Friday night, July 23^rd saw the first Gulpdown Showdown, an epic battle of food pairing savy pitting beer against wine in a seven course exercise of gustatory excess. The combatants: Cicerone Michael Agnew and Chef Erik Jacobs, old friends, but bitter rivals in the realm of fermented refreshments.

Eight people gathered at Chef Erik’s home in Clayton, Missouri. Eight people ate. Eight people drank. Eight people voted for the best pairing with each course. In the end, ballots were never counted and most disappeared with the celebrants. Surreptitious glances through the evening suggested to me that the results may have been a draw. But who really cares. The food was incredible, the beverages were fantastic, and everyone had a great time.

Because we never tabulated ballots, I can only report here on my own and Erik’s clearly biased pairing preferences.

First Course: Thai Crispy Prawn Cakes with Sweet Chili Sauce
My Pairing – Schlafly Pilsner, St. Louis Brewry
Erik’s Pairing – 2009 Rudesheimer Magdalenkreuz Spatlese:  Leitz

My Pick – Wine
Erik’s Pick – Beer

Comments: I misjudged the sweetness of the chili sauce. The wine matched it much better in my view. Erik liked the way the beer cleansed the palate.

Second Course: Sopa de Pomodoro Crudo – Brunoise Tomato, Bocconcini, Basil Infused Extra Virgin Olive Oil
My Pairing – Old Scratch Amber Lager, Flying Dog Brewery
Erik’s Pairing – NV Cava Rose:  Segura Viudas

My Pick – Beer
Erik’s Pick – Wine

Comments: The soup was very acidic. The wine was very acidic. They were too similar in my view. The toasty malt sweetness of the beer offered a balancing contrast.

Third Course: Causa de Cangrejo – Peruvian Potato, Avocado and Crab Salad
My Pairing – Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier
Erik’s Pairing – 2008 Chardonnay:  Foxglove

My Pick – Beer
Erik’s Pick – Wine

Comments: I found Erik’s chardonnay to be too heavy for the dish. It overpowered. The lighter beer matched the weight of the food. The flavors of the herbal potatoes and shellfish flowed seamlessly into the spicy flavors in the beer. This was the best pairing if the evening for me.

Fourth Course: Duck Confit with Sweet Corn and Summer Vegetable Salad
My Pairing – Westmalle Tripel
Erik’s Pairing – 2006 Pinot Noir:  Harmonia

My Pick – Beer with the duck. Wine with the veggies. If I were to choose an overall pairing it would be the beer.
Erik’s Pick – Wine

Comments: I found that the Westmalle blended brilliantly with the saltiness of the duck. However it overpowered the veggies a bit. I was surprised by the concordance of the wine with the veggies, as I expected the pinot to overwhelm them. This was a close one.

Fifth Course: Meditterranean Grilled Lamb “Lollipops” – Mint Pesto, Truffled Pommes Anna, Spinach
My Pairing – Traquair House Jacobite Scotch Ale with Coriander
Erik’s Pairing – 2005 Shiraz “Testament”:  Killikanoon

My Pick – I declared this one a draw, but if forced to choose I would go with the beer. This was my second choice beer. My first choice, a brown or amber Biére de Garde, would have knocked it out of the ballpark. I couldn’t find one.
Erik’s Pick – Wine

Comments: The rich, earthy, and lightly funky flavors of the wine worked very well with the gamey flavors of the lamb and the mushroomy truffled Pommes. But the silky sweet caramel and subtle peaty flavors of the beer were equal to the task. The light floral/spicy character of the coriander brought out similar flavors in the dish.

Sixth Course: Honey Lavender Panna Cotta with Berries and Stone Fruits
My Pairing – Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2008
Erik’s Pairing – 2009 Moscato “Brilliant Disguise”:  Two Hands

My Pick – Wine
Erik’s Pick – Wine

Comments: I completely misjudged the nature of this desert. I was expecting something more like Crème Brule. The Vintage Ale, though brilliant, completely missed the mark. A Lindeman’s Peach Lambic would have rocked it though.

Seventh Course: Assiette des Fromages
My Pairings – Boulevard Tank 7 Saison & Samuel Smith India Ale
Erik’s Pairing – NV Tawny Port “Grandfather”:  Penfolds

My Pick – Wine
Erik’s Pick – Wine

Comments: By this point the competition no longer mattered. The beer was opened and never touched, even by me. It’s hard to compete with a really good port.

