The food came from a nondescript typical Chinese takeout place in Alabama.  General Tso’s is the standard by which I judge all Chinese joints, and this iteration was not high quality at all.  As sweet as candy and no spicy heat at all.  Fun to eat in a junk food sort of way, but not gourmet cuisine.

But the Gaelic classed the meal up quite a bit, offering a beautiful malty sweet compliment to the General Tso’s.  Only the Gaelic Ale is not cloying, so it actually reduced the sickly sweet flavor of the chicken.  And the chicken’s sweetness somehow brought out some interesting notes from the caramel malt that weren’t otherwise obvious, actually improving the experience of drinking the beer.

Call me crazy, but I’m going to rate this pairing as “perfection,” not because the food was particularly good, but because sometime in life you might find yourself eating crappy Chinese takeout and knowing which beer to put with it to improve the overall experience would be helpful.

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.

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…

Ginger liquid bread.

Well, this was a no-brainer, but lots of work.

Dogfish Head Pangaea is brewed with ginger.  I normally don’t like beers with prominent ginger, but what could possibly go better with Chinese food?  Especially a dish made with ginger.  Beer with ginger paired with Chinese food with ginger: failure was mathematically impossible.

In a move reminiscent of my German potatoes stunt, I was at the store with no idea what I needed to buy to make General Tso’s so I Googled “recipe general tso’s chicken.”  But this time, I went with the third result.  And it was excellent.

I must confess, I’d never cooked with corn starch before, but it is a miracle substance.  It produces an amazing batter for frying, then makes that signature thick, sticky sauce common to my favorite Chinese dishes.  I’m a new fan.

Of course I used fresh garlic (and tons of it), not canned minced garlic.  The difference is huge.  And the only dried chiles Publix had were Mexican in origin.  I made do, but they really didn’t add much flavor.

For a side I steamed some broccoli with more fresh chopped garlic.  And threw in some instant brown rice.  What a meal.

The intensity of flavor from the General Tso’s almost drowned out the beer.  But it snuck back in here and there and rounded out the meal just right.  Lots of ginger, garlic, and green onion flavors.

By the way, my wife has very restricted tastes in beer, but she enjoyed the beer and the pairing.

Good thing this was such an exquisite dining experience, as tomorrow I anticipate taking a break with something frozen and/or leftover…

Please consume us fresh!

This was was ill-fated from the beginning, but it ended up acceptable.

Ill-fated because both the beer and the food were past their prime.  The food, I knew about going in; it had been in the freezer for a long time.  The beer was a surpise and a let down.  Bought at Jax Wine & Spirits in Cumming, GA, it was way past its prime.  Of course I didn’t realize that until I tasted it.  I’ve had this beer before, and it is a glorious hop bomb.  But not when it’s old.  And this one was obviously really, really old.  Sigh.  When hoppy beers get too old, they lose most of their hop flavor and aroma, and all that remains is the bitterness.

I searched in vain to find anything resembling a date code on the bottle or the four-pack holder (like many high gravity craft beers, this comes in a four pack instead of a six pack because it is expensive to produce).  The fact is this guy would’ve been way better a year ago, or maybe two years ago for all I know.

And the chicken, well, here’s where I shine through, warts and all.  This was Perdue’s frozen General Tso’s Chicken, bought at Publix a long time ago and forgotten in the freezer.  It wasn’t world class to begin with, and after wasting away in the freezer for many months, it didn’t get any better.  But it was good enough to eat on a night when the wife was out running errands, the boy was eating leftover Chick-fil-A, and the girl earnestly beseeched me to have macaroni and cheese for dinner.  Such is my life.  I’m out to find beers that go well with great food, and beers that go well with merely edible food.  Tonight was an occasion for the latter.

So the combination was fine.  Nothing exceptional, but the circumstances were highly antagonistic towards exceptional beer/food pairings.  I’d be interested in trying some really good, fresh General Tso’s (of the non-frozen, non-Perdue kind) with some fresh SA Imperial Pilsner.  It has a lot of potential, but tonight was not the night for that…