Hop Talk

Impressive Partnering

Recently I was lucky enough to be able to share in beer and food experiences with two of Kansas City's premier chefs. The first was the tapping of Celina Tio's sour beer, which she blended at New Belgium Brewery. The second was a beer pairing dinner where the food was prepared by Alex Pope and beer was provided by several top brewers from Kansas City, Lawrence, and Topeka.

Julian NBB Love was born out of a few meetings with Chef Tio and New Belgium's sensory specialist and master blender, Lauren Salazar. New Belgium’s base beers are aged in large French oak barrels called foudres, the largest of which is over 3,400 gallons. The beer in these barrels is blended into several New Belgium beers, including La Folie and Le Terroir. Two of their base beers, Oscar and Felix, are aged in different sized barrels, which are picked for positive contributions to the beer (the same beer will age differently in different barrels). Some barrels will create a more sour beer and some will accentuate other flavor characteristics, like oak flavor or the “barnyardy” brettanomyces character. Ms. Tio started with 18 samples and ended up with a blend of three of the beers. The result is a wonderfully complex beer that is not overly sour, although it does have a bit of an acetic (vinegar) sourness to go along with the softer lactic sourness. The acids create a nice balance to the maltiness and heighten the oak and red wine flavors of the beer. This beer is designed for food pairing; I enjoyed it with a cornmeal dusted oyster po' boy, served with a red cabbage slaw and remoulade sauce on a freshly made brioche. I matched the beer with a mac and cheese the next night and the acids in the beer were perfect at clearing the cheesy goodness away from my palate. The first night the beer was served at Ms. Tio’s restaurant, Julian, two kegs were emptied in just a couple of hours. The beer might be making an appearance again in the future - let's hope this was not a one time deal!

The second beer event was a dinner that Chef Alex Pope, co-owner of Local Pig, prepared following his nose to tail cooking style. The dinner started with a delightfully rich pork pate served with artisan bread, pickled mustard seeds and an apple salad. The main course had the four primary ingredients of beer (malt/barley, hops, yeast and water) incorporated into it: the roasted root vegetables were glazed with malt syrup, the barley risotto had hops in it and the sauce was made with vegemite, an Australian paste made from yeast extract. These side items were served next to a Berkshire pork belly stuffed with roasted garlic, rosemary and sage. The final course was a trio of cheeses (cheddar, smoked bleu and brie), local candied pecans, walnuts and fruit and herb jam. Since this was part of a homebrewing competition, bottles of homebrew and commercial beers were being passed around the tables and there were another 20 or so beers available on tap. I mainly stuck with Saison by Free State and a few small tastes of various sour beers. The dryness of the saison and the sourness of the sour beers helped cut through the richness of dinner, making it much easier to eat way more than was prudent. In retrospect, I should have approached the meal as more of a marathon than a sprint, but when served food like this, sometimes that happens. If you’re pairing at home, Alex says, “Pairing beer is about matching the body (malt levels) and contrasting the bitterness (hop levels).  As far as the particular dish I served for the beer dinner, the pork belly was considerably fatty and salty so a good pairing for this dish would be a beer with a medium/high body and medium hop load, with a touch of residual sugar to balance the salt.”

One way to be on the lookout for these sorts of events is to follow tastebud, your favorite restaurants, or homebrew clubs via social media. Celina Tio is an avid twitter user and updates the Julian Facebook page quite often; the same is true of Alex Pope and The Local Pig. I would also like to welcome Alex to the tastebud magazine family; I have enjoyed his articles immensely.