We were going for excess, and we got excess in abundance. No one went home hungry and there was enough great beer and wine poured to insure a rough morning for many of us. We are already planning the next event, to take place in Minneapolis. Perhaps we’ll keep it to five courses next time.

Many thanks to Erik and his wife Melissa for hosting. The food was absolutely brilliant.

So what’s the deal with beer, kilts, and bagpipes? I have never quite understood this. While I love a good Scottish ale as much as the next guy, I don’t consider Scotland to be a world beer Mecca. And yet, at any beer event in the country you will see more kilts per square foot than perhaps any place else in the US. And bagpipes are the traditional starting bell of nearly every festival. I remain bemusedly baffled.

And so it was at the second annual St. Paul summer beer fest. At precisely noon the pipers piped to signal the start for those lucky enough to have snagged early entry VIP tickets. This year’s fest was bigger than last year, making it perhaps the largest beer festival in the Twin Cities, if not the state. Once again it was well managed and just crowded enough to be exciting but remain comfortable in the large expanse of the Midway Stadium parking lot. I only wish I had remembered sunblock. Last year I got burned to a crisp as well. You would think I might have learned.

And that brings me to one of the better beers at the event, Minnesota Tan from Lift Bridge Brewery. Minnesota Tan aptly demonstrates that an easy-drinking summer beer doesn’t necessarily have to be a small beer. This Belgian Tripel style ale is light and refreshing with lively tartness from the fermented lingonberries. First released last year, this year’s version is better balanced and less pink. It goes down easy. Almost too easy, because at 9% ABV it won’t take too many of these to mess you up under the hot summer sun.

San Francisco’s 21^st Amendment was pouring two versions of their Hell or High Watermelon Wheat from watermelons. The first was the straight-up watermelon wheat. I have always enjoyed this beer, but soaking it in a watermelon upped the fruity flavors, making it a great summery ale that reminded me of seed spitting fights as a kid. The other version was infused further with cucumber and jalapeño. I am not a chili beer fan, so I was hesitant. The watermelon and cucumber gave this one a wet coolness that was followed by a gentle pepper burn on the way down. I liked it.

I had a great time sampling experimental IPAs with Aran Madden, the brewer at Furthermore Beer. He was in town a while back for a Brew with the Brewmaster event at Vine Park that I wrote about in an earlier post. At the fest we tasted four of six India influenced IPAs that were brewed that day. Very unique. Think English style IPA with curry. None were bad, some were better than others. You can expect more about these beers in a future post.

I finally had the opportunity to taste Flying Dog’s Raging Bitch Belgian IPA. It has been around for a while, I know. I just never got around to trying it. I’m not normally such a fan of the Belgian IPAs. The Belgian yeast phenolics clash with the high level of hops on my palate. I didn’t really mind this one though. It seemed well balanced and didn’t strike me with the same harshness that others tend toward. Or maybe I was getting delirious under the hot St. Paul sun.

My long conversation with the young guys from Tall Grass Brewing Company out of Manhattan, Kansas was a highlight of the day for me. Only four years old, the brewery is growing fast with an output of nearly 5000 barrels a year. Their brewery currently shares space with a limo service garage, so you might say that they are brewing in the underbelly of luxury. I particularly liked their Oasis Double ESB. Nice English style malts with bracing and sharp bitterness in a 7% ale. A good one for sipping of the patio as the cooling of a Minnesota evening starts to set in. Tall Grass beers will be showing up in Minnesota stores in the next couple of months.

I sampled a number of other very nice beers, including Goose Island’s Pepe Nero black pepper dark saison, and Geary’s Hampshire Ale and London Porter. The winner of the people’s choice best-of-fest beer was Great Lakes Nosferatu Imperial Red Ale. Unfortunately I did not try this one, so I have no comment.

Once again Juno, Mark, and crew did a great job putting this one together. The St. Paul Summer Beer Fest is a fantastic addition to the Twin Cities beer scene.

All Photos by Mark Roberts.
For more on the fest and the National Homebrewers Conference that also happened this weekend check out my Hoppress Blog.

