Each year for Valentine’s Day my wife and I forgo the typical high-priced prix fixe menus and predictably poor service that accompanies dining out on Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, and Mother’s Day. Instead, we indulge ourselves in a gourmet meal, which I prepare, followed by dessert, which my wife prepares.
This year, we settled on filet mignon, roasted winter vegetables, and mixed greens with homemade Roquefort blue cheese dressing. The dinner was actually quite easy to put together. It required a minimal amount of prep work–cutting the veggies and blending the dressing–but was otherwise a breeze to assemble. The difficult part was choosing a beer. I wanted something special as it was Valentine’s day, so I pulled out a slight rarity, Opus 10 by Two Brothers Brewing Co. Classified as a cherry lambic, it is entirely unique as it is a dark lambic with more chocolate than cherry flavors. The result was quite fantastic.
Knowing my wife is not a big beer fan, I also opened a bottle of Kirkland Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. I figured this was a perfect opportunity to pit beer against wine. For those who like tannic hearty Cabs, let me say that for $16 a bottle at Costco, you can’t beat the Kirkland Cab. Really, it is worth it. To me it tastes like a $35 bottle (despite my affinity for beer, I still love a good wine). But this is a blog about beer and food, and I digress.
My first comparison came with the filet. Both the cab and the lambic went well with the meat, but to be honest, the wine enhanced the flavor of the steak and the beer did not. My next comparison came with the root veggies–carrots, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes roasted under the broiler with olive oil, salt, and pepper. The veggies went just fine with both the beer and the wine, no weird flavors or anything. The most interesting pairing of the meal was the Roquefort dressing and the lambic. If you aren’t a fan of funky beer or funky cheese you would not like this pairing. The lambic took the spoiled flavor of the cheese and enhanced it ten-fold. For those who are curious, I looked it up, and the flavor I’m refering to is butyric acid–common in rancid butter, parmesan cheese, and body odor! Doesn’t sound good unless you’re into that sort of thing, right? It is kind of like reading reviews of lambics–”horsey,” “sweaty,” “barnyard,” etc. You have to ask yourself, “But is it good?” Split decision.
My wife found the combination to be utterly foul. I thought it was good if not a bit overpowering. I’ll be honest, I like smelly cheese and all kinds of wild brews, but I actually needed to mix in other parts of the meal so as to keep from being overwhelmed.
The real surprise for the night for me was when I pitted the cherry lambic directly against the dark red wine. The wine brought out the cherry in the lambic in a way that was quite pleasant. All in all it was a very interesting experiment. The only disappointment I had was that I didn’t save any Opus 10 for dessert. Chocolate-cherry lambic would’ve been awsome with some brownies à la mode with berry sauce.
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