Meh. While malty beers generally may go well with red meat, I find stouts very hard to pair outside of the dessert world. They typically go great with stuff like chocolate and cheesecake. But with main courses, not so much. Stout + Philly cheese steak is actually pretty rank. It may be a challenge peculiar to the contributions of very dark roasted barley.
The good news out of this is that Alabama apparently has a new stout on the block, St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout. I hadn’t previously heard anything about it but I stumbled upon it at Bruno’s at The Summit on my way home. T’ain’t cheap at $10+ for a four pack, but it is most excellent. The roasted malts jump out, smack you over the head, and then ruthlessly mock you.
They also had a pale ale from the same brewery but one expensive beer buy was all I was up for at the time, so it will have to wait for another day.
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Ooh, I love oatmeal stouts so I’ll have to pick this one up!