The Naked Pint

by Christina Perozzi

  BOTTLE OPENER: Sounds obvious, but you should make sure you have something to open a specialty cork-finished bottle. Also, it’s nice to have a cool-looking opener, ’cause then you look cool.

  ICE BUCKET: This is important for serving beer at the table. Not every beer should be kept ice cold, but for those that need to keep cool, you should have a good-looking ice bucket. These also work well as dump buckets for beer tasting parties.

  WINE/BEER FRIDGE: You’ll need a wine fridge (refrigerated cellar) for storing your fine beer, as we’ll discuss in a moment—something that allows you to be specific about the temperature, which should roughly be between 50°F and 60°F. You can end up spending anywhere between $300 and $2,000 on these, so start wherever your budget allows.

  KEGERATOR: This is not a necessity but is a wonderful thing to have for a beer lover. A kegerator is essentially a tiny home version of a draught system. It consists of a small refrigerated unit big enough for a small keg. It will also come with its own CO2 system, beer line, coupler, regulator tap, faucet and handle, and drip tray. These tend to start at $500 and run up to a couple thousand, which is a big investment. But having a home tap system is a way to make your beer parties that much better.

  HOMEBREW KIT: If you want to brew, you’ll need this, of course (see Chapter 9).

  EMPTY BOTTLES: Don’t throw these away! You can disinfect them and use them to bottle your homebrew when it’s ready. If you are planning to brew, you’ll need these babies, so keep them in a box somewhere till you’re ready.

  Lay Down a Cellar, Lay Down Some Beer: Aging Beer

  When you are truly ready to commit to beer, it’s time to move a few things around and make space for your beer cellar. We recommend a small beer/wine fridge. Now this isn’t the same thing as those crappy little fridges that people throw out; we mean a good-looking one with a glass front that allows you to get nice and specific about the temperature. They can run anywhere from $300 to $2,000, depending on your pocket and preference. Beers should be aged between 50°F and 60°F. It’s hard to keep this consistency without a dedicated fridge. Maybe if you live in a cool climate with an actual cellar, you could forgo the refrigerator; just make sure the beer doesn’t get too warm or cold. If the temperature changes too dramatically, the living yeast that is still working in certain beers may die, hampering any hope of additional bottle conditioning and perhaps even creating off-flavors. Keeping the beer out of sunlight is important as well. Sunlight can kill a beer as it does wine, especially if it interacts with the hops, which can cause off-flavors in the brew.

  When starting your cellar, think about what you want to accomplish. Do you want beers that would fetch a high price from other beer lovers? Are you focused on the dollar value of your beer cellar? Or do you want to age beers that are your favorites, just to compare with newer vintages? Or perhaps you just want to experiment with aging, just to see how it treats a variety of beers. And how long are you willing to wait? Are you willing to wait a year or two? Or are you looking to drink your stock in the next month?

  If you want to focus on monetary value, research the highest-rated beers on beer websites and look up the beers being auctioned on eBay. Find varieties in craft beer bars and stores that fetch the highest price. Check out our list of Beers to Drink Before You Die (page 132). For a more personal take, pick the big beers that you love the most and lay a few down. It’s great to see how your favorite Gueuze or Porter can change. Tasting the older vintage against the new is a great beer party pastime. If you want to experiment, be aware that some of your aging may not turn out so well. Some beers are not perfectly suited to aging, just as some wines don’t age as well as one hopes. There’s a risk in aging beer. First of all, know that lighter beers don’t tend to handle oxidation well; they can end up tasting off, creating some wet-cardboard flavors. And some lighter beers can’t handle the funkier flavors that may come from aging. Note that pasteurized and filtered beers do not benefit from aging. They have had everything living killed, and so no change will happen, except that the beer will most likely go bad.

