My last entry about Tria was really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the late Sunday afternoon we spent there. Aside from the Sunday school beer and cheese offerings, Ray and I ordered the Herbed Potato Chips with Truffle Aioli and Roasted Beets with Bulgarian Feta Cheese. The beets had a very earthy-topsoil aroma that was very interesting, but I was not crazy about; Ray, however, quite enjoyed them. The herbed potato chips were simply divine and could easily be eaten by the pound, with or without the aioli.

For my entree I ordered the Mixed Greens with Mission Figs, Gorgonzola, Pine Nuts and Gorgonzola-Pine Nut Vinaigrette. It was the perfect portion, had just enough vinagrette, and extremely crisp greens. The only issue I had was that I think I reacted to the pine nuts — the roof of my mouth felt quite funny, and Ray’s mouth also reacted. Oh well. I ate it anyway, and rather enjoyed it. Ray ordered the Spanish Tuna with Black Olive-Red Pepper Tapenade and Arugula Sandwich and was also happy with it, despite having to spend five minutes in the bathroom trying to wash all of the oil off. For beverages, I ordered Bell’s Special Double Cream Stout, which came in a fantastic bottle. At 6.1 ABV it’s not too strong, and on the web site it’s described as “sweeter and smoother than the Kalamazoo Stout.” Well I was sold.

Ray was able to order a brew he had been very eager to try: Weyerbacher’s Harvest Ale, and he did a proper tasting of it:

Appearance: White head with lots of lacing. Clear amber gold.
Nose: Super-floral and sweet. Hops are clearly the focus, but are somehow mellow.
Taste: Bitterness is subdued, giving the stage to the hops’ flavor, which is citrusy and slightly earthy/grassy. Again, subdued despite being so prominent.
Mouthfeel: Crisp, bitey, very refreshing. Hop bitterness lingers on the back of the tongue and throat.

To end our trip, we ordered dessert, as well as the Meantime Coffee Porter to share. We ordered the Rogue Chocolate Stout Bread Pudding with Allagash Cherry Sauce and the Nutella Panino. According to the bottle, each serving of the British coffee porter is equal to one cup of coffee, caffeine-wise. We noticed it had a hint of sour to it, but were not sure if it was intentional. I think Ray enjoyed the beer, while I wasn’t terribly crazy about it.

Our servers were knowledgeable and friendly, and we even scored some swag! Cape Ann’s brewer Jeremy had one of Tria’s staff bring us a baseball cap and a t-shirt from the brewery. “For the homebrewers …” the staff member (I feel like he might have been the owner?) said with a smile. So cool!

We joined the Tria loyalty club, paid our affordable bill, and then headed out into the early autumn night, elated that we found a new place to get lost in … maybe every Sunday.

Craft Beer, Pairings, Pubs Add Comment »

I really enjoy getting my Bon Appetit magazine, and the most recent issue had a seemingly easy recipe for apple turnovers that I had to try. Lucky for me, the recipe was simple. The only obstacle that came up was I ended up using puff pastry that had vegetable oil in it — the recipe called for puff pastry made with butter, which would have given it a more traditional French taste, but I didn’t have all day to run around looking for it.

The recipe seemed to yield more apple filling than necessary, but I used it all anyway. The effect was apple often bursting from the seams of the turnovers, but hey, who doesn’t like apples?

I used 2 Granny Smith and 2 Gala apples, though the original recipe called for Granny Smith and Golden Delicious (I can’t stand Golden Delicious). I followed the recipe otherwise, and Ray and I were rewarded with warm, flaky, apple-filled delights. I decided to pull out the 12 oz bottle of Dogfish Head’s Palo Santo Marron we had been saving since early June, a bottle I had selected when creating a very expensive “make your own 6-pack” at The Foodery in Philly. We split the bottle into two wine goblets, and at first, I pushed my glass away.

The alcohol bite was fierce, and there was a strong Scotch flavor, and I’m sorry, but I can’t stand Scotch. I thought it would be a nice pairing, since Dogfish is known for their malty beers. Ray sipped his glass along with the turnover, and assured me the beer would mellow once we let it come up in temperature.

