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White beer tasting - recs, food recs?

Discussion in 'Non-Vegas Chat' started by HoyaHeel, Feb 26, 2014.

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  1. HoyaHeel

    HoyaHeel Grammar Police & Admin

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    I'm holding a white beer tasting this weekend for my husband - I want him to brew one for me for late spring/early summer drinking and it's not a style he's terribly familiar with, so I want him to try a few options. I have some favorites picked out and will be stopping by my local craft beer store on the way home to scope out any additions. If you have suggestions, throw them at me:beer:


    However -my main question is what food I should serve - both as a meal to match the food and as a palate cleanser?

    (my husband is quite a good homebrewer, grinds his own grain & grows his own hops etc. But we are almost diametrically opposed when it comes to preferred beer styles - he loves hoppy IPAs and I love belgian ales, sours, saisons & lambics, as well as wheats & whites. He is coming around to some of the malty Belgian ales but thus far continues to avoid wheats & whites. And sours - well, he calls the lambic he brews for me "salad dressing" - though I think the taste is growing on him)
     
  2. HoyaHeel

    HoyaHeel Grammar Police & Admin

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    $60 at my favorite beer store, we're good to go for the tasting:beer:
     

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  3. thecarve

    thecarve Misanthrope

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    Pardon my ignorance, Hoya...but will a tasting help your husband to know what sort of hops, malt, yeast or whatever to use? Or is it just your intent to turn him on to your style of beer?

    Sorry, I just know how to drink it! :eek::beer:
     
  4. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    Wit or weiss?
     
  5. HoyaHeel

    HoyaHeel Grammar Police & Admin

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    If there are certain beers he likes more than others, you can google "clone recipe + beer" and see what other home brewers have done in terms of a recipe - the hops, malt, yeast etc. So part of the exercise is introducing him to the varieties of the style, and the other part would be figuring out a specific beer to clone or at least a couple of options to investigate:peace:

    Yes.

    I got a couple traditional Belgian witbiers, some German weisse (hefeweizen, kristalweiss, a dunkelweiss) and then some just plain "different" American variations. As Dane said when I set them out on the table to take photos - there just aren't any rules in craft brewing these days! One of the beers is a white farmhouse IPA. I have no idea what the heck that is going to taste like! But my goal for him to brew is a wit, not a weiss....

    I need to write up a list of all the beers I got so we can take tasting notes- clearly I have too many beers to do in a single tasting, and I know I'll forget flavors & notes by the time we get to the 2nd round:beer:
     
  6. Bubbavegas

    Bubbavegas VIP Whale

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    The witbier is easy they make a great beginning beer and serve with a nice fruit salad or shellfish app. The Hefe really goes well with most anything but one favorite I have found is with a Mexican dish, a chicken enchilada say with a sour cream sauce goes great with both the flavor profile and the mouthfeel of a Hefe. The Dunkel I would serve as maybe a mid course with a nice smoked gouda or other strong flavored cheese or maybe a veal with tomato sauce and shrooms. The hybrid of the group, the Farmhouse IPA is where things get sketchy as you have the yeastiness of the saison but the hop profile of a milder IPA my choice would probably be a fried oyster with a remoulade.
     
  7. hammie

    hammie VIP Whale

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    Is that a bottle of Fin Du Monde from Quebec? I have been meaning to try this along with Hitachino white ale, recommendations from a buddy.

    As for what to serve, I am not very good at pairings, but I would think of cheese and fruit. How about a mussels in a white wine, butter, garlic sauce with chunks of French bread to sop up the liquid goodness?
     
  8. HoyaHeel

    HoyaHeel Grammar Police & Admin

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    I will make mussels for me and I promised alligator for my husband. But Mexican on day 2 sounds good!! Thanks for the food recs. Most websites go the opposite way-- tell them your food and they'll recommend a drink--so it can be hard for me to go the other way.

    That's not Fin du Monde but Ephemere ;-) I'll post the full list tonight. A couple are saisons and not whites at all.
     
  9. Bubbavegas

    Bubbavegas VIP Whale

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    Welcome, I did not notice the Ephemere but since you mention the gator pair those two with a nice sweeter onion soup, think Vidalia, mmm mmm mmm.
     
  10. Pocketaces

    Pocketaces Tourist

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    What a great thread. I am humbled by your responses. I can now see who truly are the beer and food masters of this board!

    Thank you Bubba and Hoya!
     