  It’s best to cellar higher-alcohol beers that are not filtered or pasteurized. Beers that age well tend to be over 7.5% alcohol. Alcohol is, after all, a preservative and keeps the beer from spoiling. Beers that have both huge flavors and complex flavors tend to age well. Highly hopped beers can benefit from aging because the hops also act as preservatives, and their bitterness is allowed to mellow out over time. This reduced bitterness means some of the other fruit, spice, and nutty malt flavors can come through. Sour beers like Lambic and Gueuze can get a lot funkier and lose some of the harsh tartness of the style. Belgian brewers of these styles have practiced aging them for years. Here are a few styles that generally benefit from aging:

  Abbey Ale

  American Strong Ale

  Barleywine

  Belgian Strong Ales

  Gueuze (these can age well even if they are below 7%)

  Imperial IPA/Double IPA (though you may not want to mellow out the hops)

  Imperial Pilsner

  Imperial Porter

  Lambic (these can age well even if they are below 7%)

  Old Ale

  Porter (over 7% is best)

  Quadrupels

  Rauchbier

  Russian Imperial Stout

  Smoked beers

  Sour beers

  Stout (over 7% is best)

  Trappist Ales

  Just be aware that aging beer is never a sure thing. And the amount of time a beer can age is a guess; it can be anywhere from 1 year to 30 years. It’s hard to know if a beer has reached its peak, meaning that it should be drunk after a certain amount of aging but not beyond that. If you are concerned with the risk, then try to age beers that are not that expensive and buy several of the same beer, tasting them at different increments of aging to determine the best amount of aging for that style.

  Here are a few more tips for quickly building a valuable beer cellar:

  Find the highest-rated high-ABV beers on beer websites and in beer magazines; buy the newly produced bottles and age them.

  Go to local, regional, and national beer festivals and find a few of your favorites as well as the winners; try to get ahold of some bottles for aging.

  Get on a mailing list at a fine beer store and try to buy a few of your favorite rare ageable beers when they first come in. Drink one now and take notes, then age one and compare the flavors when you drink it.

  Get seasonal beers and hold on to them. Christmas in summertime is a great theme for a beer dinner party, and many holiday ales are high in alcohol and boast big holiday spices or hops that benefit from mellowing. Also, giving a fellow beer-lover a vintage holiday ale is a fantastic and economical gift.

  Make sure to label your beers when you lay them down. You can tack a note on the neck of the bottle, use a piece of tape, or just keep a ledger. Write down the year the beer was made (its vintage), the date you bought the beer, the date it went into the cellar, and other info about the unique qualities of the beer. It’s also nice to write down any personal stories surrounding it. Was it a gift? Did you have to wait in line for it? Did you buy it on holiday? The more detail, the more to reminisce about when you finally open it.

  You should feel better about your home now that beer is a part of it. You’ll never again be caught without craft beer in your fridge. You’ve got your glassware ready and some beers to grow old with. Hang the hops over the hearth and welcome your beer-loving friends into your new and improved happier home.

  EIGHT

  The Beer Lover’s Kitchen

  It was as natural as eating and, to me, as necessary. I would not have thought of eating a meal without drinking a beer.

  —ERNEST HEMINGWAY

  Now You’re Cookin’ with Beer

  Up until this point, we’ve just talked about beer alone. And while beer can be great and completely satisfying on its own, beer and food are perfect partners. But if the extent of your beer pairing is a can
o’ light lager with a hot dog, it’s time to wake up and smell the mussels and Witbier. And if your only idea of cooking with beer encompasses a recipe called Beer Can Chicken, you’ve been missing out. We admit that a nice light lager can go well with some spicy chicken wings or some fish and chips. There is something to be said for old-school thoughts on beer, and there’s definitely a pleasant sense-memory response to a foot-long and a plastic cup of beer at the ballpark. We’re not saying these old ideas are ill-conceived notions. We’re not trying to rob you of your favorite memories with your father. But what if instead of a lager with the fish and chips, you were to pick a wheat beer brewed with lemongrass? Your flavor experience would be an amazing cacophony of citrus and coriander, beer flavors that enhance the fish and chips rather than merely acting as a thirst quencher. And imagine the chicken wings paired with a slightly sweet and smoky Porter, flavors that help balance the hotness of the wings while adding another dimension to the barbecue sauce. It’s just better.

