beer & food

Beer, cheese and wine school

The Tria Fermentation school begins classes tomorrow (Wednesday, Oct. 18) with Prof. Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware at the helm.

The Philadelphia school is the brainchild of Jon Myerow, who also owns the Innovate cafe Tria. He’s focusing on wine, cheese and beer, with classes led by by winemakers, fromagers, brewmasters, authors and other fermentation experts.

Food & Wine magazine recently picked the Tria Fermentation School as one of “America’s 50 most amazing wine experiences.”

Upcoming classes include:

BEER: The Extreme Beers of Dogfish Head, with Sam Calagione, Wednesday, October 18, 6:30-8 p.m., $30.

CHEESE: The Artisanal American, with Liz Thorpe, Friday, October 20, 7:30-9 p.m., $45. Thorpe, Director of Wholesale at New York’s famed Murray’s Cheese, and co-author of the forthcoming Murray’s Cheese Handbook, will present her six favorite autumnal American cheeses.

BEER: Brewing with Wood with Rob Tod. Tuesday, October 24, 6:30 to 8 p.m., $40. Tod, Founder of Allagash Brewing in Maine, will discuss four examples of wood-aged beers from Allagash along with examples from California’s Russian River and Michigan’s Jolly Pumpkin breweries.

WINE: High Elevation Wines from Down Under with Michael Dhillon. Wednesday, November 1, 6:30-8 p.m., $50. Australia’s Dhillon will share the trials, tribulations and extraordinary rewards of high altitude winemaking and small productio.

WINE: The Allure of the Languedoc with Bruno LaFon, Friday, November 3, 6:30- 8 p.m., $45. Students will learn why LaFon, a former Burgundian winemaker from the family of Domaine des Cômtes Lafon, headed to Languedoc to participate in the rebirth of the region. LaFon will host a tasting of his delicious estate wines.

WINE & CHEESE: Classic Pairings with Michael McCaulley. Monday, November 6, 6:30-8 p.m., $50. After covering wine and cheese basics, McCaulley will introduce students to some classic marriages that have withstood the test of time as well as some more modern pairings.

BEER: The Dark Side with Tom Baker. Wednesday, November 8, 6:30-8 p.m., $35. Baker, founder of recently departed Heavyweight Brewing, will debunk the myths and demonstrates the incredible diversity of black beer.

CHEESE: Spanish Dairy Rising with Adrian Murcia. Tuesday, November 14, 6:30-8 p.m., $45.

The school is located at 1601 Walnut Street, Suite 620, and the number to call for information is 215.972.7076.

Great American beer and pizzas

Headed to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival (tomorrow through Saturday)?

The Rocky Mountain News has some beer and pizza tips for you. The Rocky asked chef Jorge de la Torre, dean of culinary education at Johnson & Wales University, to recommend a beer style and brand best suited for complementing the taste of eight local pizzas.

“Beer is forgiving to any type of pizza. It’s nice and cooling, it cuts through the fat of the cheese and provides a great contrast. It can hold up to the powerful taste of tomato sauce, garlic, anchovies – things that are sometimes hard to pair with other drinks,” de la Torre said.

His picks.

Beer & food: Best of friends

Full disclosure: I came across link about how to taste beer while reading a blog about baseball (we all have secret vices).

It would seem terribly snide to pick at the various nits here, but this “tip” is just plain wrong:

Do not taste new beers with food or soon after eating. The lingering flavors from food can greatly affect your impression of the brew.

Yes, they can. And that’s a good thing. Granted, not every beer tastes better with food, and certainly not every beer goes with every dish. However, beer often makes food better and vice versa.

When evaluating beer in a contest (judging) setting, which this article also deals with, there are reasons to filter out distractions. Just don’t forget that beer is not meant to be consumed in a sterile environment. Take that into account when evaluating it for yourself.

Tailgating with beer and cheese

Raise a glass to the Washington Post – or at least sports guy Dan Steinberg.

Each Friday during football season he’s going to recommend an American artisanal cheese for tailgating and have a former co-worker, Jeff Wells, pick American craft beer.

This week Steinberg chooses Red Hawk, an organic washed rind triple creme from California’s Cowgirl Creamery. Cowgirl co-founder Sue Conley suggests a dark or spicy beer with the cheese, noting it is harder to pair with wine (no surprise). The fallback position is Riesling.

Wells picks Allagash White for the first weekend, thinking not so much about the cheese as the fact that “Tailgating on a hot summer day calls for the world’s most thirst-quenching fermented beverage.”

Steinberg promises they’ll compare tailgates on Monday.

Belgium’s eating and drinking tradition

While doing some filing I came across a few notes takien from the Everybody Eats Well in Belgium Cookbook by Ruth Van Waerebeek and Maria Robbins.

Quite honestly, the best way for me to keep track of these lovely quotes is to store them here.

“Given this bounty of wonderful food, it may surprise you to learn that there are few cookbooks devoted to Belgian cooking published in Belgium. The reason is simple. In Belgium, the secrets of cooking are still transmitted orally. Recipes, techniques, tradition, tastes and passions are passed along from generation to generation . . .”

The book emphasizes a strong link between brewing and cooking traditions (see below), so a few points seem worth emphasizing:

– In a conversation with Brother Joris, the monk in charge of brewing at Abbey Saint Sixtus (Westvleteren), he explained why he did something a particular way. He simply learned the practice from Brother Filip, the previous brewer. “That’s our training,” Brother Joris said. “The knowledge is passed on from brother to brother.”

– To celebrate 60 years of operation, Bert Van Hecke is producing a special version of St. Bernaruds Abt 12 at Brouwerij Sint-Bernardus, located not far from Westvleteren. For 46 years, Sint-Bernardus produced beer under contract for Westvleteren – beer that was sold under the Saint Sixtus label in the United States.

Because the head brewer from Westvleteren helped set up the Saint Bernardus brewery, it seems likely he brought along the original Westvleteren recipes, and Van Hecke says that to his knowledge the recipes haven’t changed since.

As you might understand, neither Brother Joris nor Van Hecke is handing out detailed information about their recipes but based on what they will say the recipes for Abt 12 and Westvleteren 12 are no longer the same. That’s what happens when things are passed on via verbal communication – they change, maybe for the better, maybe not.

– Not not only are recipes passed on but also tastes and passions. Just as important. Make that more important.

Another great quote:

“What makes them (brewers) unique is that over the centuries these beer brewers have remained faithful to their origins and traditions and thereby have developed a degree of perfection, originality, and variety unknown in any other country in the world. The same can be said for Belgium’s extensive and varied beer cuisine.”

Understand why it matters that the passion be kept alive?