Of course he was right (see why I’m marrying this guy?). Quoting from their Web site, Palo Santo Marron is “an unfiltered, unfettered, unprecedented brown ale aged in handmade wooden brewing vessels. The caramel and vanilla complexity unique to this beer comes from the exotic Paraguayan Palo Santo wood … ”

I may have finished my apple turnover already, but I’m still sipping away at the Palo. Perhaps a longer tenure in the fridge would have done this better, but I was reminded of how it tasted at Savor, so I took a chance. What’s life like if you don’t?

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Wait … what the heck is LME you’re asking? “The London Metal Exchange? That doesn’t make any sense. Did she sit down and have some cookies with the exchange? And if she did, then wouldn’t they be called biscuits?”

Ahem, anyway, LME is known as liquid malt extract. Since we are not all-grain brewers, we rely on LME for our beers. We had some leftover after brewing the stout, so I put the leftover away until I could stick it in something. LME is somewhat similar to molasses, so I found a new oatmeal cookie recipe that stems from WWII when brown sugar was rationed and molasses was used more readily in cookies.

I must say, I am really happy with how these cookies turned out. The recipe does not call for spices, so I kept it that way — I have a separate recipe for spiced oatmeal raisin cookies — but in lieu of raisins I decided to use the dried cherries I had leftover from a chocolate cherry stromboli I made ages ago.

You could really smell the LME in the batter, and anyone who has sampled LME before could pick out its distinct flavor in the batter. The cookies are also thick with oatmeal — 2 cups — so as Ray said, it gives you plenty to chaw on.

The finished cookie has a great oatmeal texture, the cherries are a nice substitute for raisins, and the LME worked as a great sweetener/molasses substitute. If you have some leftover LME of your own (or molasses I suppose), then check out the recipe below, I think you’ll dig it!

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 cups oatmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter
2 eggs
5 tbsp LME or molasses
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried cherries

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F
2. In a medium to large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and oatmeal.
3. In a large bowl, blend together softened butter and granulated sugar until creamy. Add the vanilla, LME, and eggs. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients.
4. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop batter onto the paper by the teaspoonful, fitting 12 cookies to a sheet.
5. Bake for 10 minutes. Let the cookies rest for a moment before placing them on a wire rack to cool. Yields roughly 48 cookies.

Also, we also managed to score River Horse’s latest Brewer’s Reserve, the Imperial Cherry Amber Ale. I found that sipping it after tasting the batter left a hoppy taste in my mouth; however, sipping the beer after a nibble of cookie did not do the same thing. Weird. Nonetheless, the cookie and beer pair well.

The great texture and balanced chewyness make these cookies addicting!

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On Wednesday, August 6, I decided to join the ladies of IPA (In Pursuit of Ale) for their somewhat bimonthly gatherings. I met the group’s presiding drinker (it actually says that on her business card — how awesome?!) Suzanne Woods at the Royal Stumble, and after hearing what IPA was all about, I knew I needed to check it out.

She planned a five course pairing menu at The Latest Dish, which is a neat pseudo-hole in the wall on 4th Street between South and Bainbridge. Eight of us attended, and it just so happens that one girl, Amy, was originally from Newark, NY and knew my roommate from my sophomore year at Brockport. Bizarrely small world, right?

I started the night out with Samuel Smith’s oatmeal stout, after trying to order Rogue’s Mocha Porter (out) and Brooklyn Brewery’s Black Chocolate Stout (also out). Their taps were not working that night, so we worked with their bottle list, which was fairly extensive AND organized by region, which was nice.

I really enjoyed the Tempura Avocado with soy syrup and chile oil that was paired with Steelhead’s extra pale ale. The avocado had a great texture of crunch from the tempura mixed with the creamy softness that avocado’s are known for. This dish surprised me, because I’m a little back and forth on avocados. Suz let us know that Steelhead had a female brewer for 17 years, up until 2007 when she headed out on a cross country brewing trip.

The main course, however, really knocked my socks off. Executive chef Scott Schroeder — who took time out at the end of the evening to stop by our table — crafted a divine pork mignon with peaches and Gorgonzola, which was paired with a Corsendonk Abbey pale ale. The pork was amazingly tender, and the Gorgonzola offered so much flavor to this dish, without being overbearing.

If you’d like to know more about IPA’s night out, head over to Suz’s blog. Her post about the evening goes over all five pairings AND has pictures!

