged at the Cellars of Jasper Hill, this clothbound English-style cheddar won Best of Class at the 2010 World Championship Cheese Contest. Made from pasteurized milk, this cheddar has flavour notes typically attributed to raw milk cheeses.

Brew Boys (Adelaide, SA) Seeing Double Scotch Ale 8% ABV

One for the whisky lovers. Made with a percentage of peat-smoked whisky malt, Seeing Double tastes of sweet and smoky malt and calls to mind many of the descriptors used for an Islay malt – bandaids and iodine.

Suggested Match: Carles Roquefort Origin: France Milk Source: Sheep

Carles is a family business, located in the heart of the village of Roquefort. Milk is collected every morning from a collective of 20 farms, whose dedication produces milk of superb quality. Purely from the Lacaune breed of sheep, the milk brings to the “King of cheeses” all the fragrance and flavour of the pastures of this region. Carles are the last remaining cheese makers who are still hand making the cheese, from the cutting and handling of the curd to the adding of the mould. The cheeses are matured in one of Carles four natural caves deep in the Combalou Mountains. Here thanks to cool, moist natural air flow through the natural vents in the caves, the Penicillium Roqueforti begins to work its magic.

The only raw milk soft cheese in the country, Roquefort is deliciously sweet and creamy with hints of spice from the veins of green-blue mould. It can be used to make sauces or in salads but is best served on the cheeseboard accompanied by a glass of Sauternes or iced Riesling.

Beer at the Ekka 2012

It has been a huge week and a bit as I have been doing a daily beer demonstration on the Food & Wine stage at the Brisbane Ekka. This came about after being asked by well-known chef Dominique Rizzo who I introduced to the idea of beer and food matching after last year's RNA Beer Competition. I don't know that Dominique has become a dedicated beer drinker, but she certainly has developed an enthusiasm for beer's potential as an ingredient and also as a source of flavour to match with food. It has been a huge opportunity to showcase beer in the Food & Wine pavilion at the show, something that I have been pitching for several years as the Ekka has continued to grown and develop its gourmet food offerings. Beer deserves to be there and congrautions and thanks to Dominique and the RNA for introducing it this year. We have showcased a great range of beers from Bridge Road Brewers, Burleigh Brewing, Coopers, Temple Brewing, Brew Boys, Grand Ridge, McLaren Vale Beer Company, Birra Del Borgo, Extramones and plenty more.

We have done a variety of matchings so far, including Beer & Chocolate working with Bien Peralta at Dello Mano, Beer & Cheese with Black Pearl Epicure's Peter Gross and I have even done some cooking on stage myself while matching the results with beer. We have also done two great sessions with Chef Brad Martin from the Breakfast Creek Hotel who has showcased beer in three recipes. I got so many requests for the recipes that Brad has allowed me to publish them below. I have included some suggested beer matches.

Enjoy!

Cooking with Beer: Beer and Beef three ways

Brad Martin: Breakfast Creek Hotel

The concept of cooking with beer and combining the flavours to match certain dishes relies on using the subtle flavours within the beer, and showcasing the malt, hops, or barley.

The dishes we have chosen demonstrate theses qualities and produce subtle results.

Wagyu beef and spiced beetroot salad, dressed with a fresh raspberry and wheat beer emulsion.

Ingredients: Salad

• 250 gm Wagyu Sirloin
• 1 Bulb Beetroot
• 40 gm Persian fetta
• 1 fresh red chilli
• 1 bunch fresh sage
• 30 ml honey
• 50gm castor sugar
• 1 continental cucumber
• 50 gm Asian Greens
• Salt, pepper
• Olive oil- pure

Ingredients: Dressing

• 90gm Castor Sugar
• 60gm Fresh Raspberries
• 60ml Verjus
• 300ml wheat beer
• 30ml EVO olive oil
• 1 navel orange-zested
• 2 sprigs thyme

Method: Salad

Peel Beetroot and pearl with a pearling tool, place pearls in a pot of salted boiling water, add castor sugar, cook till tender, drain liquid.

