Skip to main content

cbc website

-

Serving beer at Christmas 

dinner? Here are some tips

No rules for beer pairing — just some guidelines

CBC News Posted: Dec 20, 2016 4:45 PM PT Last Updated: Dec 20, 2016 4:45 PM PT
You can serve more than wine at your family's Christmas dinner.
You can serve more than wine at your family's Christmas dinner. (John McStravick/Flickr)
Nothing beats a nice glass of wine at Christmas dinner — except maybe a nice glass of beer.
On The Coast beer columnist Rebecca Whyman has some thoughts on what craft brews are best to serve with your holiday feast.
"There are no hard and fast rules for beer pairing. Complementing or contrasting flavours are the two basic ways to go, but within those, you can go so many different places. So the best non-rule is to drink what you like," she told On The Coast guest host Chris Brown.
"Complementing is when you match like-flavours, like a chocolate stout with your chocolate cake. Contrasting is when you pair opposites, like a sour beer with a sweet dish. This can also be used to balance flavours. Using the sweet maltiness of beer to counter the saltiness of a dish or the bitterness in a hoppy beer to cut the sweetness."
Whyman says a more carbonated beer, like a dubbel or a saison, will cleanse your palate between bites of food and cut through fat. 
She says if you're going with lighter fare, like turkey or tofurky, the saison might be more pleasing. The yeast and sweetness complement the gravy and the veggies, while the earthy spiciness brings out the flavours in the meat.
She also says if you're overwhelmed by trying to choose a beer that will work with all the dishes, you could choose your favourite part of the meal and pair your beer to that.
If mashed potatoes are your thing, maybe you'd like to drink a cream ale to mimic that smooth mouth feel. If it's all about tart cranberry sauce for you, pair with a lambic. For latkes, a golden ale is lovely.
"Or if you have the inclination, you could try a variety of beer styles taster flight style and see which ones work with the most dishes," she said. "If you take notes, you can use that information next year."
She also says if you're the one doing the cooking, you can always use beer in the food and then serve that beer alongside that course for an easy pairing.
Here are Whyman's beer picks for this week:
Luppolo Brewing Double IPA
"Available at the brewery for tasters and growler fills. Using five northwest hop varieties gives it aromas of peach, melon and citrus zest. Be careful: this one is eight percent alcohol but tastes like five!"
Twin Sails Two Straws Milkshake IPA
"This one is thick — you'll need two straws! It is brewed with lactose, hence the milkshake name and lots of mango and pineapple. Get this very limited release before it's gone at the tasting room in Port Moody. 6.5 percent."
SuperFlux Happyness
"Formerly known as Machine Ales when they brewed at Callister, this is their most recent offering under the SuperFlux name. Happyness is a seven-percent IPA that's bright and clean and fruity. Four-packs of cans will be hitting liquor stores any day now."
With files from CBC Radio One's On The Coast

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

brewing up gender parity

-
Image
My article on gender parity is on the Growler website! BREWING UP GENDER PARITY: THE QUEST FOR BEERQUALITY REBECCA WHYMAN •  JUNE 13, 2019 Women are markedly underrepresented in craft beer. This is not news to anyone. But have you ruminated on just how large the gender gap is?  A 2018 survey by Nielsen-Harris  found American craft beer drinkers are 68.5 per cent male and 31.5 per cent female. Closer to home,  BeerMeBC’s 2018 survey  had those numbers at 71 and 29 per cent, with 0.32 per cent identifying as “other.” For those not so strong in the math department, that means that there are only three women drinking craft beer for every seven men. If you were a straight man looking for a date, you wouldn’t like those odds at all. And I can tell you, as one of those three women, it’s not much fun being outnumbered everywhere I go to enjoy my beloved craft beer, delightful as those seven men may be. Drinking craft beer is the easy part—when we move int...
Read more

zywiec polish beer

-
Image
and now for something completely different a polish beer! zywiec - and i have no idea how to pronounce that! its poland's #1 premium beer (according to the bottle) it has a thermometer label when you can see the name in colour, its the right temperature to drink sounds a bit too much like those darned mountains that turn blue when the piss-poor mass market beer is cold enough to not give you any indication of its stinky nose but i digress... pours wonderfully clear light caramel colour nice head on the vigourous pour 5.5% this is a lager i can get into! crisp and mildly hopped its everything a pilsner should be and its delicious a great session beer on the bottle:  "since 1856 this premium beer has been brewed according to the original zywiec brewer's recipe from the best natural ingredients.  contains finest malted barley, choicest hops and pure mountain water." no clue what the website says as its in polish but wikipedia has this little histor...
Read more

Dead Frog's Pepper Lime Lager

-
Image
i did it - i tried the new Pepper Lime lager from Dead Frog and i didn't like it.  which saddens me.  but there's nought i can do about it, i don't like it.  i even tried it twice, just to make sure. it pours a pale golden colour and has a great head... i just can't stand the chemically taste of the lime.  it reminds me too much of bud lime and the miller chill. i tried, i really tried.  i wanted to like it,  i really did. but i cannot tell a beer lie, i am not a fan of this lager.  but don't let my picky pants stop you from trying it.  like mikey, you might like it.
Read more