  11. HoyaHeel

    HoyaHeel Grammar Police & Admin

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    I just love to cook & travel to eat different foods (street/market food being my style, not $$$$ or starred Michelin type places) and my husband loves to brew (and I spent a university year in Belgium so I'm fond of the stuff myself) I try to avoid the "snob" label - but I do have preferences (in beer) and watery American pilsners don't fit my beer needs. I just like variety & trying new things and will always choose an independently run food truck or storefront restaurant over a corporate kitchen - that's my gamble when I travel:thumbsup:

    I know we have people here who like beer & food and it's easier for me to post here than to get my husband to ask questions on his beer board:ssst:
     
  12. Bubbavegas

    Bubbavegas VIP Whale

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    Much welcome man, till about a year ago I just knew what I liked, 3 months ago I received my Level 1 Cicerone certification and am working on my level 2 right now. The more I learn about beer the more I realize what I did not know in the past, even taking a course at Univ of Ok on the Chemistry of Beer lots of organic chemistry I am learning :thumbsup:
     
  13. HoyaHeel

    HoyaHeel Grammar Police & Admin

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    Do you have your Periodic Table of Beer shirt? I got one for my husband a couple years ago - it's one of his brew day shirts:thumbsup:
     
  14. Bubbavegas

    Bubbavegas VIP Whale

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    NO I do not unfortunately, my friends at Roughtail brewing hve a poster of it on the wall up there, never knew they had a shirt of it as well.
     
  15. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    That's pretty damn freakin' cool. :nworthy: Big fan of beer, its diversity, food of course, but nada like this. :beer:

    I'm still far far more comfortable putting wine with food. Then again, I'm simple, the two wines that go with everything are Champagne and Burgundian red, so it's a no brainer, and what do I see from our back yard but the start of the Pinot and Chardonnay vineyards of the SRH?!? (Then again, our racks are filled with Syrah and Grenache and Rhone blends and Zin and Cab and Viognier and Sangiovese and Roussane and and and … well, and we need help.)

    Have a cousin going through to be a somm. Like you it's nutty what he can identify and pick up. :nworthy: (I thought it was cool last week when a neighbor gave us an unlabeled wine. Now the cork betrayed the vintner and the characteristics easily showed it was a Pinot, but we both nailed which of that vintner's Pinots. Not bad for purple-tongued swillers, I thought.)

    Hoya, always happy to talk Mexican with you.
     
  16. HoyaHeel

    HoyaHeel Grammar Police & Admin

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    Shrimp & cilantro - take it away:thumbsup:

    (but that flavor profile - while my favorite in "Mexican", is not what Bubba recommended as a pairing for the hefeweizen....)

    I will say that in general I do NOT stress about what food & wine or beer to match. I love going to a pairing meal when professionals do this, and I'll try to go with things I know won't clash too badly, but most of the time I'm cooking what I like and drinking what I like and if they go together - great:peace: But I eat a LOT of seafood and my favorite wines are spicy rhones or heavy fruity cabernets, so.......
     
  17. Bubbavegas

    Bubbavegas VIP Whale

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    Thanks Ken :beer: I have always been a beer fan myself and to me it was vastly overlooked when it came to food pairings till the last few years, like wine there are so many varieties of beer. One of my favortite experiences since I started this was having Charlie Palmer himself sit with us at Aureole and talk beer and what his pairing choices were with my meal last summer, big thanks to Sara at Mandalay Bay for that one, a debt I can't repay to say the least.
    I am the exact opposite of you though, when it comes to wine I could not tell the difference in a Shiraz and a Malbec, but then again the only wine we ever have are my wifes and she is strictly a sweet wine fan especially Moscatos. Now gimme a bottle of brew sans label I can definitely tell you the style and in some cases the brewer and thanks to places like Craft Shack I can now get lots of good brews our state laws don't allow the stores to sell. I have recently started cellaring more of my Barley Wines and Abbeys since I cracked open a 2011 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot this weak, what a difference in taste two years cellaring made.
     
  18. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    I think it is good that some of the pretensions of old have been lifted. And while there are some things that you'd think you'd not want to put together, what matters obviously is what tastes good to you, or whomever you're entertaining, and screw the pundits.

    H2, I'll send some ideas over under separate cover.

    Grab some 2010 Rhones before the Chinese screw up that market, too. Amazing year, still some awesome buys to found in Gigondas and Vacqueyras; yes, that's not CdP. I don't care. :)

    You need to visit. We'll put Dane over in the barrel room at Firestone Walker and the three of us will go Rhone Rangering. What's cool here is we get cool-weather Syrah and hot-clime Syrah separated by not too many miles. Folks aren't afraid to use Mourvedre as a stand-alone. Etc. We poured Viognier as our uni-wine for Christmas dinner and what a hit that was.

    And it's an easy trip up to Paso!
     
  19. ken2v

    ken2v This Space For Rent

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    We did a beer dinner at Full of Life Flatbread not long ago, central coast brewers. Good stuff.
     
  20. Bubbavegas

    Bubbavegas VIP Whale

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    Cilantro Shrimp, man that screams out for a Saison, my choice would be Saison Brett by Boulevard, Sierra Nevadas Kellerweis or Saison Dupont Vielle Provision :beer:
     
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