I refuse to accept this – that’s why I became involved in beer culture – so I kicked this recipe up a notch by using an Imperial Stout – Old Rasputin from North Coast, to be precise.

250ml/8.5oz Old Rasputin
250g/8.8oz sweet (unsalted) butter
75g/2.6oz cocoa
400g/14oz caster (superfine) sugar
142ml/4.8oz sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
275g/9.7oz plain (all purpose) flour
2.5 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 / 180c / 350f. Butter and line a 23cm/9 inch springform tin.
Pour the Old Rasputin into a large wide saucepan, add the butter in spoons or slices and heat until the butter has melted. Whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the mixture in the pan, then whisk in the flour and baking soda.
Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out mostly clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin on the cooling rack – this is a very moist cake.

When the cake is cold, sit it on a flat platter while you add the topping – a plain, white vanilla frosting makes the cake look like a glass of a fine stout.

Cut a slice of the cake and eat with some of the Old Rasputin. Wonder as the chocolate runs to the front of your mouth, followed by a rampaging horde of coffee flavours, then the sweetness is finally chased off your palate with an assertive *snap* of hop bitterness.

Now you can confidently leave those watery mass brands on the shelf for those of a less discriminating palate to purchase while you enjoy an extraordinary dessert served with a World Class beer.

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Beerlicious articles by Stuart Carter, stuart@beerlicious.net is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Grilled Gulf Shrimp served on a Fried Green Tomato and Remoulade paired with Terrapin Rye Squared
The high gravity Terrapin beers have just entered Alabama. This was my first experience with the Rye Squared. As usual the hops in the Terrapin worked wonders with the spice in the remoulade to make an explosive spice mix. Wonderful.

Jolly Pumpkin La Roja served with a traditional Chef’s Salad and La Roja Vinaigrette Dressing
Jolly Pumpkin make very interesting and complex beers using wild fermentation, and are not the easiest to get hold of. All of them have some brettanomyces to provide a sour, wild flavour and unique taste profile.
The combination with the vinaigrette dressing and the chef’s salad is divine. The gentle sourness provides an almost vinegary tang that works perfectly with the salad. Seek out Jolly Pumpkin ales – don’t be put off by the description “sour” – this is an exceptionally good beer.

Three Cheese Tortellini covered in an Alabama Chevre Pasta Sauce accompanied by Rochefort 8 Trappiste Ale
The three-cheese pasta and goat cheese sauce is a great dish in itself.  The Rochefort is the 73rd best beer in the world (at the time of writing) and deserves this place – it is stunningly flavourful, rich and malty, explosively carbonated and delicious.
The combination is sheer perfection. The maltiness in the beer matches the rich unctuousness of the cheese, while the explosive carbonation scrubs the palate – and tongue – clean with every mouthful, cleaning and refreshing the palate to make every bite of the tortellini just as tasty as the first.
An example of a perfect beer and food pairing.

Cask Conditioned Ola Dubh Special 40 Reserve along with Sliced Smoked BBQ Mutton
Ola Dubh – Scottish Gaelic for Black Oil – is an old ale from Scotland. It’s matured in a cask that was previously used to mature single malt Scottish whisky from Highland Park, Scotland’s second most northerly distillery. It is rich, dense, tasty, with profound notes of single malt; a sublime beverage.
The Ola Dubh stands in stark contrast to the rich smokiness of the pulled mutton and the citrus-infused BBQ sauce, perking up your taste buds and providing a nice digestif to finish off the main course.

Good People Fatso Imperial Stout Ice Cream Float
Fatso is the new Imperial Stout from Birmingham’s own Good People brewery. Its taste has masses of coffee richness and an almost silky mouthfeel. In the ice cream float, it mutates into the richest, densest, most silky mocha coffee you can even imagine.  Absolutely wonderful.

Some rights reserved:

Beerlicious articles by Stuart Carter, stuart@beerlicious.net is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza with a fresh garden salad mixed with toasted walnuts and goat cheese, tossed in a Jolly Pumpkin vinaigrette. — Oro de Calabaza is an earth-shattering Bier de Garde with brett funk, aged in oak barrels.  But the oak is barely noticeable.  Lots of black pepper pop and subtle hops.  It somehow made the goat cheese taste even more goat cheesy and was an incredible compliment to the woodsy walnuts.  A+

Macaroni coated with melted brie and Monterrey served with Unibroue Trois Pistoles. — Trois Pistoles is my favorite Belgian strong dark ale.  I mentioned to the attendees last night that Unibroue says it has a shelf life of at least 8 years.  Lots of dark plum and raisin flavor melding with spicy Belgian yeast and alcohol complexity.  It was just an interesting contrast to the smooth buttery flavor contributed by the brie.  Hard to put into words, but a good combo.  A