Last night was the first night of Battle Belge 2010 at the Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurant in Minneapolis. Bar manager and beer maven Al McCarty matched Belgian and non-Belgian versions of popular Beligan beer styles in head-to-head combat. Styles include saison, strong dark ale, Flemish sour red, tripel, dubbel, and strong golden ale, with two example of each to compare. Ten dollars buys a flight of four 4-ounce pours.

I only did straight comparisons of a couple of the styles, opting instead to sample mostly those beers on the list that I had never tried. The few direct match-ups that I did try showed that while the non-Belgians make some fantastic beers, they generally don’t quite stand up to their Belgian brewing counterparts.

Surly Cynic stood up reasonably well to Dupont Vielle Provision, but it’s hard to go up against the benchmark of the style. Both Unibroue Trois Pistoles and Gulden Draak strong darks were tasty, but the Gulden Draak had more depth and dimension when compared side-by-side. Tripel Karmeliet crushed  Nøgne Ø Tiger Tripel, which was by far the most anticipated and disappointing beer of the night. Tiger Tripel was a murky, muddy mess of a beer that made my doubts about that Norwegian brewery even stronger.

The one category in which the Americans bested the Belgians was strong golden ale. Weyerbacher, a Pennsylvania brewery that is brand new in Minnesota, brought it strong with Merry Monks and took the wind out of Delirium Tremen‘s sails.

The overall winner of the night, and going strong as my best beer of the year for 2009 and 2010 was Cuvee des Jacobin Grand Cru Rouge, better known in this country as Ommegang Rouge. While making comparisons between styles is like comparing apples and oranges, in my opinion nothing else in the line-up came close. Next to Rouge, New Belgium’s La Folie, a beer that I love, seemed overly sour and clumsy. Al bought up all the kegs of this great beer in Minnesota. Sadly the last one blew last night. If you missed it, it’s gone.

Battle Belg continues tonight (Sunday, June 6th) starting at 4:00 PM. Be there!

The June Meeting of the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club

When: Friday, June 11, 2010
Cost: $25
You must be a member of the club to attend. Go to the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club to join and RSVP.

Great Britain has a long and storied beer history. Its brewers invented porter and then made it the first mass produced industrial beer. It is the origin of IPA. Baltic Porter and Imperial Stout were both born here, as were Irish stout, milk stout, and oatmeal stout. And what would life be like without the traditional Bitters? And its beer culture is still going strong today in pubs across Britain, where real ale is still pumped from casks the old-fashioned way.

English ales were the original inspiration for the American craft beer movement and the reason many a craft brewer on this side of the ocean began brewing in the first place. Most of them still include at least one traditional English style beer in their line-ups.

For this meeting we’ll sample our way through the beers of the British Isles from subtle bitters to big imperial stouts. We’ll taste the wares of brewers from over there and from over here. We might even do a blind tasting or two to see who does it best.

Last night was the Cheese and Ale class at Cooks of Crocus Hill. Fromager Ken Liss and I took guest through a varied course of six beers paired with six artisan cheeses. There were some expected brilliant pairings and some pleasant surprises as well. And as always, there was Ken’s “secret ingredient” that I will talk about later.

As a welcome beer I poured Flat Earth’s Sunburst Ale, an apricot infused Belgian Pale Ale that turned out to be one of the favorites of the night. Other beers were Lagunitas Pils, Saison Dupont, Meantime IPA, Aecht Schlenkerla Märzen Rauchbier, and Deschutes Black Butte Porter.

Ken brought a wide range of cheeses including Brillat Savarin cow’s milk brie, Le Cabrie goat’s milk brie from Wisconsin, Colliers Powerful Cheddar, the Italian sheep’s milk cheese Pecorino Ginepro, Saenkanter aged gouda, and Cashel Blue, a creamy blue cheese from Ireland.

Some of the pairings were obvious. IPA and cheddar are made for one another and the Meantime IPA and the Colliers cheddar was a perfect match. The beer’s fruity and grassy notes complemented herbal/grassy flavors in the cheese while the bitter hops cleared the creamy cheese off the palate. The IPA also paired brilliantly with the blue.

The light pilsner was a perfect match for both the cow’s milk and the goat’s milk brie. Floral saaz hops complemented light floral notes in the cheeses and the pils malt added sweetness to these otherwise salty, creamy bries.

