beer NOLA

On Wednesday, September 17th, fans of wine, beer and cheese met at Cork and Bottle to settle an argument: Which pairs better with cheese? Wine or beer? Conventional thinking would say that wine of course would be the winner.. There’s food and wine magazines, entire tomes written on the pairing, and shops dedicated to just the two products. But if you think about it, wine and cheese are often a catastrophe! While wine and cheese can get along from time to time, they don’t really go well together. Wine has enough acid as to block delicate flavors in cheese, and cheese has enough fat to block delicate flavors in wine. A bad or cheap wine can be helped out by cheese for this very reason; it blunts taste.

So how does beer work any better? The trifecta of low acidity, wider flavor gamut, and carbonation make it the perfect pairing for anything high in fat and delicate in flavor. To me, it’s the carbonation that makes beer win everytime… while your taste buds get bogged down by the fats in cheese, the bubbles in beer can break that up, while wine simply floats on top, and nukes any available taste bud left. This isn’t to say that there’s no such thing as a good wine and cheese pairing, nor is every beer and cheese pairing an outright winner. But to me, most of the time, the body and flavor of beer just works better with cheese.

Surprisingly, wine guy Jon Smith of Cork and Bottle (host of the event) started his introduction with this very concession and if that wasn’t enough, Richard Sutton of St. James Cheese further backed up beer’s often superiority in this pairing. At this point I realized that the tasting was going to be less of a showdown, and more of an eye opener. Everyone knows about the wine and cheese pairing, but how many people would wise up to good beer by the end of the night?

Six cheeses were chosen by cheese expert and St. James Cheese owner, Richard Sutton (left). Team Beer consisted of Dan Stein (middle), owner of Stein’s Market and Deli and Derek Lintern, Treasurer of Crescent City Homebrewers. Team Wine consisted of Jon Smith (right) and his crew over at Cork and Bottle; arguably the best Wine store in town.

Selles Sur Cher Fresh Jacquin
Beer: Moinette Blonde Ale, Brasserie Dupont
Wine: 2006 Philipe Portier Quincy
Result: We started off with a tie on this one. In my opinion, the lightly sweet, fruity and spicy flavors of the Moinette added a new dimension to this goats milk cheese.

Brillat Savarin Affine Fromagerie Delin
Beer: Orval Trappist Ale, Brasserie d’Orval
Wine: Adami Prosecco
Result: Beer’s first win! Both teams were thinking the same thing for this incredibly buttery, creamy and salty cheese; bubbles. However, it was the high carbonation, light tartness and dry finish of Orval that went best with this cheese, which was more like butter.

Livarot Coupe Graindorge
Beer: Castelain Biere De Garde, Brasserie Castelain à Bénifontaine
Wine: 2007 Sineann Gewurztraminer, Oak Ridge Vineyard
Result: Another beer win! A wonderfully stinky cheese, who’s funkiness worked well with the earthiness, light mustiness, and smooth medium body of the Castelain. Dan actually preferred the wine pairing on this one.

Reserve Gruyere Cave Aged Selection Gourmino
Beer: Troegenator Double Bock, Troegs Brewing Company
Wine: 2007 Pierre Boniface Apremont, Savoie
Result: After what seemed like beer was on a roll came another tie. I do remember cheese expert Richard Sutton commenting on how great the Troegenator was with this cheese, remarking its almost port like finish.

Coolea Neal’s Yard Dairy
Beer: Red Rocket Ale, Bear Republic Brewing
Wine: 2006 Domaine Diochon Moulin-a-Vent
Result: An resounding win for wine. This was actually a pretty shocking result for both teams involved. The pairing of Gouda with an IPA or Red Ale is classic, and even Jon’s tasting notes for the cheese conceded that this was “a cheese built for beer.” So why’d wine win on this one? Two reasons .. the Bordeaux chosen was a fantastic pairing (though I preferred the beer still), but more importantly, heavily hoppy beers are some of the hardest beers to get into. People know Bordeaux, but this was the first time that most of the people at the tasting were having a hoppy beer. Two great pairings with one having the advantage of familiarity, and the other having the disadvantage of shock.

Oregonzola Rogue Creamery
Beer: Old Foghorn, Anchor Brewing
Wine: 2006 Morgan Pinot Noir, Twelve Clones
Result: With much diplomacy, the final pairing was another tie. I was pretty surprised how many people liked the Old Foghorn pairing. Barleywines are also a little difficult to get into because of the complex flavors and high alcohol content (though still less than most wines). Blue Cheeses like this one are often too intense to be paired with wine, and I think if this wasn’t most people’s first tasting of a Barleywine, it’d have won. The Pinot Noir pairing was actually very good, with a great fruit presence to go with the blue.

So the final tally is 3 ties, 2 beer wins and 1 wine win. Honestly, I never expected beer to win on this one, especially as people piled into the room and it was evident that they were mostly wine people.

Again, the point of this tasting was less of a showdown and more as an eye opener. At the end of the night, a lot of people had their eyes opened about good beer, and as people filed out of the tasting room and into the store, they grabbed bottles of beers, checked out and went home.

Bloggers Note: Due to the nature of copious ammounts of beer and wine, I cannot guarantee the validity of anything said in this blog post…