  Some innovative chefs are already pairing their beloved creations with craft beer and creatively using beer in their recipes. And forward-thinking restaurant owners are offering well-thought-out beer lists in addition to the requisite wine lists. In general, the food industry is just on the cusp of welcoming beer into the fine-dining world. It’s an exciting time for craft beer, but there’s still a long way to go. Unfortunately, just as beer drinkers align themselves with their mass-produced brand, some people are still under the impression that they like one beer, and that one beer should go with all food, period. They don’t even consider that there might be a better beer style for the dish in front of them. This narrow approach is unfair to the breadth of the craft beer world and to the creativity of the culinary world. Why would you paint with just one color? Yes, beer belongs at the backyard BBQ, but it also belongs on the white-clothed tables of Le Bernardin.

  We’re here to help beer claim its rightful place at the table. We offer you some beer and food pairings and recipes featuring beer that will get your creative juices flowing. If you already consider yourself a chef or a foodie, this part of the Beer Journey may be your favorite. We’ll talk about what makes a great food and beer pairing and how professional chefs use beer to enhance flavors in food. You can combine your kitchen know-how with your newly gained beer knowledge. This is your chance to get creative and to let craft beer breathe new life into your culinary experience.

  A Perfect Match: Artisanal Beer and Food, Together at Last

  Some people have found their way to pairing a Pale Ale with a burger. But has the cheese on the burger been considered? And how hoppy is that Pale Ale? Is the beer interfering with the flavors in the burger or is it complementing it? Would the aged Gruyère on that burger be better paired with a Belgian Dubbel? We’re going to show you how to get specific about pairings in the same way that you’ve gotten specific with beer flavor profiles.

  Not only is beer as great as wine with certain foods, but it sometimes makes an even better pairing than wine. The effervescence of beer can cut through heavy foods in a way that wine cannot. Fermented grape juice is not always the best complement to a dish. (We know some wine enthusiasts are fainting right now.) Certain foods that are historically hard to pair with wine, like asparagus, artichokes, eggplant, and some spicy foods, harmonize wonderfully with certain beers.

  Unlike wine, there are no hard-and-fast rules that govern beer pairing (which is good because we both have issues with authority). But it does behoove us to follow some well-established food-pairing guidelines as a base for choosing a beer. Here are the things that we take into consideration when we’re deciding which beer to serve:

  BALANCE IS EVERY THING. We’ll say it again. Just as we discussed in Chapter 2, the key to all food and beer pairings is balance. Take strawberries, for instance. The best strawberries are the ones that are both sweet and tart. If the strawberry is picked too early, the sugars won’t have had time to develop, leaving the fruit too sour. If the strawberry has become overripe, the flavor is too sweet. The strawberry is considered at its best when both the sweetness and the tartness balance each other. The same applies to beer. The sweetness of the malt in beer needs the dry and bitter balance of the added hops. If the beer didn’t have this sweet-bitter balance, the beer could end up tasting like syrup—overly sweet and cloying, without much complexity or nuance. Think about contrasting flavors or mouthfeel. In addition to considering how the beer and food will complement each other, think of pairings in terms of what is missing from one that the other might fulfill and therefore provide balance. For instance, roasted pork is traditionally served with sweet baked apples. Why not pair that roasted pork with a beer like Unibroue Ephémère Pomme, made with green apples? Or what about pairing a hot, spicy curry with a refreshing and cooling Witbier?

