I just noticed this evening that my friends at Artisanal Cheese in New York are offering The Diverse, Unique and Superb Beers of Belgium as their Friday, April 23rd Cheese Class Event.
Led by Candela M. Prol, their Certified Beer Instructor, attendees will have a chance to taste Gueuze, Lambic, Red, Abbey and Ales paired with a fine selection
of our cheeses from Belgium, Luxembourg and beyond.
Since I share this on short notice, most of you will not be able to make it.
You can still find quite a bit of advice in the Beer and Cheese Pairings pages of Artisanal.
They suggest Ossau Iraty Pardou Arriou, a classic sheep's milk cheese from the Pyrenees Atlantiques with a Pilsner while Coulommiers, a soft cow cheese close to Brie does it best for a Stout or Porter.
Janet Fletcher was a bit more provocative in Forget wine and cheese parties — the true soul mate for fromage
isn't made from grape juice (SF Chronicle, February 2005).
Here's her opening salvo:
need convincing that beer and cheese go together. It's the die-hard wine
enthusiasts, myself included, who resist the notion that beer may in
fact be cheese's better match.
As a longtime cheese aficionado,
The Chronicle's weekly cheese columnist and a nightly wine drinker, I've
reluctantly concluded that many cheeses give wine, especially dry wine,
a rough time. But after several weeks of "research, " including two
marathon tastings, I'm convinced that beer as a partner for cheese
rarely stumbles. It takes some knowledge of beer and cheese to engineer
the most harmonious marriages, but intolerable mismatches are rare."
Wisconsin had an event dedicated to this marriage, the Isthmus Beer and Cheese Fest on January 30, 2010.
This Midwest fiesta was open minded as it left room to explore Beer and Chocolate.
Who said talking food and drinks had to be boring?