Wedge Community Porter + Mini Cupcakes

Come a little closer.

Wrap your mind around this one.  Decadent mini cupcakes paired with robust English Porter.  Remember cupcakes?  Well, they’re out.  Apparently, making mini cakes has become passé.  Now making mini cupcakes are all the rage.  Yep, you heard it here first.  Beerlicious is on the cutting edge of pastry fashion.  Here’s how I found out.  Last Thursday, my sister-in-law came through Birmingham with a friend on their way to a wedding in Mobile.  They went out to eat with my wife at a new European-style restaurant on 2nd Ave. North in Birmingham, Urban Standard, after reading a good writeup of the restaurant in Birmingham Weekly.  FWIW, Urban Standard is the only restaurant I am aware of in Birmingham that serves Primavera coffee.  Primavera is very selective about who they allow to serve their coffe.  Brett, the owner, once told me that they will only allow restaurants to serve their coffe if they are confident that the restaurant will prepare it correctly, which means proper equipment, proper glassware, and proper training.  At Urban Standard, the wife and SIL saw that they sold cupcakes, but decided that wasnt’ good enough. 

Closer Still.

They had already planned their next stop at a Homewood Bake Shoppe, Pastry Art, specifically to pick up some mini cupcakes.  Why mini cupcakes?  Who knows, but who am I to question fashion?  Now, my SIL lives in Beer Capital of the South, a.k.a. Asheville, NC.  When she comes to Beer Wasteland, she is always faithful to bring me a growler of something good.  This time she brought a growler of English Porter from Asheville’s newest brewery, Wedge Brewing Co.  So, my treat, when I arrived home on Thursday, was four mini cupcakes and a growler.  Excellent!  Of course I had to try to beer right away, and it was quite good.  I actually prefer American Style porters, with less fruitiness and more bold and assertive roasty flavors.  However, Wedge’s Community Porter is good for what it is and compares well to other English Porters I’ve had (Samuel Smith’s and Fuller’s).  The porter with dinner was fine, but the interesting part came when my wife and I sampled the various mini cupcakes from Pastry Art.  First was a chocolate cupcake.  My favorite.  What could be better than chocolate on chocolate with porter to boot?  Well, chocolate on chocolate with nuts was.  And even better than that?  Red Velvet.  In fact, to my surprise, the red velvet worked better with the beer than the chocolate cupcakes did.  For some reason the chocolate cupcakes had a lingering sweetness that competed with the beer, whereas the red velvet cupcake brought out a nice dry aftertaste in the porter.  

There's the art in Pastry Art.

The strawberry mini cupcake was the best of both worlds, initially dry with the roasted coffee and burnt chocolate flavors, the sweet strawberry didn’t stay down, but imposed itself slowly, mixing very nicely with the subtle esters in the porter.  Do you have to be “in” or have a sister-in-law who lives in Beer Nirvana to enjoy this pairing?  Certainly not.  A slice of strawberry cake and Fuller’s London Porter or Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter would probably fit the bill just fine.

Tags: Community Porter, Mini Cupcakes, Pastry Art, Strawberry Cake, Urban Standard, Wedge Brewing Co.