Please consume us fresh!
This was was ill-fated from the beginning, but it ended up acceptable.
Ill-fated because both the beer and the food were past their prime. The food, I knew about going in; it had been in the freezer for a long time. The beer was a surpise and a let down. Bought at Jax Wine & Spirits in Cumming, GA, it was way past its prime. Of course I didn’t realize that until I tasted it. I’ve had this beer before, and it is a glorious hop bomb. But not when it’s old. And this one was obviously really, really old. Sigh. When hoppy beers get too old, they lose most of their hop flavor and aroma, and all that remains is the bitterness.
I searched in vain to find anything resembling a date code on the bottle or the four-pack holder (like many high gravity craft beers, this comes in a four pack instead of a six pack because it is expensive to produce). The fact is this guy would’ve been way better a year ago, or maybe two years ago for all I know.
And the chicken, well, here’s where I shine through, warts and all. This was Perdue’s frozen General Tso’s Chicken, bought at Publix a long time ago and forgotten in the freezer. It wasn’t world class to begin with, and after wasting away in the freezer for many months, it didn’t get any better. But it was good enough to eat on a night when the wife was out running errands, the boy was eating leftover Chick-fil-A, and the girl earnestly beseeched me to have macaroni and cheese for dinner. Such is my life. I’m out to find beers that go well with great food, and beers that go well with merely edible food. Tonight was an occasion for the latter.
So the combination was fine. Nothing exceptional, but the circumstances were highly antagonistic towards exceptional beer/food pairings. I’d be interested in trying some really good, fresh General Tso’s (of the non-frozen, non-Perdue kind) with some fresh SA Imperial Pilsner. It has a lot of potential, but tonight was not the night for that…
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