Good People Snake Handler paired with buttered baked potato, not smothered but pampered with Point Reyes Bleu Cheese. — I am convinced that Birmingham’s own Good People have turned out one of the finest double IPAs in the world.  Just phenomenal, bursting with American hop explosiveness.  Not many foods can stand up to that kind of flavor intensity, and it’s not uncommon for hop flavors to clash harshly with various flavors in food; I’ve encountered that many times.  And not many beers can hold up to the palate-crushing flavor of a strong blue cheese.  So this pairing is an amazing battle that takes place on your taste buds, but it’s surprisingly enjoyable.  The flavors really compliment one another, and I think everyone was impressed by this.  Very fun.  A+

Smoked spare ribs lightly brushed with The J. Clyde’s signature BBQ sauce along a side of vinaigrette cole slaw and North Coast Old Stock Ale. — Old Stock is a sweet and alcoholic English old ale.  This year’s vintage is 11.5% ABV.  When planning the menu I had taste tested the beer up against a chicken breast sauteed in the Clyde’s BBQ sauce, which was a really great pairing.  The beer is quite sweet and the Clyde’s sauce is really, really lemony-tart.  It had an interesting sweet & sour feel going for it.  But the smokiness of the ribs added another element and it wasn’t quite as good as my chicken pairing.  The smoke of the ribs somewhat overpowered the subtle complexities of the Old Stock.  It still went well, but it wasn’t all it could have been.  B+

Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout with a nice slice of chocolate pie and whipped cream. — I was actually worried about this one, as it was the only one I didn’t taste test before the dinner.  I normally wouldn’t hesitate when it comes to stouts and chocolate, but Yeti is one of the hoppiest stouts out there, full of intense American hops.  75 IBU.  But the chocolate flavors from the dark malts won out here and it was a very good pairing.  The two together produced a new, unique flavor in your mouth.  I think by bringing out flavors in the hops that weren’t really noticeable in the beer alone.  Different but tasty.  A

This was the perfect pairing.

The stir fry veggies came in a large frozen package from Costco.  I poured some into a bowl while I thawed some frozen chicken.  Fried it all up and added some hoisin sauce.  Served on a bed of brown rice.

Awesome stuff.

Yeti Russian Imperial Stout

Great Divide is another great American brewery. Based out of Colorado, they produce a number of very highly rated beers. My all-time favourite of theirs is their Yeti Russian Imperial Stout: it’s rich, complex, with flavours of coffee, dark chocolate, dark fruits, and pancake syrup!

So, why would I pair a stout with steak?

The thought I had was that the malty richness of the beer should go well with the caramelised juices on the surface of the steak, and the coffee and chocolate tastes shouldn’t be too obvious.

And what was the outcome?

Oh my. At first bite it seemed like a huge mistake – the hops leapt up to smack me in the mouth. But after the first shock, it was simply sublime. I was right that the caramelised steak juices played nicely off the huge malt backbone of the stout, the coffee and chocolate flavours blended into the background nicely, and the hops scoured the fats off my tongue, making each bite of the steak just as succulent as the first.

Definitely a winner!

I didn’t plan on this, and I suspected it might be awful, but this was how the chips fell tonight.  I had planned out my evening beer selection before we decided on what to do for dinner, and then I accidentally finished the DFH 60 Minute IPA right when I finished cooking.  The Ten Fidy was all that was left in the fridge.  Pale ales and IPAs typically pair wonderfully with Mexican food, and dark beers are hard to pair well.

Ten Fidy is blacker than the blackest night, thick as motor oil.  Heavy roasted malt flavors accented by dark chocolate.  Laced with hoppy bitterness.  It doesn’t get any darker than this.  So I was surprised when it wasn’t horribly offensive paired with a gordita.  It was generally ok, but not great.  The flavors from each are so strong that a bite of gordita overwhelmed residual beer flavors, and a sip of beer overwhelmed residual food flavors.

The gordita was from a kit that came with thick tortillas, a seasoning packet, and ranch sauce.  The directions suggested chicken or beef; I went with chicken as I usually do.  The way to go is to cut it into thin strips and pan fry it with a little olive oil.  That adds a lot of flavor you lose if you just boil it.  We didn’t have much available in the way of toppings.  I found a random can of whole peeled tomatoes and cut that up.  We had some shredded cheese in the fridge.  And I put some salsa on mine, but it was spicy and the wife and kids can’t handle that.  Pretty good stuff for a kit.

Just for grins I sampled a pecan with the final couple ounces of Ten Fidy, and it was a better match than the gordita, but still nothing to get excited about.