Like IPA and cheddar, porter is made for blue cheese. The Black Butte and the Cashel Blue bore this out as bitter black malt and chocolate notes blended brilliantly with the creamy, pungent, and spicy blue cheese.

The most surprising pairing for me was the Brillat Savarin brie with the Black Butte porter. I would have expected the full-flavored porter to overwhelm the much lighter cheese. Instead, the buttery cheese brought out a creaminess in the beer while the cheese’s saltiness balanced the roasted malt bitterness in the beer such that the cheese not only stood up to the bigger beer but complemented it beautifully.

The match made in heaven for the evening was another pairing with the Brillat Svarin. Paired with the Schlenkerla Rauchbier, this was a match to make the angels sing. The salty brie was perfect with the bacon flavors in the beer. Think canapés with brie and cured meats. Ken’s “secret ingredient” further enhanced this pairing. A bit of smoked salt sprinkled onto the cheese pushed it into cheese and beer bliss. This was another pairing that I would not have expected.

The table full of exotic ingredients in the bottling area of St. Paul’s Vine Park Brewing hinted that something interesting was about to take place. Around twenty-five people milled about surveying the little baggies of cardamom, coriander, fenugreek, cilantro, and black pepper, anticipating the brewing adventure that awaited us. This was the scene on Monday morning at Vine Park’s second Brew with the Brewmaster event featuring Aran Madden and Chris Staples, the two-man team that is Furthermore Beer.

The idea of the Brew with the Brewmaster events is to give beer enthusiasts an opportunity to interact with professional brewers. Brewers create recipes and then work with guests to actually brew those beers on Vine Park’s brew-on-premise system. It’s an opportunity to see firsthand how brewers work and to witness the minute-to-minute adjustments that brewers make during a brew session. And best of all, after two weeks each participant gets to take home bottles of the beers they brewed. “This is fun.” said Vine Park co-owner Daniel Justesen of the Furthermore event. “It’s been interactive. It’s been exciting. It’s been recreating things on the fly and adapting to the environment. That’s what makes brewing fun, taking things from here and there and turning it into something that’s hopefully going to taste great. And it sure smells great in here.”

As Furthermore brewmaster Aran Madden explained it, the theme for this brew was “taking India Pale Ale back from the colonizers.” Each of the six beers was a unique take on the pale ale or India pale ale style using pungent Indian spices as flavoring elements. “I’m pretty excited about the beers. I think that this ‘real ales of India’ could be a thing.” said Madden. “It’s just funny that for us as a beer culture, it’s not just that it’s a style; it’s the dominant style in craft brewing right now. And nobody seems to think about the fact that India pale ale originates in something that the British did to India. And there’s so much that India has to offer.”

Participants were split into six groups, each group responsible for making one of the beers. My group brewed a beer called The History of Non-Violence. It is a reasonably bitter, low-alcohol IPA featuring tamarind, coriander, candied ginger, and cilantro.

With multiple beers coming together at once, the atmosphere was a bit chaotic. Justesen laughed, “This is exceedingly crazy, more than usual. Normally we’ve got a bit more control over the whole process.” And Madden said, “Brewing six beers at once is hectic. It’s really hectic. Especially since most of the beers were developed over the last couple of days.” But the craziness also presented him with an opportunity. “It’s really gratifying to be able to do all of this in one day. This would take me a year to get around to buying ingredients, and test batching, and getting stuff from a fermenter into a corny keg, and carbonating, and all that stuff. So six beers in one fell swoop is fantastic.”

In the end, chaos included, I believe everyone had a great time. Vine Park regular Cory Reiman summed it up this way, “Free lunch, great beer, and recipes that no one, including the master brewer, has tried? Come on. How often do you have access to a master brewer to pick their brains? Even if you’re a novice you can come here for the whole experience that most people would never have. Even if you’re fully knowledgeable, to be able to pick the brain of a master brewer is a great opportunity.”

I can’t wait to try the beers.