Finely chop chilli and sage, heat oil in a pan, add chilli and sage and quickly cook for 30 seconds, add honey and Verjus, place beetroot in pan, season with salt and pepper, remove spiced beetroot from pan, strain liquid and reserve for later use

Break Persian fetta and place in a bowl ready for use.

Peel long strips off the cucumber and place in a bowl ready for later use

Cook Wagyu Sirloin until medium rare, and rest

Method: Dressing

Place Wheat beer, thyme and castor sugar in a small heated pot, and reduce to a thin caramel consistency, place 40gm raspberries in same pot for 2 minutes until they collapse, remove from the heat, then blend the raspberry beer caramel in a food processor till smooth, add Verjus, orange zest and EV Olive Oil, then blend till it emulsifies, place in a bowl

Presentation:

Wagyu beef and spiced beetroot salad, dressed with a fresh raspberry and wheat beer emulsion.

Place Cucumber strip in a ring mould, Toss Asian greens, beetroot and fetta together, season with a little salt and pepper, and dress with a little of the reserved pan liquor. Then place a small mound of the dressing in the mould, slice the Wagyu sirloin, place neatly on the salad, dress the plate with fresh raspberries, orange zest and picked thyme, then gently drizzle the Raspberry wheat beer dressing on the plate

The idea behind this combination is to accentuate and intensify the flavours of the malt in the beer, and the rich sweetness of the strawberries.

Beer match: McLaren Vale Dark Lager (Vale DRK). This is a rich malty beer that I intended to work with the beef and not clash with the salad dressing.

Eye Fillet presented with grilled crushed potato, accompanied by Hyashi and shitake salad, dressed with Beer of the wood Jus

Steak Ingredients:

• 200 gm Eye Fillet
• 20 ml orange Juice
• 20 ml red wine vinegar
• 20ml lite soy
• 15ml Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Method:

Blend all liquid ingredients together and marinate eye fillet for 10 minutes

Cook to medium rare and rest steak

Potato Ingredients:

• 1 baked potato- medium sized
• 20 gm crushed garlic
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil-EVO

Method:

Press potato gently till it starts to flatten, place in a bowl with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, then cook over a medium heat in a frypan until the skin becomes crisp, place on a paper towel to remove excess oil

Salad Ingredients:

• 20gm Shisho leaves
• 20 gm Hyashi salad (marinated konbu seaweed with chilli and sesame)
• 20 gm shitake Mushrooms
• 10 ml sesame oil
• 10 ml olive oil
• 20ml Verjus
• Salt and pepper

Salad Method:

Over a high heat, place shitake mushrooms in a heated pan containing both oils, cook till tender, approximately 1 minute, add salt pepper, and Verjus, remove from pan and place in a bowl with Hyashi salad and Shisho leaves, toss all ingredients together

Beer Jus Ingredients:

• 200ml Good Quality beef stock
• 60 gm Brown sugar
• 200 ml Stone and Wood Beer

Method:

Reduce beef stock by half

In a separate pot, melt brown sugar, then add beer, reduce to syrup consistency, add beef stock and reduce to jus consistency

Presentation:

Eye Fillet presented with grilled crushed potato, accompanied by Hyashi and shitake salad, dressed with Beer Jus

Place potato in centre of plate, rest eye fillet on top, place a little salad neatly on the plate, and dress the plate with beer jus, place a little pickled ginger on the steak

What we are looking for with this sauce is a top layer of hops and bitterness to counteract with a subtle salt balance of the jus, and the sweet spice provided by the salad and ginger

Beer match: Coopers Vintage Ale.

