Beer and cheese: An odd pairing?
Author: Larry steevan
Beer and cheese may sound like a really odd combination to many of you out there, but the truth is that the relationship between the two goes way back in time. Through the middle ages in Belgium, monasteries were famous for their excellent beers and cheeses, which were main items in their daily meals and the main source if their income too. Even these days, many beer bars in Belgium will offer little bowls of diced semi-soft cheese speckled with celery salt along with your beer.
The common belief is that wine goes with cheese. Certainly it does, and that's what the public is fed by the conventional "food & wine" press. Cheese can make a low-cost wine tastes better, even compliment a good wine on occasion, but the combining wine with most foods, especially cheese is most of the time a gastronomic disaster on the taste buds. The overwhelming acidity of wine generally destroys any opportunity that your gentle taste buds have of truly enjoying a pairing.
By tradition, beer and cheese are known to be as farmhouse products. Actually, not so long ago the typical farmer's meal comprised of beer, cheese and cold meat which is generally mentioned in England as a "ploughman's" lunch and an item on the menu of pubs even today. Whenever they had an abundance of milk, farmers habitually made cheese which they wanted to keep and during the winter, they brewed as they couldn't farm. And surprisingly, both beer and cheese have a related origin, that's grass. Barley is a cereal grass, which is taken as an ingredient to make beer. And cows eat this grass and produce milk as a by-product. Therefore, beer and cheese pair each other as both have similarities in aspects of aroma and flavor, although the carbonation in beer also boosts the taste and brings out many touches in the cheese.
So how do you pair beer and cheese? First of all, it is sensible to use your own personal liking. You can either cook with cheese or just serve alone. It's better to pair complex beers with complex cheeses. You can also attempt and make an ideal match or play around and make delicate differences. Here are few examples on how you can pair beer and cheese.
Feta and Goat Cheese go nicely with Wheat Beers, normally the more pungent the cheese the more of a full character you need in your Wheat Beer. Weihenstephan Hefe-Weizen, Schneider Hefe-Weizen and UFO Hefeweizen are good matches.
If you want to pair cheese with fruit beers, consider Mascarpone, which is cows' cream formless cheese often used in desserts and sauces. Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, Melbourne Bros. Apricot or Strawberry are good fruit beers that you can pair with Mascarpone.
For reasonably hoppy Pilsners such as Harpoon Pilsner, Radeberger and Stella Artios, you can use
American Cheese, Muenster, Havarti and Monterey Jack . It's better to pair Colby, Gloucester and Cheddar with robust Brown Ales such as Sam Smith Nut Brown, Shipyard Brown or Brooklyn Brown.
Don't forget, this is an area you can do your own experiments and have fun. You can play with your own tastes and recognize more sophisticated pairings. However you will realize that beer is a great beverage that goes well with many types of food.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/drinks-articles/beer-and-cheese-an-odd-pairing-5283698.html
About the Author
Larry Austeen is the PR manager at Micro Beer Club. It is well known company for Australian Beers and they are number of Beer club in Melbourne. http://www.microbeerclub.com.au/brewery_directory.php">Breweries in Melbourne Victoria are now available to deliver your door step
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