  LET THE FOOD AND BEER ENHANCE EACH OTHER. Some pairings are awesome when the food and the beer share similarities. Perhaps it’s the spice profile or the aromatics or the mouthfeel. Think of how a toasty Porter would work with a nutty Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, or how a Chocolate Stout would pair with a double chocolate cake, or how an earthy, pungent Orval Trappist Ale would go with a mustard sauce.

  THINK ABOUT YOUR ENVIRONMENT. Just like you think of white wine in the hot summer months and associate red wine with getting cozy in the winter beside a roaring fire, you need to take your environment into consideration when you’re pairing food and beer. A big, heavy Russian Imperial Stout with a braised roast, or turkey and stuffing paired with Tripel White Sage Ale, is probably not something you’re going to be down with in 90°F weather. But in the chill of winter, these pairings could be perfect.

  MATCH INTENSITY LEVELS. You don’t want your beer to overpower your food. It’s no good if your beer has taken your palate hostage. You also don’t want the beer to disappear in the pairing. It’s important to think about the intensity levels of both the food and the beer. A big hoppy Double IPA would kill all the flavor in kampachi sashimi, and a soft Kölsch would taste like water after an intense concentrated demi-glace sauce.

  GO CRAZY WITH UNPREDICTABLE PAIRINGS. Mismatches sometimes make the greatest pairings. We’re talking Bogie and Bacall here, not Minnelli and Gest. Sometimes the beers and foods that you thought wouldn’t go together in a million years end up making the most amazing flavor combinations. Think salty, briny oysters and a dry Stout, or smoky Rauchbier and vanilla ice cream!

  As we said before, there aren’t any hard-and-fast rules when it comes to beer pairing. The best and only way to really learn how to pair beer with food is by experimenting. You can start slow with familiar beers and small bites or cheeses (see page 184), or you can dive right in. Go to a restaurant that has a reputation for serving excellent food and great beer. Knowing what you now know about the general flavor profiles of different beer styles, take a stab at ordering a beer based on what food you’ll be getting. You’re not always going to get it right (we are still smarting from the chili beer-red curry incident of 1999). But we can assure you that if you put some thought into your pairings and use the techniques we’ve discussed, you’ll make many more good pairings than bad. Economist Irving Fisher said, “Risk varies inversely with knowledge.” If you’ve read this book, you’ve probably got more knowledge than your waiter. Your risk is mitigated. Listen to Fisher, even though he was a Prohibitionist.

  The chart at right gives a few of our favorite pairings and why we think they are so damn good.

  CHEESE LOVES BEER AND BEER LOVES CHEESE

  Beer Pairing Philosophy from Cheesemonger Andrew Steiner

  Every major beer expert has had their own favorite special moment with beer and cheese. Ours was with a Mothais goat cheese, which was aged in 100% humidity, and a funky Cantillon Iris Gueuze. To get the skinny, we talked with Andrew Steiner, one of Los Angeles’s most notable cheese authorities. Andrew was maitre d’fromage at the world-famous Patina before opening his own store, Andrew’s Cheese Shop, in Santa Monica. Here’s what he had to say:

 
I think that pairing cheese with beer is like cheating. Fermented products tend to have many flavor similarities. This is why cheese, wine, bread, and beer all work together on some level. Classically, wine and cheese is the go-to pairing, but you have to be careful because many flavor clashes lurk out there. It is also not uncommon for the power or texture of a cheese to overpower those same attributes in a wine (or vice versa). This is rarely the case with beer. The main reason for this is the bubbles.

  The two major ingredients of cheese are salt and fat. Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but that’s the way it is. This also happens to be why cheese is so delicious. The bubbles from beer cut into the fat for contrast, and salt does the same little dance on your palate as the bubbles. I think far too many people are terrified of getting their pairings wrong. Some of the most inspired pairings I have experienced came from the most unexpected risks. Remember, we’re talking about beer and cheese here. We’ve got alcohol, fat, and salt. If you screw up the pairing, what’s the worst thing that will happen? The truth is, I have learned so much more from getting it wrong than getting it right.