I definitely had a great time and will need to see when I will be able to join the ladies again in pursuit of some great ale.

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Two Sunday nights ago (July 20) I decided I should do a dress rehearsal of sorts for the dessert I planned on bringing to Ray’s parents’ BBQ this past Saturday. I did not want to wait until the day before to try a completely new recipe and result in an epic fail, so a practice run was called for.

I found a recipe for Plum Coffee Cake with Brown Sugar & Cardamom Streusel in the latest issue of Fine Cooking magazine, and aside from the mouth-watering photography, the overall recipe looked good. Plus, I had spent the majority of my childhood hating plums, so it was time to make amends.

Who’da Thunk It?
I learned from the article that there are close to 200 varieties of plums out there. There aren’t a ton of differences in their tastes — but there is a difference in their shelf life. So, if you buy a plum on Monday, there’s a good chance that if you go to buy another plum on Saturday, it will be a different variety. I thought this was kind of interesting.

Before I even decided to make the cake, I wanted to try some fresh plums first, and I purchased one red plum and one black plum. The red plum had a medium-to-deep red skin, and the fruit was a golden yellow, whereas the black plum’s skin was a purplish-black with maroon hints, and its fruit was a red-violet color. They were both about a day away from being optimally ripe, but I tried them anyway and found I preferred the black plum.

When I picked up plums from the store a week later to make the cake, I purchased the only ones I could find, which had a sign that said “tree ripe plums.” They had a darker skin, so I was guessing they were black plums; they weren’t, but that’s okay. Instead the fruit inside was the same golden color as the previously mentioned red plums. Que sera, sera.

I set myself up in the kitchen and made the streusel first, using heavy cream in lieu of whole milk (I couldn’t find a container of whole milk at the store that wasn’t smaller than a half gallon, and there is no way in hell I was going to consume it otherwise.). The streusel had a nice, clumpy consistency to it. Once I had that done, I stashed it in the fridge to chill while I made the cake batter.

The batter was fairly simple, though I didn’t have a pastry blender, nor did I know what one was, nor did I bother to google it. Instead I took an immersion blender to the dry ingredients with the pats of butter, and got roughly the same effect that the recipe was calling for. I folded the wet into the dry, mixed it up, and gave it a taste. Wow! Right on! You could taste and smell the cardamom. I poured the batter into my square pan, crumbled half of the streusel into it, added the quartered and pitted plums, and then topped with the remaining streusel.

Doesn’t this look freaking delicious?

Ray agreed to be my guinea pig on this one, and we each had a piece of the cake paired with River Horse’s Brewer’s Reserve Belgian Double White (2W). The cake was balanced — not too moist or dry, not too sweet or dull. The fruit texture complemented the texture of the cake and the streusel. Overall, we felt it made a delicious cake.

I have made the cake twice now. The second time did include some black plums (unfortunately, not all the ones I picked out of the “black plum” bin were truly black); Ray bought a pastry blender for me; and when we had it after dinner, I had Ray’s mom warm it up in the oven for a little bit.

The results were astounding! We polished the cake off, with Steph taking a tiny extra piece, and Ray and his dad splitting the rest of the leftover piece. Everyone liked it, and even Tim really liked it, and he typically hates cake! Whoo! Mission accomplished.

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A few nights ago, Ray and I finally cracked the bottle of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout that I had purchased in late May/early June. Originally, I was going to be a greedy brat and keep it to myself, but I came to my senses and decided Ray and I should share, as well as pair my chocolate chip cookies with it.

When Ray finds me baking in the kitchen, you can see his eyes glaze over and he begins to salivate. True, I am definitely a good baker, schooled by my Gramma Ward, and encouraged by the rest of my family, but sometimes I think his objectivity flies out the window when it comes to my sweet treats fresh from the oven.

Nevertheless, we shared a couple cookies and the bottle of Youngs, and it was excellent. I feel that the bottled brew was just as good as the draft I had at Stouts NYC; the head was nice and creamy, the mouthfeel had a luscious thickness to it — without leaving an unpleasant coating — and the overall taste was full of chocolate and roastyness. This beer paired perfectly with my cookies, which are not too sweet — I only use semi-sweet chocolate chips — and are also not super chewy/soft. They’re also not drier than stale toast; instead they sit on the middle ground, and because of that, the moisture from the stout compliments them well.

