Our First Beer and Cheese Tasting
Last night, my wife and I hosted a beer and cheese tasting for a couple of our close friends. This was our first attempt ever to hold such an event, and actually the first time any of us have sat down to a formal tasting.
The setup was rather informal, ironically - we chose the cheeses in advance, without knowing what brews the night would bring. Unfortunately I am missing some of the info, but here's what we ended up with:
Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar (Vermont, USA)
Emmi Cave-Aged Kaltbach (Switzerland, hard cheese, cow's milk)
Chaumes (France, semi-soft wash rind, cow's milk)
Amablu St. Pete's Select (Minnesota, USA, blue cheese)
Grana Padano (Italy, semi-fat hard cheese, cow's milk)
Gouda (Hard, aged 18+ months, creamery unknown, similar to Beemster)
As for the beer, we didn't sample for style - it was more of an organized free-for-all. My wife and I have a great beer selection in our fridge and we picked up a few extra for the night. We also asked each of our two friends to pick up some that they would like to try.
We plucked them one-by-one, trying to start with mellower brews and end on the imperials and IPAs. With a couple of exceptions we found a nice progression, and we kept our palates functional from beer to beer. Here is the beer lineup, in the order they were tasted:
Samuel Smith Pure Brewed Lager Beer
Avery White Rascal Belgian Style Wheat
Flying Dog Old Scratch Amber Lager
Fuller's ESB
Great Divide Ridge Line Amber Ale
River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout
Moylan's Dragoons Dry Irish Stout
Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale
Brouwerij Verh Aeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne [Flanders Red]
De Dolle Dulle Teve [Tripel]
Eel River Raven's Eye Imperial Stout
Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout
Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine
Bear Republic Racer 5 [IPA]
Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale
Victory Hop Devil
Our Setup, Pairing Beer with Cheese
We laid the cheeses out in a spread on the table, with some other palate cleansers: crackers, crudite, popcorn. We stayed well-hydrated, and took a break for dinner midway through the tasting. We sampled each beer, made notes and assigned ratings on a 10-scale to each of five categories: Appearance, Smell, Taste, Mouthfeel, and Drinkability.
We discussed our thoughts after privately writing our first impressions, so as not to sway the judgments of one another. Ultimately the contrasting viewpoints were helpful in exploring the nuances of each brew. As we casually sampled the beer and cheese, we would share with one another if we found any truly outstanding pairings. In the end there were only a few noteworthy pairs:
1) Kaltbach with Flying Dog Old Scratch. This pair was identified by my wife, and we all quickly agreed the two were meant for each other. Although none of us were head-over-heels for the beer, one of our friends actually gave the beer a second set of higher ratings after sampling it with the cheese.This was a great example to show how each component could actually improve on the other, and draw out subtleties that may have gone otherwise unnoticed.
2) Aged gouda with De Dolle Dulle Teve. None of us thought that the Tripel was strong enough to stand up to a pungent blue, but the nutty gouda complimented the almost tangy-sweet finish on the Dulle Teve. Again, a nice balance found here.
3) Blue cheese and Old Foghorn. No surprises here, I've long sung the praises of a strong blue with English style barleywine. I was glad to have shared it with friends, and I was pleased they enjoyed. Many people would go into a tasting trying to plan the perfect beer and cheese pairing. As I still have plenty to learn in this regard, I rather enjoyed the serendipitous nature of finding these great pairs. Based on even the best recommendations I don't know that any one of us would have ever guessed the lager/kaltbach or tripel/gouda combos above.
Our Commentary
The conversation around the table was light, fun, and immature at times (particularly as we got late into the night) - but always came back on track, respectfully focused. This was the first time any of us had set aside a substantial amount of time just for beer appreciation, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. As we discussed our thoughts, it was always interesting to debate varying perceptions of terms like mouthfeel and drinkability. What one would say was a heavy beer, another would insist was exceptionally quaffable.
Occasionally one of us would come out of left field with a flavor or an aroma that no one else could zero in on; ultimately it led to a more complex and informed discussion. Among some of the less-productive, random snippets of conversation:
"I really wanted to like it. I felt bad for the beer"
and...
"I remember this being much better, my heart is crumbling." - "Yes, crumbling like this blue cheese."
not to mention...
"If I had the choice of this and any other beer, I'd choose the other beer." - "What about Natty Ice?" "I would DEFINITELY choose Natty Ice."
and lastly...
"It smells like toast!" - "Stop, you're swaying my perception."
One of the more interesting discussions was centered around a Flanders Red, the Brouwerij Verh Aeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne. The Flanders is a Belgian style of sour ale, an acquired taste for sure. I happened to enjoy the beer quite a bit, but sadly I found myself rather alone on that decision.