Steamed Pale Ale pudding with beer caramel and macadamia nut ice cream

Pudding Ingredients:

• 200 gm castor sugar
• 200gm unsalted butter
• 3 eggs
• 200 gm self raising flour
• 300 ml pale ale
• 120 gm brown sugar
• 60 gm Toasted Macadamia nuts
• 300gm castor sugar

Method: Pale Ale caramel

Melt brown sugar in a pan, add pale ale and reduce to a thick caramel

Method: Macadamia crumble

Melt 100gm brown sugar, add toasted macadamia nuts, and ensure to coat the nuts well

Place on a flat tray to set, and then roughly pulse in a food processor to a crumble

Method: Pudding

Cream sugar, butter and eggs together in food processor, sift flour, add creamed mixture to flour and combine gently together, place in a butter lined mould, steam for 25 minutes

Present:

Turn pudding out of its Mould, sprinkle a little crumble over the pudding and place a neat mound on plate, drizzle with beer caramel, and present with macadamia nut ice cream and a lime, mint and strawberry salad.

Beer match: Temple Brewing/Weihenstephaner Unifikator (might be hard to find) or Erdinger Pikantus. Any weizenbock should provide a good match as well.

The beer list, if you please…

The restaurant game seems to be almost as faddish as the rag trade. Seemingly out of nowhere a new fashion appears and, before you know it, it headlines every menu. At the moment it seems as though you can’t go anywhere without falling over beetroot this or goat’s curd that. What’s more, it’s all being served on a slab of wood rather than an oversized round plate. Two years ago was stuffed zucchini flowers served on a rectangle plate. A decade ago everything was covered with roasted pine nuts and probably served on some kind of a burnt orange plate.

Food fashions are wonderful in that they constantly introduce new flavours and techniques, some of which prove lasting, and ensure that dining is interesting and fun. However, the slavish adherence to fashion often also sees the baby thrown out with the bathwater in the quest for the Next Big Thing.

Wine varietals often suffer from this faddishness and too many people these days turn their noses up at a good Chardonnay because “that’s soooo 1999”.

While fashions can excite, slavish adherence to them often just shows a me-too mindset that simply reveals a lack of imagination and originality.

The flipside of faddishness is overlooking the inherent qualities in something everyday, or looking at it with a jaundiced eye and ignoring it entirely. For me, beer falls into this category.

Over the last decade there has been a huge growth in what we have taken to calling ‘craft’ beer. Craft beer is beer made on a smaller scale and with a greater emphasis on showing the nuances and flavours of its ingredients. In flavour terms, craft beer is to mainstream lagers what a farmhouse cheese is to plastic wrapped singles.

While there is a huge spectrum of flavours and styles available, many restaurant owners and chefs see beer as the Rodney Dangerfield of beverages and pay it no respect. This was never more clearly demonstrated to me than in a discussion I had with a well-known chef who had spent just five minutes extolling the virtues of his sourdough breads (another recent food fad). When I asked him about beer and food, he dismissed it with a curt “I don’t drink much of it”, said in a way that he wouldn’t condescend to such pedestrian beverages.

But hold on. His sourdough bread is made with water, grains and yeast. Beer is made with exactly the same ingredients, only with the addition of hops and far more varieties of yeast and grain than bread. These can be blended to derive even more flavour combinations and styles than there are breads. This chef saw beer as the equal of a supermarket-bought white loaf, failing to see that, as with his sourdough, in the hands of a craftsman it can also be much, much more.

Beer is still seen by most of our restaurateurs as a pale fizzy drink, to be offered on arrival to wet the whistle before patrons move onto the serious business of wine. Beers, when they’re set out in the beverage list, are relegated to the end as if in some kind of grown-up’s kiddy menu.

Beer will never have the cachet that wine enjoys, and should never adopt wine’s pomposity. But still, as craft brewers rediscover and adapt old styles and experiment with new ingredients and techniques, the flavours they are producing partner with an extraordinarily wide, and often surprising, range of foods. What’s more, an intelligent use of these beers provides exactly the sort of excitement that diners are seeking and restaurateurs want to offer.

