Thanksgiving, A Day of Beer

So, this year, my wife and I decided that we were going to forego the normal wine drinking on Thanksgiving day at my parent's house. Since it has been nearly two years since we really started to get into beer, we felt it was time to see what we could do to try to open up my (conservative) family to something new. Gasp!

To start, I should say something about the Thanksgiving meal that we have. My mom makes the meal and it is pretty standard fare. Turkey, mashed potatoes, corn (out of a can!), stuffing, boiled carrots, green beans, cranberry sauce (again out of a can), and rolls (yup, you guessed it, out of a can). Needless to say, my mom is NOT adventurous or interesting in her choices for the Thanksgiving meal. Hell, the turkey isn't even brined. We tried to convince her to do that before and let me tell you we barely had gotten one sentence in before she shot it down. So, we have lots of uninteresting meal components with little flavor. Ok, that should make things easier as you can pretty much go with any beer. We do have appetizers but they aren't particularly interesting either. Basic cheddar cheese and crackers, peanuts, veggies and dip, and cocktail shrimp. I like the shrimp but they aren't interesting or anything. So flavors for food all around are blah.

Ok, onto what we are going to "match" with this completely and totally uninteresting food.

Beer #1 - The Bruery Hottenroth

We are starting off with one of our favorites, this very pleasant berliner weisse. This is a summer seasonal for The Bruery, but we managed to get the last few around last week for just this event (and because we love the beer so much). This is light and airy as well as being very low in abv to start the day. This should pair nicely with the light fair to start and, as I said, the low alcohol keeps you from getting too toasted too early.

Beer #2 - Ithaca White Gold

A different style to follow with this American pale wheat ale from Ithaca. This is one of my favorite beers I tried this year. I loved the nice tartness and good carbonation. It is a big step up in alcohol but well worth it for the flavor you get with this beer. It is definitely tart but has a nice body with the wheat used in it. Planning to also have this with the many different appetizers that will be out.

Beer #3 - Rodenbach Grand Cru

Oh, now we have a nice good one to go with dinner. Flanders Red Ales are some of my absolutely favorite types of beer. Yes, we have a lot of more sour/tart styles here, but we have a more wine drinking family so I think that this is the best way to go with them (without pulling out a hardcore gueuze or american wild ale). The fruit flavors with the slight sourness should go nicely with the dinner meal.

Beer #4 - Saison Dupont

For this beer, we are planning on going with a classic. Saison Dupont is just a fantastic beer all around and goes with so many different foods. However, I feel it was made for roasted fowl, such as our turkey. The rustic flavors will go well with the meal. Plus, we sort of had some tasting of this last Thanksgiving on a limited basis with my family and this beer went over well. If it works once, try it again.

Beer #5 - Lost Abbey Judgement Day

Now we are looking to push them a bit with this big strong 10.5%abv quad from Lost Abbey. The heavy sweetness and dark fruit flavors should do well towards the end of the meal. People so often think dark beer means Guiness and we are looking to break that thought with this beer.

Beer #6 - 2006 vintage Dogfish Head Fort

Possibly the piece de resistance right here. We came across this randomly at one of our local craft beer stores in Providence a couple of weeks ago and snatched it up. We think it was leftover from the BeervanaFest back in October that didn't get used. Needless to say, I was thrilled. Fort is a nice beer, but very harsh with that 18%abv. The aging on this should smooth it out considerably and make it extremely drinkable. I think that this may end up replacing the after dinner cordials that the family usually drinks. I am very excited to open this one.

So, there you have it. Not sure if we are going to get to all of these beers, but that is our goal. So, hope you are having some nice beers with your Thanksgiving dinner.

Update on Food/Beer

Just have a quick update on food/beer since I posted about it yesterday. Opened up a Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous last night. Generally not a fan of Stone beers, but had this around for a while and decided to go for it. Again, for the third night in a row, had something spicy. This time Jambalaya. Figured that Stone... hops... spicy... that will work!

Yeah.... it didn't. The Sublimely Self Righteous has decent hops, don't get me wrong (90 IBUs), but the alcohol clocked in at 8.7%, which I think is where issues occurred. Just didn't work too well together. The beer itself packed a wallop alright, which I didn't expect because, like I said, it was sitting around a while. The hops probably mellowed a bit from that, but were still pretty strong. Thankfully, for me, they were not the normal piney hop profile that stone uses. Now, that is odd, because looking at BA reviews, piney is a definite part of the profile. I am wondering if that again is from the aging I had on the beer (I think I ended up picking this up over a year ago, maybe longer?).

But, getting back to the pairing, the beer was definitely in your face with the alcohol and I think that that just didn't work too well. Maybe going to have to try something on the opposite end of bitter sometime. Maybe a nice Hefe with spicy food next time around (I could use a break tonight from the spices).

Anyway, I will be hopefully updating this more and more as I find good and bad combinations out there.

Beer and food, who'd of thunk it!

So, I recently read the book "He said beer, she said wine" by Sam Calagione and Marnie Old. Those of you who don't know Sam, he is the owner and founder of Dogfish Head craft beers. He has long been a proponent of beer and food pairing (fyi Marnie is a wine sommelier and wine/food pairing expert). I think he, along with Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn, have done wonders for beer and food pairing.

Having said that, I had never really done too much thinking about what food paired up well with beers. I just drank what I liked regardless of what I was eating. In general, I still think that this is NOT a bad policy.

However, the other night really changed things for me. I was having some leftovers for dinner. In this case I was having dirty rice, spicy and flavorful. At the time I was drinking a Magic Hat HI.P.A. from their fall mix back. Basically I was just drinking it to get it finished as I am not a fan of west-coast styled IPA's. I don't generally like high hops and especially don't care for piney hops. So, without trying, I paired this IPA with a nice spicy dish.

Well, I'll be damned! That worked out really well. The hops did a great job of melding the flavors together and cleansing the pallet. The spices did a great job in toning down the hops. I was really digging this beer at the time. So, the next night, I again was having spicier fare (this time a southwest corn chowder my wife made... oh so good!). I went with the HI.P.A. again and was again rewarded. It matched so well.

So, now I have decided that it is time to really work to find out what I can do with pairing my beer and food. It is a journey I am really excited to try and look forward to documenting some of the things I find as I go right here.

PS - The Magic Hat HI.P.A. is a decent, not great west coast style IPA. I think it is pretty good for the style, but the style isn't my favorite. However, Magic Hat, never really the strongest craft brewery out there, does have a decent drinking beer for those that like nice hops. I recommend at least trying it.