American Craft Beer Week, a week-long celebration of all things craft beer sponsored by the Brewers Association, takes place May 17 – 23. Not to be left out of the national celebration, several breweries, beer bars, and beer stores are joining forces to bring you Minnesota Craft Beer Week. The main events are focused in the 7-Corners and Dinkytown neighborhoods of Minneapolis at Stub & Herbs, Preston’s Urban Pub, and Town Hall Brewery. On Monday, Town Hall will tap American Beer Wheat to kick things off and will have draft specials all week long. Stub & Herbs is having a variety of guest bartenders from local breweries, including Fulton, Lift Bridge, and Flat Earth, with Flat Earth putting over thirty beers on tap on Wednesday. Preston’s will be featuring specials on West Coast and Mountain Region beers. You can see the whole schedule of events here.

I will be doing a special tasting at Preston’s from 6 – 7 PM on Wednesday. Come on in and say “Hi.”

Friday night I co-taught a wonderful class at Cooks of Crocus Hill in St. Paul. My co-presenters for the class were Chef Mike Shannon and Level III Sommelier Leslee Miller. Thirty-six guests were treated to a five-course meal of grilled and smoked delights each paired with either a beer or a wine. The final two courses were paired with both. As we ate and drank our way through the deliciousness the three of us traded off explaining the pairings, offering up knowledge, and weaving tales about our respective passions.

As we offered our introductions, guests enjoyed a light, sparkling, wine from Portugal. Famega Vinho Verde was a delicious white with a gentle touch of spritz and fantastic strawberry and pear fruit. I had to comment when Leslee mentioned that its 9.5% ABV made it a “low-alcohol wine that you could drink quite a bit of in an evening.” Coming from the world of beer, when we get above 8% we start talking about strong beers that have to be consumed in moderation.

The first dish that Chef Mike offered up was a twist on the traditional Cobb salad with lightly sauced pulled pork in place of the chicken. I paired this with Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier. Hefewizen pairs well with egg and cured meats, so it was a natural with the boiled egg and bacon on the salad. My main concern was that it wouldn’t stand up to the pulled pork. Guests however commented that the spicy yeast character of the beer really pulled out the flavors of the pork while the full wheaty/yeasty mouthfeel was able to hold its own against it.

The next course was a smoked salmon pizza with Asiago cheese. Leslee paired this with Croatian Korta Katarina Plavac Mali Rosé. This was another light, fruity wine with strawberry and rhubarb notes. It managed to stand up well to the assertive Asiago cheese and the smoked salmon brought out smoky notes in the wine that were not there when tasted alone.

The next course was mine to pair, a grilled Jamaican jerk chicken with a fruity/spicy Caribbean slaw. I paired this with Meantime IPA. The citrus and stone fruit flavors played well with the fruit of the slaw while the hops brought out the spice. This is a balanced English IPA with enough malt to knock heat back again on the way down.

After a short break we returned for the dish that I was really anticipating, a middle-eastern seasoned lamb chop with tomatoes and chick peas. Both Leslee and I took this one on and both pairings were possibly the best of the night. Leslee poured 2004 Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino. This big, Italian red made with 100% Sangiovese grapes had intense dark fruity flavors and spice notes that stood up to the well-seasoned lamb, while tannins in the finish swept away the fat. I paired this dish with Ovni Ale Biére de Garde from Flat Earth Brewing in St. Paul. Caramel, toast, and spicy hops in this beer was another perfect match with the similar flavors in the lamb. Both the wine and the beer were perfect with the dish.

The desert was cheesecake with a sour cherry sauce. I went for Lindemans Kriek with this one. The sweet and sour cherry beer matched the cheesecake flavor for flavor. Leslee chose Schlink Haus Dornfelder, German Sweet Wine. Sweet, but not too sweet, and loaded with cherry fruit notes, this was another great match.

Three hours, five courses, and eight pours after we began a satisfied crowd filtered out of the upstairs kitchen space at Cooks. I had a blast and I believe the guests did as well. I hope to teach another course with Leslee and Mike soon. Thanks to all who came.

I spent the last few days in Chicago attending the Craft Brewers Conference, a gathering of craft brewers from all over the United States and the World. It was an intense and exhilarating couple of days filled with fun, learning, moments of embarrassing beer-nerd sycophancy, and of course lots of beer. I will be writing several articles to recap the event and posting them both here and on my Ratebeer.com Hoppress blog. The first went up today. Craft Brewers Conference: The Highlight Reel. Check it out.

A pre-dinner smorgasbord.