All they need to do is look at it with fresh eyes.

Top restaurant crimes against beer:

1. Thinking you have a good beer list when you simply offer 10 different brands of lager. Unless you would confine your wine list to 10 different Sauvignon Blancs, you should show a little more imagination.

2. Selling your beer list to one brewer in return for some umbrellas, staff uniforms and branded glassware. Big brewers are interested in pushing their preferred brand, not serving your diners or adding interest and colour to your menu.

3. Listing Becks, Stella, Heineken, Kronenburg, Kirin, Asahi and any number of other nearly-identical lagers as ‘imports’. While the brands are international, most of these are brewed-under-licence in Australia. There is nothing wrong with that, but they’re just not ‘imported’ or ‘international’. Chefs have over 100 different words to describe different sauces; surely they can find one to accurately describe their beer list.

4. Boasting about having ‘genuine’ imports for the beers listed in 3 above. As a rule lagers don’t travel well. Even when it’s directly imported, beer can spend up to 6 weeks in a shipping container crossing the Equator to get here. When it’s parallel imported it takes even longer and no-one has any idea where it’s been and for how long. Unless you would brag about storing your restaurant’s XXXX in the boot of your car for 6 weeks, don’t brag about selling ‘genuine’ Heineken.

5. Serving the beer in a stubby. While for some reason many diners prefer to drink out of the stubby, restaurants should always at least offer a glass. If a beer is worth drinking, it’s worth drinking from a glass, especially beers with flavour.

Beer spreads its wings

Anyone who has looked at the badges on the taps of their local will have noticed that the days of walking into a bar and asking for a pot of ‘heavy’ or ‘Gold’ are well and truly over. Such are the beer drinking options available today that many are starting to worry that beer is going down the path of wine and becoming a bit of a poser’s drink, something consumed by over styled metrosexuals in effete inner city bars.

Fosters tried to capitalise on this perception to restore the fortunes of its fast-flagging VB brand last year when it ran a series of ads to the tune of Neil Diamond’s song ‘Hello again’, poking fun at blokes who use hand cream, wear lycra and, presumably, drink craft beer.

It didn’t stop the sales slide for the once dominant national brand.

Perhaps the best gauge as to how broadly craft beer has spread is that one of South-East Queensland’s best beer bars can now be found at Yamanto, near Ipswich.

The Yamanto Tavern started testing the craft beer waters last year putting on a pale ale made by local brewer Wade Curtis’ 4 Hearts Brewing. So well did his 4 Degrees Pale Ale go down with the locals that Yamanto is now extending the bar and will soon offer 24 different craft beers on tap.

Yamanto’s manager Peter Coultas said that the response to his beer offering has been overwhelming.

“We gave Wade’s pale ale a try and it just took off,” he said.

“These days when our regulars come in and ask for ‘a pot of 4’ they mean 4 Hearts Pale Ale not Fourex.”

“It gave us confidence to fill our fridges with other beers and put them on tap, and our customers love it.

“We recently took all of the mainstream beers off tap and didn’t have a complaint.”

Peter said the biggest surprise was the wide range of people that they had attracted with their beer selection.

“We recently had a group of ladies in their 60s come in holding an ad we had run in the local paper advertising the beers,” he laughed.

“They wanted to try them and they spent an afternoon drinking Stone & Wood’s Pacific Ale.

“Craft beer doesn’t have a specific demographic, everyone seems to get excited about it.”

The Yamanto has gone from just offering beer to offering tasting paddles that feature three beer samples with three matching food samples.

And the best thing is there’s no need for you to sport a hipster moustache or use hand cream to get into the Yamanto …you just need to be game to try some new beers.

Crown Lager: Pleading the fifth

Mainstream beer marketing can be tough. Like petrol, trying to distinguish a product that is largely identical to a competitor’s is difficult. Unlike petrol, Brewers want to avoid having to compete on price.