Excellent beer, excellent cookies, excellent pairing.

And while we’re on the topic of cookies and beer, Ray and I tried our ESB with my orange chocolate chip cookies as well, and found that the citrus in both the beer and the cookie was brought forth by the pairing. A nice surprise indeed!

Craft Beer, Pairings, Tasting 2 Comments »

Editor’s Note: This was posted on my personal site (Hindrances to Progress) a few weeks ago. I decided it should also exist here. Some of what’s being said may be out of date. For example, Savor was not two weekends ago, because that is not when May 17th was. You get the idea. Anyway.

Savor was two weekends ago, and of course I was there. Together with Steph (my sister), Tim (her husband), and Mel (my girlfriend), we pounded the floors of the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in Washington D.C. until they crumbled under the weight of our thundering enthusiasm, which was an unfair thing for us to do. The building literally fell to rubble.

For the uninitiated, Savor, which was held for the very first time this year, is like an upscale craft brew fest, with special emphasis placed on food and beer pairings. There were 48 breweries present, each exhibiting two of their finest beers. Each beer was paired with one of 30-40 appetizers and desserts.

The typical frat boys and their light-lager sipping blonde girlfriends were nowhere to be seen. The crowds, the noise, the heat — no concern of ours. The traditional pace of waiting in a line, getting a pour, and then hightailing it to the next line while you drank it gave way to a relaxed, thoughtful afternoon of meandering. This event was about far more than sampling unfamiliar brews; every fest I’ve been to prior has handled that just fine. Savor was about appreciation.

The exhibitors almost always had their brewmasters and brewmistresses present at their tables. Craft brewing bigwigs like Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head and Garrett Oliver of The Brooklyn Brewery were there to man their company’s taps. There were even more than a few company presidents there (Mel and I actually spent a good ten minutes talking to the president of Stoudt’s without realizing who she was). Because of this, it was generally perfectly reasonable to ask the person serving your beer, “What can you tell me about this?” and get a detailed answer. This contrasted from most fests where the servers are usually just lower-level employees of the breweries — I made sure to ask every server about what he or she was pouring for me, and very close to all of them had something interesting to say.

The event was incredibly social. For someone like me, who doesn’t tend to do well around strangers, to be in the mood to go around shaking hands with random people and saying such things as “hi,” there needs to be some kind of magic in the air. Okay, maybe I was a little loose from all the beer and food, but you could see on every face in that hall that everybody, brewer and attendee alike, was extremely happy and excited to be there.

It made for a fantastic tasting routine. Spot a beer you want to try, and then wait in no more than a one- or two-person line to get it. Have a few words with the exhibitor while you sip, pick up the food pairing, and finally retreat to one of the nearby tables to enjoy and discuss every tiny detail of the experience with your fellows before moving on to the next one:

“The oak is a lot more subtle than I expected. It’s almost velvety. Ooh, yeah, you’re right, the vanilla notes come out a lot more after you take a bite of the brownie. Is that coriander? It really compliments the duck. Oh, look, it’s Charlie Papazian. Eep! It’s Charlie Papazian!”

Did I neglect to mention?

The High Imperial Granddaddy of homebrewing, Charlie Papazian could be seen all afternoon, wandering the floor, sampling this and that, and basically being his unassuming little self when Steph skipped up to him with her hand out, squeaking, “Hi! I’m Stephanie! I’ve read all your books!”

His response: “Mmf… Muh mouf iff fuww…” This basically made Steph’s weekend.

To most other people, he was just another guy with a STAFF badge on. Those who understood the man’s importance, however, were in for a treat. Getting to stand around and shoot the breeze with possibly the most important person in modern brewing is hard to describe. You could tell that Charlie was having a great time, perfectly content to spend his day eating, drinking, and chatting, and we were all too happy to indulge him.

I think it goes without saying that photos were in order.

Charlie with Steph and Tim. He was relaxed. He was not worried.

And now with me and Mel. Interesting side note: I said, “It’s an honor to meet you,” when I shook Charlie’s hand. I’d never said that to anyone before.

