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.

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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.

The core question was which is better – Doppelbock or Old Ale? I always went with Doppelbocks because Garrett Oliver recommended it highly in his book. I agree with him that Doppelbock is great with roast pork, but pulled pork BBQ is a very different eating experience.

First up is Tommyknocker Butt Head Bock, which is a Doppelbock despite the name. This is a tasty, easy to drink beer, and I was convinced it would pair well with the BBQ. Sadly this was not to be: although the initial combined flavour is very tasty, bringing out sweet richness in the meat and the beer, it ends with a nasty bitter twist just at the back of the throat. I couldn’t put a name to the wrong flavour, just that it is there. Quite a disappointment as it started out extremely well.

Next up was Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock. I have paired this very successfully in the past with roast pork and accordingly had very high expectations, especially as this beer is rated (at the time of writing) as the 45th best beer in the world on beeradvocate.com.

This is, indeed, a very tasty combination with some strange effects. The pairing makes the Celebrator taste almost like it was made with English Fuggles hops – it brings out that hop funk flavour that makes English beer so distinctive. The BBQ brings out a subtle but distinct oak woodiness in the beer. This was an extremely agreeable pairing, but how would the Old Stock hold up?

Old Stock Ale is an Old Ale from North Coast Brewing Co and it clocks in at a significant 12.50% ABV. This was recently paired by Danner with smoked ribs. I knew that this would be a good pairing… but just how good?

It’s an absolute winner. The beer and the BBQ go together like they were meant to be: the beer pulls out sweet and rich flavours from the BBQ, the BBQ brings out a creamy rich smoothness in the beer. Old Stock even achieves greatness with BBQ beans! There is never a harsh or clashing moment with Old Stock, just rich, tasty, deliciousness. I have a new “go-to” beer for pairing with BBQ.

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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.

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

North Coast Old Stock + dark chocolate. More of that 72% stuff from Whole Foods.  I wasn’t at all sure of this one before trying it, since my most successful pairings with chocolate have involved stouts.   But this was excellent.  Old Stock is a very rich and malty beer with some prominent alcohol notes.  The dark chocolate really pulls out some intense caramel flavors from the beer.  Which, as you might imagine, goes quite well with the bitter chocolate of the 72% grade.

Heineken + Chang’s Spicy Chicken and Crispy Honey Shrimp. The wife wanted P.F. Chang’s the other day on date night.  Inspired by Doug’s Heineken experience with Korean food, I went that direction (as the beer list is a bit depressing).  Not exciting.  P.F. Chang’s around here carried Sweetwater 42o way back in the day, and that would have been a lot more interesting.  But the SOBs dropped it a couple years ago or so.  I don’t hate Heineken, but the flavors are just soooo subtle.  It was washed out by the rather potent Chinese food.  At least it wasn’t skunked.

Cascade Lakes Santa’s Little Helper + Andouille with Red Beans and Rice. Leftovers.  But unlike the pasta from a week ago, red beans and rice doesn’t suffer from sitting in the fridge for a couple days.  Still great.  Though it presents itself as a winter warmer, Santa’s Little Helper is essentially a hoppy American amber.  Quite a nice beer, and another good compliment to the andouille sausage with red beans and rice.  Maybe not quite as good as the hoppier red rye homebrew, as the andouille is pretty intense.  The beer has to fight for some attention on the palate.  But it pulls through and works well.

And finally, Avery Old Jubilation + Hot Wings, tonight.  More leftovers, but these were superior to the first round.  When I cooked these last week, I fried the wings up, poured the sauce over them, and dug in.  Then I put the leftovers in a ziplock bag and poured the remaining sauce in with them.  So they’ve been marinating for a few days, and they were a notch better tonight.  Spicier and more painful.

In spite of my recent comment that I was devoted to pursuing future wing consumption paired with IPAs, I must hang my head in shame and admit I have no IPAs currently in stock.  I probably have at least 20 different styles of beer around right now, but no IPAs.  Shameful.  Part of me wanted to try the homebrew red rye here, as it has IPA levels of hoppiness.  But I instead opted for experimentation.  I went very malty: Avery Old Jubilation.

And the results were surprisingly good.  The caramel sweetness of this old ale-style winter warmer actually provided a good balance to the vinegar spiciness of the wings.  Good contrast, and no off flavors as I’ve experienced with some failed malty pairings.

Ultimately, though, I’m still going to have to vote for the IPA as the preferred pairing for wings.  The citrusy hops of a good American IPA are perfectly refreshing up against the heat of buffalo wings.  Although interesting and complimentary, the winter warmer left me wanting something that felt a little more quenching.  I’m sure a macro lager would acheive that (and certainly has for millions of wings fans), but of course you wouldn’t be tasting anything in that sort of beer when pitted against the intensity of high heat wings; it would be functionally equivalent to water on your palate.  Which defeats the purpose of intentional pairings…

I guess it really is what's for dinner.

This is more or less the quintessential Southern meal, no?

Good steak is a relatively rare treat for us, so I carefully weighed my beer options for this.  I didn’t want to screw it up.  On one hand, on this very website Stuart has been praising the virtues of red meat with malty beer pairings.  On the other, I found some beer discussion forum talk at BA with several respondents recommending IPAs with steak.

What to do, what to do?

I went with Great Divide Hibernation Ale.  A winter seasonal in the style of an English Old Ale.  Malty won out.

This was simply incredible.  The sweet, malty, nutty flavors of the beer combined with a little alcohol bite and some subtle, spicy hops melded perfectly with the steak.

Admire the grill lines. And the smoke.

USDA Choice cut Rib eye.  Medium rare.  (USDA Prime is a bit above my pay grade.)

Anyway these were mongo hunks of steak.  Again, Costco to the rescue.  Around $25 for 4 large steaks.

I’m pretty hardcore on using charcoal over gas.  I love that smoky flavor.  All I did was let these sit out about an hour and a half before grilling to hit room temp.  A little olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Bam.  Grill over the hottest coals I could muster, 4-5 minutes each side.

And a malty old ale is definitely the winner.