Hello readers! This week your taste buds are in for a treat – we will be going over how to pair food with beer and reviewing the delicious Green Flash Imperial India Pale Ale.
Pairing food with beer is a relatively new concept, but beer sommeliers are now very common in large cities, and are referred to as cicerones. A cicerone or sommelier is someone who specializes in matching beer or wine with food. Something that very few people know is that beer is much more versatile to pair with food than wine. This is because of the huge variety of ingredients that can be used in beer. Wine has two ingredients – grapes and using wood barrel-aging to change the flavour of the wine. Beer on the other hand has barley, hops, water, yeast, spices, fruits, vegetables, nuts, chocolate, and more!
Beer and food pairings can be done in two ways: By pairing complementary flavours or by pairing contrasting flavours. One example of pairing complementary flavours would be putting a fruit dish with a fruit flavoured beer. The idea is that one flavour will echo the other. An example of pairing contrasting flavours would be pairing a sweet wheat beer with a spicy dish. The idea behind this method is that flavours will balance each other out (in the example above the sweet flavour would balance out the spiciness).
Beer pairings are similar to wine pairings in that a lager is like a white wine and a flavourful ale is like a red wine. Ales are full-bodied and fruity, whereas lagers are refreshing and delicate in flavour. Also, hoppy beers work similar to acids in wine – they cut through many different flavours associated with meat. Finally, just like wine, beer comes with varying levels of body (density): Light, and heavy. Normally you put light dishes with light beers and heavy dishes with heavy beer. An example of this would be pairing a lager (light beer) with fish, and pairing a lamb stew with a stout (heavy beer).
Another thing you need to be aware of when pairing food and beer is the texture of a beer – a beer with more carbonation (bubbles) goes best with richer food – bubbles will cleanse your palate and enhance flavour. Additionally, if you are going to have multiple beers during a meal, it is vital to start with light beers and work your way up to darker beers – a darker beer will be so flavourful that you may miss a lot of flavour from more delicate beers you try later on.
The above tips will lend a helping hand if you want to give beer pairing a try. Don’t be afraid to try unusual combinations – beer pairing is about exploring the world of flavour and finding what you enjoy! Now onto the flashy green beer 🙂
Eric has been out in BC for 2 full months now so we thought we’d review one of his new favorite beers from out there. He is a lover of hoppy beer so naturally his favorite style is an IPA (India Pale Ale). While out in BC he discovered a beer called Imperial IPA by the Green Flash Brewery of San Diego, California. In order to describe the hoppyness of a beer the quantitative measure of IBUs (Internation Bitterness Units) is used. The IBU rating of a beer is determined using a device called a spectrophotometer. A light lager without much bitterness might have 5 IBUs, while an IPA can have 100 or more. The Green Flash Imperial IPA has 101 IBUs, and 9.4% alcohol by volume.
Eric had this beer on tap at St. Augustines and at The Alibi Room in Vancouver. The beer poured a cloudy gold colour, with clean white head. Head retention was very good, starting with 2 inches of head and settling down to a thin layer that stayed the whole time. The aroma of the beer is a mix of grapefruit, pine, and hops. Despite its high alcohol content, the taste the of the beer is marvelously balanced with the main flavours being intense hops, grapefruit, and a hint of alcohol. Overall, this beer is amazingly delicious if you enjoy intensely flavoured beer, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to spice up their beer repertoire and try something new and exciting. Eric will be attempting to bring as much of this home with him as he can!
Well that’s another article everyone, I hope you enjoyed reading it and learned something new about beer. As always we encourage you to get out there, try something new, and FEAR NO BEER!
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