What Savor accomplished above all else was to open, or at least further proliferate, the greater discussion of beer’s place in fine cuisine. Right now, the dialog doesn’t extend far beyond the beer snobs like us, and while Savor won’t have done much to spread the word directly, the people who made the trip to D.C. came away armed with new passion and education with which to create new snobs. Craft beer is a bigger world now because of Savor.

Breweries, Brewfests, Craft Beer, Pairings 1 Comment »

Welcome to our first contribution to The Session, a monthly event in which beer and brewing bloggers get together to all write about a chosen topic on the same day! This is Session #17, for which Pfiff! writer Rob DeNunzio has chosen the topic, “Going Against the Grain Bill: Drinking Anti-Seasonally.”

Stouts — how I love them. Now people who keep their beer consumption to what is in season would typically thumb their noses up at my summer-stout-sipping ways, and really, that’s fine. I completely understand that certain beers are best consumed in their season, but I also feel that there are certain stouts that you can drink comfortably when the days are longer and the weather muggier.

The first stout I have to mention is Steph and Tim’s Foreign Extra Stout, quiet possibly the stout that brought me to love these roasty, dark beers. The stout is malty, roasty, and chocolatey, but not heavy, as many stouts are. Instead, this brew is intended to be enjoyed in tropical climates.

Steph and Tim’s Foreign Extra Stout, paired with Steph’s Banana Monkey Ice Cream Cake. Photo credit, Stephanie Weber

With an ABV of 7.2%, it has a bit of a kick, but it is intensely smooth and refreshing. Definitely a beer that I always look for when I’m digging around in Steph and Tim’s kegerator!

Another stout I would like to mention is Young’s Double Chocolate Stout, which I had the pleasure of having on draft in mid-June when I was in NYC for business. After a full day of being on my feet, and the majority of the Northeast enduring a heat wave, you would have thought I would have selected a refreshing Hefeweizen right? Nope.

I had decided to go to a pub by the name of Stout NYC. You can bet your best growler I wasn’t going to order a Hoegaarden! Sure, my friend did, and he enjoyed it, but he’s not a Stout Girl, now is he?

Needless to say, the beer was perfect: roasty, chocolatey and refreshing.

So, drinking out of season: I say it can be done, but you must remember that often the availability of some brews will be less because of the season. If this is a worry, buy during the season, and then cellar the leftovers so you can crack one when it fancies you!

My year-rounder is barleywine. These sweet, high-octane monstrosities have no place being consumed during the summer, as evidenced by the fact that I feel like crap after having one mid-afternoon in July. But I drink ‘em anyway — They just taste so good. If you can disclipline yourself to save them for dessert, after the house has cooled off, they make a great compliment for cookies and orange sherbet.

I also quite enjoy quadrupels during the warmer months, which probably isn’t that off-kilter. They’re actually supposed to be in season when spring is breaking. I usually see them coming out in April and May, but I feel like they’re more of an October/November beer, so I consider it out-of-season to drink them in the summer.

Man, it’s making me sweat just thinking about having one.

Craft Beer, Pairings, The Session 1 Comment »

I was cruising through a few sites, and I found this April 2008 post from Omnivoracious. The thing that caught my attention first, aside from the words beer and books, was a picture of The Monsters of Templeton with a bottle of Ommegang’s Three Philosophers next to it! The book is fantastic, and the beer, as you know, is outstanding. So that means I had to read the blog post.

Most of the post mentioned beers that I will not sully our own blog with, but I was interested in what was said about MOT:

Of course, some writers have more invested in the beer-book question than others. Rising star Lauren Groff, author of the Orange Prize-nominated The Monsters of Templeton, has first-hand experience, having worked as an intern “one very fuzzy summer in college” for “the country’s best brewery (in my humble opinion) in Cooperstown, New York, which is where my novel is based–Brewery Ommegang. They make Belgian-style beers. Though all of their beers are absolutely stellar, I’d say their Three Philosophers goes best with Monsters–they call it a “luscious blend of rich malty ale and cherry lambic.” Like MOT, it’s fruity on the surface with a dark, rich texture beneath.”

-for more from this blog post, go here.

Well said Groff! I highly recommend this pairing of book and brew, and if I might have a try myself, I will suggest this pairing:

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips paired with Victory’s Golden Monkey.