Brewers try to make their product memorable and build an emotional attachment with consumers through a number of devices. The most successful are where they create ads that engage and entertain and some of the funniest and most memorable television commercials are for beer. Just think of Carlton Draught’s ‘Big Ad’ or VB’s ‘The Regulars’.

Things can get a little stickier when marketers try to differentiate what is actually in the bottle. When you stop and look at their tag lines and descriptions such as ‘double hopped’, ‘chill filtered’ and ‘naturally brewed’, they are fairly generic, sometimes meaningless, statements. Then again they probably barely register with consumers when they sidle up to the bar.

Other marketing claims can confuse beer drinkers about what is in their glass and how it got there. A new campaign from Crown Lager, Australia’s best-selling premium beer, strays into this territory.

Centred on the time it takes to make the beer, the ad boasts it takes twice as long as its mainstream stablemates to mature. This sounds impressive, but we’ll never know. Fosters are reluctant to disclose how long Crown or its stablemates are actually brewed for to enable genuine comparisons between beers to be made. However, as a mainstream lager it is a fraction of the time taken by many of the smaller brewers cropping up these days.

The most confusing element of the campaign though is the tagline: Time. The fifth ingredient. Many beers use only malt, water, hops and yeast, and these are the ingredients trumpeted in the famous German beer purity law. Crown’s campaign would seem to suggest it only has these four ingredients, with time being the full stop in the sentence.  Anyone visiting the product website is likely to have this impression confirmed as it proclaims Crown is made using “the finest barley, yeast, water and Pride of Ringwood hops”.

It’s not a correct assumption though. Like many beers, Crown also uses a substantial percentage of cane sugar in brewing. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s a commonly used brewing adjunct, but not one that brewers tend to shout about because of the sub-premium perception it can create. These days many small brewers make an asset of the fact that their beers are all-malt and made without the use of cane sugar.

None of this changes how the beer tastes of course, but if you think marketing should tell the full story it may leave a bad taste.

Brewing with beer

Coffee has featured heavily in the Courier Mail this week with Natascha Mirosch looking at all aspects of our caffeinated friend. It may be a surprise to many, but coffee can pair wonderfully with beer.

For Australians, who equate ‘beer’ with the pale amber fluid that comes in a can labelled Tooheys, VB or XXXX, the suggestion that beer and coffee could be drunk together might bring on scornful looks.

But just as the majority of Australians once thought good coffee came in a jar, they are now discovering that there is a world of beer out there, and it can provide some interesting pairings.

To get your head around the notion of beer and coffee, you must first adjust your understanding of what beer is. The commercial lagers known to most Australian drinkers are beers with the flavour turned down low. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. These are beers that are designed to be drunk after mowing the lawn, or downed one after another at the footie when you don’t want to be distracted by flavour. They aren’t designed to exhibit flavours of tiramisu or go with a macchiato.

For this job you need a beer that has a bit of strong flavour to match up with the bitterness of coffee. With winter coming on a good stout works perfectly – and before you say it, they don’t all taste like Guinness. Cascade makes a rich, chocolaty stout with plenty of rich toffee to it that pairs beautifully with a well-made flat white. It’s a beer to change the minds of the ‘I don’t like dark beers’ set.

If you prefer your coffee short and black, a bit of sweetness from the beer can work very nicely with it. It can be a little hard to come by in Brisbane, but Adelaide brewery BrewBoys makes a peated Scotch ale called Seeing Double that is low on hop bitterness, but long on malt to marry beautifully with the roast bitterness of the coffee. If you can’t find it, the dried fruit notes and rich mouthfeel of a Belgian beer such as Chimay Red will work well too.

Perhaps the best pairing of coffee and beer is when the coffee is in the beer, as was shown by local brewery Burleigh Brewing with their excellent Black Giraffe beer made in partnership with Zaraffas Coffee. It was exceptional and paired perfectly with good quality vanilla icecream.

Beer affogato anyone?