One of our friends suggested he could have it in place of champagne, the table seemed to find that a reasonable compromise. The strangest thing was the unanimous consensus that the Duchesse smelled distinctly of Ranch salad dressing. Three out of four of us had written that privately on our notes before we even discussed it, with all of us coming to an immediate agreement.
At one point I did a double-take and eyed up the crudite suspiciously, to no avail. Indeed a strange finding, but so goes the profound oddity of Belgian beer.
Unadulterated Data-Driven Results
We all discussed our favorite drinks at the end of the evening. While our numbers varied slightly from our preferences, I wanted to share the pure data-driven stuff. Sixteen beers, five categories, and four judges left me with a geek-load of numbers to crunch, and the results are certainly interesting. I will preface this by saying that we think the Sam Smith lager was old, as it was rather awful; and the White Rascal was well out of season and lacking its usual subtle hops characteristics.
That said, you can never be sure if a beer is supposed to taste the way it does, unless you've had it before - and most of these were new to all of us. Also worth noting, the best rating given to any particular category for the sampled brews was a 9. We didn't talk about this ahead of time, nor discourage anyone from assigning a '10' if he/she wanted to. I think perhaps none of us wanted to 'take the plunge' and have to justify a brew's perfection in any one category. The best score for the night was only 150 out of a potential 200 points, curiously enough - so perhaps we were all a bit too conservative!
I thought the best way to represent the data was by averages- both to protect the innocent through anonymity, and because three beers were sampled before one of our friends arrived.
With no further ado, ladies and gentlemen, here are your results!
| #1 | Bear Republic Racer 5 | 7.5 |
| #2 | River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout | 7.35 |
| #3 | Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale | 7.3 |
| #4 | Eel River Raven’s Eye | 7.1 |
| #5 | Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout | 7.05 |
| #6 | Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine | 6.95 |
| #7 | Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale | 6.65 |
| #8 | Great Divide Ridge Line | 6.6 |
| #9 | De Dolle Dulle Teve | 6.6 |
| #10 | Victory Hop Devil | 6.4 |
| #11 | Fuller’s ESB | 6.3 |
| #12 | Moylan’s Dragoons Dry Irish Stout | 6.15 |
| #13 | Avery White Rascal* | 5.87 |
| #14 | Flying Dog Old Scratch* | 5.60 |
| #15 | Verh Aeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne | 5.10 |
| #16 | Samuel Smith Pure Brewed Lager* | 4.13 |
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*These beers were sampled with only 3 out of 4 judges present
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We debated on how to choose our favorite beers, someone mentioned that perhaps it should all be based on just our 'taste' rating. I argued that the categories were equally important. Thinking about it , I wondered what would change if we removed *only* appearance from the ratings.
The top five sans-appearance tell a slightly different story:
#1 - River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout
#2 - Bear Republic Racer 5
#3 - Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale
#4 - Eel River Raven's Eye
#5 - Anchor Old Foghorn
Of course I couldn't stop there, I had to break out the best for each category - for what it's worth...
Best Looking
#1 - Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout
#2 (tie) - Verh Aeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne
#2 (tie) - Flying Dog Old Scratch
Best Smelling
#1 - Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout
#2 - Bear Republic Racer 5
#3 - River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout
Best Tasting
#1 - Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine
#2 (tie) - Bear Republic Racer 5
#2 (tie) - De Dolle Dulle Teve
#2 (tie) - River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout
Best Mouthfeel
#1 (tie) - Bear Republic Racer 5
#1 (tie) - Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale
#2 (tie) - River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout
#2 (tie) - Eel River Raven's Eye
Best Drinkability
#1 - Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale
#2 - River Horse Oatmeal Milk Stout
#3 - Avery White Rascal
And there you have it - the conclusion of a very long night, with much fun had by all involved. Next time, we hope to do a tasting by style.
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Reader Comments (4)
Now being one of said judges I have to say, this is an accurate representation of the night. The Kaltbach cheese with the Flying Dog Old Scratch deserved the higher ratings, but I did not eliminate the old ones to show the difference. Plus Natty Light is much better then the one sampled, and that is saying a lot.
Well said, Colonel. For the record, your higher ratings for Old Scratch are not represented above - I used your "sans-cheese" ratings in our averages.
There is a possibility Ol' Scratchy would have edged out White Rascal if I had re-run those numbers, especially considering there were only three of us judging that beer, but the Kaltbach almost seems like an unfair advantage in that scenario.
I agree. I am glad you used the natural ratings. They are more legit than the plus cheese category. It was a good beer though, without the cheese.
I was asked about the beers I tried today by the brewer at our favorite brewpub. I couldn't recall all the details, but that's why I wrote them down. I let him know he could find them here.
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