beer pairing

another example in the "it's good to be me" showcase:
while i was at eat! vancouver a couple of weeks ago
(a show that i love to attend every year, because who doesn't want to spend a whole day eating and drinking fabulous things?)
i got to talking with the lovely people over at habibi's mediterranean
did i blog about anything other than beer, they asked
well, i said, you know what goes really well with beer?  food!
so they handed me a whole bag full of their yummy hummus and chips and sent me off to find beers to pair with them

okay, i don't know about you
but i do not spend allll my time drinking beer
so, this is going to be an ongoing project
i mean, i guess i could just have a hummus and beer party and go through it all at once
but i fear that no one will pay attention to the pairings after the first beer or two - even if we're just drinking taster sized servings of beer
so i am taking this one for the team
yup, all by myself i am eating hummus with every beer i open at home
(which really isn't all that often, no really, it's shocking i know, but i really don't drink much at home - which is too bad, i do have quite a lovely collection of beer there, but i digress)

first, a little bit about habibi's
they're local (surrey)
they only use quality, natural ingredients, and no gmos
so they're craft-oriented
and you can get their products throughout the province and part of the way across the country
oh, and they're very friendly!

currently i am working my way through these three flavours:
hot jalapeno
basil & garlic
lebanese
and eating them on zataar pita chips, with wild mediterranean thyme

cranberry radler from storm brewing:  i wasn't sure this tart little radler would pair all that well with hummus, but i shouldn't have been worried - it was a lovely contrast to the hot jalapeno hummus

rosemary ipa from storm brewing:  i am sure the basil ipa from storm would pair insanely well with the basil garlic hummus, and it paired really well with the rosemary ipa too - something about all those herbs and the bitterness of the ipa just work like a hot damn together
the rosemary ipa also paired quite nicely with the hot jalapeno hummus and adequately with the lebanese

india pale ale (various breweries):  i mostly drink ipas, so far all of them have paired really well with all three flavours of hummus
the bitterness of the ipa cuts through the aftertaste of the hummus, and the citrus notes curl up beside the spices.  the umami that happens when they're in my mouth together is delightful!

this is a fun project!
now i just want to spend all my time trying different beers with all the different hummus flavours!