I don’t know why systematically, when people set up a cheese diner, they only consider wine. Just like cheese = French = wine. I mean, seriously?
Cheese is not just French,… (hey there are more than 500 awesome cheeses in Belgium) and beer, by all mean (and I can relay the opinion of plenty of wine sommeliers), is a best option for cheese.
If you’re French at this stage you’re not happy and look for the “exit” button but I’m not saying it’s 0 to 100%. There are some incredible wine and cheese selections that are unbeatable ie. Munster/Gewurztraminerbut on the broad selection of cheese offered in a cheese diner, beer wins by far.
Couple reasons here. Beer is sparkling and really, in a cheese diner, you need something to keep your taste buds alive. All the yeast and flavors and fats, blue cheese, goat cheese, … keep building up and your buds are calling for help. This is a job for beer (and champagne if you want or sparkling water too).
Then, beer has a spectrum of flavors that you won’t find in any other categories. I don’t want to undermine the huge complexity of wine but look, we use a much broader spectrum of yeasts and bacterias leading to all kinds of fruit flavors but also spices of clove, smoke with medium acidity to very lactic-acetic sourness. We use kilned and roasted grains leading to all nuances from fresh bread to biscuit to pie crust, brown sugar, chocolate, coffee…. That no fruit can deliver. To finish with we have hops which can add spruce, resinous, grapefruit, lychee,…
Depending on our brewing conditions we can create a very dry to very sweet, very light to very strong profile. Finally we have all forms of aging in spirits vessels or wine barrels refermented with peach, cherries, raspberries…
If you ‘re not convinced that’s ok let’s do a pairing fight one day 😉
One other element that matters is that as much as you can find the perfect wine for the perfect cheese (in some case I mean) I see that in most cases you are presented with 5 to 10 cheeses and 1 maybe 2 types of wine max. Just like “it goes with everything”. Red wine tannins pop up as very astringent with plenty of cheeses. Also, wine has that beauty that it’s not always the same so you can’t be completely sure unless you open bottles in advance and taste check everything. Not happening.
With beer you can afford that. You know the beer you selected, you can taste them in advance and you can definitely offer a selection of 5 beers or more for the dinner without breaking the bank.
I have worked many years with Michel Van Tricht, 2 times awarded best cheese affineur of Europe. He has a Kaasaffineur shop in Antwerp. If you are anytime around visiting, it’s a must go.
The last time we worked together was for a cheese selection for a range of 6 beers. The plan was to meet in his Atelier taste the beers and make the cheese selection. To set the scene I can already tell you we managed to do only 4 in that day.
I entered a kind of Ali Baba Cave. One side of the room was only cold rooms. Individual ones, different temperatures and humidity. All of them (I believe there were 2 layers of 3 cold rooms) had windows facing the center of the room. You could see all kinds of cheeses ripening. There were many years old Huge wheels of Conte, Big Parmigiano Reggiano, …
In the middle was an elegant long marble table for all preparations and on the other side of the room, a glass cube, the tasting room. We sat there. It was luckily a bit warmer and had a special air purification system to keep the place neutral. State of the art and high end design.
Beer number one tasting
One sip, another sip, all our senses in actions, key descriptors highlighted,… Michel leave the room to come back 5’ later with a selection of 3 cheeses. With long and inspiring cheese descriptions, origin, stories about the producer, the type of milk and the why he thought it would be a great match we were tasting each cheese with the beer. I forgot to say we had to select 2 for each beer.
Too salty, too strong, too spicy, too earthy, or not enough … damned, Michel kept leaving the room with excitement and by the window we could see him appear in one fridge after the other to come back with a new treasure. “This is the same but 1 year younger…this one has a special washing with salt from Normandy, that one is made with a very unique milk produced in…”
While you can find an average pairing quite easily, in the sense that good beer and good cheese will remain a good experience, we both realized that a perfect pairing is a different exercise. Even going for “blue cheese” pairing is not enough. Blue cheeses can be dry or creamy, they can be very fruity or very earthy, salty to rather sweet and that makes or breaks a pairing.
Now you understand why we could only land 4 beers and 8 cheeses selection by the end of the day. I was like a kid listening to stories. I wish I would have such a beer fridge and he would come with 3 cheeses….!
Michel Van Tricht has an unlimited and viral passion and knowledge. I am grateful he shared so much with me on that day. We nailed a selection that we have used in many events. The list is available here.
When I meet a Cheese master… I want to be a cheese master!
