Pairing Beer and Food

Trying something a bit different with today's post. My girlfriend, Meredith and I enjoy cooking together. Well, really we enjoy the eating, but the cooking can be fun too. This past weekend Meredith had it in mind to make a chicken dish using bourbon, peach preserves, and barbeque sauce and thought that we should try to pair some beer with it and that would make an interesting post for the blog. Now that's an idea I can absolutely get behind. To the beer, and the food!
While shopping for ingredients to make the dinner we had to make a stop at the liquor store to find the most important aspects to the meal, the beer! I latched onto the bourbon and the peach. I thought that those would make the best jumping off point for finding complimentary flavors and something that would work well together.

I didn't really want to go for a bourbon barrel aged beer as most of them are stouts and let's face it, it's still August. Also I figured, and rightly so, that a lot of the bourbon heat and booziness would be cooked out of the dish. The wood aging idea did spark something in my head though. Just because a beer is wood aged, doesn't mean it's barrel aged. I decided to go with Stone Brewing's Oaked Arrogant Bastard. An American strong ale aged on oak chips. I figured that the vanilla and caramel flavors would accent similar flavors in the bourbon that would be imparted to the glaze and the chicken.

Meredith decided to play off the peach flavors. She opted for a bottle of Dogfish Head's Festina Pêche. A Berliner Weissbier Summer seasonal flavored with peach concentrate. After acquiring the beers and the rest of the ingredients we headed back to get to work.

The whole lineup for the dinner included the bourbon peach barbeque chicken, summer squash casserole, and roasted Brussels sprouts. The recipes for which can be found here, here, and here if you'd like to play along at home.

The food came out amazing. The chicken was tender and juicy, and the glaze was delicious. The Brussels Sprouts were very tasty. But the real standout of the meal was the summer squash seasonal. Holy crap. That stuff was Thanksgiving dinner good. But what about the beer you say? Since I couldn't give these beers the full attention that I usually do you're just getting quick hit reviews. But you're also getting two!

The Oaked arrogant Bastard pours a crystal clear ruby brown topped off by a thin layer of tan head that hold on pretty well. The aromas are of big roasty caramel malts, oily resinous hops, and hints at that oak aging.

Oaked Bastard is smooth and malty. Big rich caramel notes hit first. Faint accents of vanilla from the oak aging add to the complexity. There's also plenty of big piney resinous hop flavors. The ABV presents itself as a bit of warming booziness.

Oaked Arrogant Bastard is a tremendously good beer. Even better and more complex than the original Arrogant Bastard. The sweetness in the beer accented the sweetness in the glaze on the chicken very nicely. Also, the bourbon-like vanilla flavors in both play well against each other.

On to the Dogfish Head! Festina Pêche pours a hazed over pale yellow capped by a bubbly bright white head that recedes pretty quickly. The aromas are bready and tart. There's a sweet, powdery, candy-like character. As well as an almost minty note. Very interesting.

Festina Pêche tastes light, spritzy, and very tart. It's highly carbonated and finishes quite dry. Peach flavors are there to be found but they're overshadowed by a lot of citrusy lemony flavors. There's also a nice wheaty creaminess.

At first I really wasn't feeling the Festina Pêche. The tartness really caught me off guard. As I drank more and more of it though I gained a certain respect for it. While I still don't think it's quite to my taste I can clearly see that it's an extremely well constructed beer. Not my favorite beer, but very good and worth checking out for sure.

Oaked Bastard was an interesting pairing in that the beer had similar flavors to the dish. Festina Pêche however was more of a contrast. Like I said, the peach flavors were sort of overshadowed so they didn't really come into play. The light spritzyness played well against what  is a bit of a heavier dish. At the same time the tart flavors of the beer contrasted very interestingly against the sweet flavors from the peach, bourbon, and barbeque sauce in the chicken.

This was a really interesting experiment. One beer played to similarities, one to contrasts. But that's the thing with pairing food and beer, there's no real wrong answer! Good food and good beer make for a good meal. It's easy to over think trying to find the perfect beer for that pairs exactly right with a meal. But if you enjoy both, and they taste good together, you've done your job.

HD