Gods Behaving Badly is an entertaining read about a group of Greek gods and goddesses stuck living together in a London flat amongst mortals. And of course, since they have powers, they tend to misbehave a little. I don’t want to give away the whole story, but I certainly found it entertaining, and feel that when paired with the playful, yet strong Golden Monkey, you’ll certainly get your money’s worth of both book and brew.

Enjoy!

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Jerk is weird and wonderful. On its own, the word Jerk traditionally refers to the style of Jamaican cooking in which meats are given a dry-rub of Jamaican Jerk Spice, a hot-as-all-hell mixture of allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers (a breed of habanero, the most feared pepper in the world), and then dried over smoke. In the North, Jerk is usually cooked, instead of dried, over a hot grill. The mixture of the cinnamony, nutmegy, clovey allspice with the eye-watering heat of the Scotch bonnet creates a fantastic and unique contrast between dessert spice and hot spice.

All of that heat makes Jerk a perfect summertime style (sweating = cooling off), and also an ideal pairing with a roasty stout or a well-hopped Imperial IPA. For this recipe, I used my version Jerk seasoning in a grilled chicken pizza. Steph also had the crazy idea of substituting pureed roasted red peppers in place of pizza sauce, which turned out to be delicious.

I am just now remembering that I forgot to take a picture of the final results, which makes me sad and remorseful. If I make this again and I remember to take a picture, I’ll update this post.

So, recipe time:

1lb pizza dough

Pizza sauce:
12 oz jar of roasted red peppers, drained
1 Scotch bonnet pepper (substitute a jalapeño if you don’t want to chance an encounter with a habanero)
2 tbsp skim milk
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dried basil

Toppings:
1 lb chicken breast
1 c lime juice
1 c apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp Tabasco sauce
3/4 c chopped scallions
12 oz mozzarella cheese, grated

Jerk seasoning:
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp dried thyme
2 tbsp allspice
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt

———

Mix the lime juice, vinegar, and Tabasco. Marinate the chicken for at least 8 hours, preferably 24 - 48 hours.

In a grill, prepare a searing hot flame. You should not be able to hold your hand over it for more than two or three seconds.

Remove the chicken from the marinade and grill for about 5 minutes per side, until charred on both sides. If it takes any longer than a few minutes to char a side, do not continue trying or the meat will become overcooked. Set chicken aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 500°F.

While the chicken cools, prepare the sauce: Drain the red peppers. Slice and seed the Scotch bonnet (wear gloves). In a food processor, blend the peppers together with the skim milk and spices until smooth.

Spread the pizza dough over a 16″ pizza pan. Spread a thin, even layer of sauce over the dough.

Prepare the Jerk seasoning: Mix together onion powder, thyme, allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and salt.

Roughly cut the chicken (use a steak knife and tongs) into 1/2″ pieces. Toss well in a mixing bowl with the Jerk seasoning. Spread evenly over the sauce along with the scallions. Finally, spread the grated mozzarella cheese over the pizza.

Bake at 500°F for 5 - 10 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Serves 4.

I went ahead and substituted in the jalapeño for the habanero. Surprisingly, I think I could actually take the heat, but I have sensitive skin and didn’t want to risk exposing it to the inside of the habanero. Maybe I’ll try it next time if I remember to get a glove.

The roasted red pepper sauce proved to be a perfect mix of bitterness and mellow sweetness to counter the heat of the Jerk seasoning. We also mixed the leftover sauce into a tomato sauce the next day. I’d like to find more uses for this.

I personally felt that the seasoning was a little too hot, so you might consider toning down the cayenne just a little bit, or omitting the habanero/jalapeño. Everyone else who tried the pizza thought it was good as it was, though, so you might also consider leaving everything as is. Basically, this paragraph was not worth writing. Oopsie!

We all paired this with Heavy Seas’ Red Sky At Night Saison, an unusually — and pleasantly — sweet and citrusy Saison, with almost none of the funk that one usually associates with the style (which I almost see as a strike against it, actually). It was great to have in between bites of the pizza — the citrus did a lot to help extinguish the heat, even despite the heat-exacerbating carbonation. I’d like to try this again against either a Hefeweizen or a big IPA.

Pairings, Recipes 1 Comment »