©2007, Randy Mosher/All About Beer magazine
Beer and cheese have a lot in common. As Brooklyn Brewing’s brewmaster, Garret Oliver, is fond of pointing out, cheese is grass processed by microbes in the cow’s stomach, and beer is grass processed by the brewer and the action of a microbe, yeast.
The businesses share similarities as well. At one end of the scale are industrial giants making vast seas of mass-market products, and at the other are craftspeople making rare, artisanal products largely by hand. After more than a hundred years of the pendulum swinging in favor of industrialized food and drink, it’s starting to swing back the other way. People are realizing that convenience, efficiency and low price are not necessarily all that great a bargain.
Specialty cheese started here in the early 1980s, about the same time as craft beer, but has grown more slowly. The American Cheese Society, the organization that represents small and specialty producers, was founded in 1983, but American specialty cheese is still flying under the radar. It’s out there, but you have to make an effort to track it down, as it can rarely be found in grocery stores. As with beer, we’ve tended in the past to look to Europe for the finer examples of cheese, and the Old World certainly offers plenty of inspiring delights. However, American producers now offer products that are every bit the equal of European ones, offering the same creative, spirited approach as craft beers.
The ACS divides cheese producers into three categories: ‘farmstead’ cheeses are produced right on the farm where the entirety of the milk comes from; ‘artisanal’ means small, often family operations that get the majority of their milk elsewhere; and ‘specialty’ is a broader definition: “limited production, with particular attention paid to natural flavor and texture profiles,” and which may come from larger producers.
Although the undercurrents of a desire to make sustainable, meaningful and above all, flavorful products are the same for beer and cheese, there are some differences. Cheese is much more directly connected to agriculture than beer. As in beer, there are refugees from the corporate world, but much of the artisanal movement is driven by newer generations wishing to stay on the farm by making products with more meaning, adding value rather than just selling commodities. Craft brewing was launched through the homebrewing movement as practitioners put a business plan together and started brewing professionally, a process that continues today. While there are some amateur cheese-makers, the hobby hasn’t been a big driver of the movement.
Specialty cheese-makers are starting to realize beer is a natural companion and great selling tool. And as I myself have found out, it’s a small and comfortable step from beer lover to beer and cheese aficionado. A few are starting to pick up on this. Rogue happens to be the name of both a creamery and a brewery, although they do not share ownership. But the two have been working a lot together to spread the message of great beer and cheese.
Cheese may be made from a number of different types of milk: cow, sheep, goat, and buffalo. Each has different properties and flavors. Goat and sheep milk have distinct, rustic, animal aromas that often match well with earthier beers, especially those using wild yeast such as Brettanommyces. The milk and curds can be processed in a number of different ways that affect the density, texture, mouthfeel and more. Cheese can be ready to eat with little or even no aging, or it can be formed into various shapes and aged under all kinds of conditions for brief or extended times. A variety of different types of fungus and bacteria are used to affect the outcome. Below is a sampling of cheese types.
Semi-Soft These are the familiar cheeses such as Colby and Jack that have little or no rind, and are not treated with bacteria or fungus.
Pasta Filata These are kneaded cheeses like Mozzarella and Provolone. The fresher varieties tend to have simple, milky flavors.
Wax-Dipped This is the classic American method, in which cheeses are sealed in am airtight layer of paraffin. Cheeses age very slowly in this scheme. One Wisconsin producer ages their cheddar for eight years in this manner.
Cloth-Wrapped Classic English Cheddars and other cheeses are aged this way. The cloth just helps beep the bugs off, but allows moisture to escape, so the cheese dries out as it ages.
Blue Pennicillum mold is injected into the cheese and develops into a complex, herby. Most typically made with high-fat milk, blue can be soft and subtle or among the most pungent cheeses on the planet.
Soft-Ripened (Bloomy-Rind) These are cheeses like Brie, that rely on a fungus to produce a whitish, edible coating on the outside. Bloomy-rind cheeses usually are fairly high in butterfat content.
Swiss-Type Special bacteria metabolize sugars in the cheese and create gas bubbles that form the familiar texture of Swiss cheese.
Washed Rind Fresh cheese is literally washed with a substance—like beer—that changes the pH of the cheese and so encourages specific bacteria that produce a gooey center and a ripe, “stinky” aroma. Authentic Münster is an example.
Firm/Hard These are cow or sheep cheeses such as Parmesan, or Manchego that are allowed to dry out as they age and often develop intense meaty flavors.
Raw Milk Right now, in the US, producers are forbidden to use unpasteurized milk for any cheese that will be sold in less than 60 days. It’s a complex issue, but people have been making and eating raw milk cheese for thousands of years.
Let’s Have a Taste
The wine world has done a pretty good job on drilling the inseparability of wine and cheese into people’s heads. I love wine with a number of foods, but I’m afraid cheese isn’t one of them. The best you can hope for is a pairing based on contrasts, because the two share little in common. In fact, cheese does such a good job of disguising the flavors of wine that merchants are advised to “sell on cheese.” As legendary wine merchant George Saintstbury put it: “An overripe brie will kill a Burgundy stone dead.” That same ripe cheese might be a stunner next to a Belgian style saison, with its brisk carbonation, clean palate and spicy, earthy perfume.
Beer is fantastic with cheese for a number of reasons. First, it has an amazing range: from straw to black in color, three to more than twenty percent alcohol, sweet and malty to blisteringly bitter. With a range of aromas to match, there are endless choices. Carbonation is a big help; its physical action literally scrubs away fat and protein, which is important in keeping your palate refreshed as you go along. Alcohol has a similar cleansing effect, which is why higher-fat cheese usually works better with stronger beer.
Beer and cheese pairings rely on the same commonsense techniques as any other kind of food. There are many different approaches, but I feel that there are three things that always need to be addressed for any beer and food match to really work. These do not need to be done in any particular order.
Match intensity. This is just a matter of getting the beer and cheese at each other’s level. It’s important that one doesn’t overwhelm the other. In cheese, intensity is a combination of milk type, fat content, aging time, and auxiliary treatment of the kind found in blue or ripened types. In beer it’s a combination of original gravity, alcohol, roastiness, bitterness and other flavors. In my experience, pairing is much trickier at the lighter end of the scale. Flavors are delicate and it’s harder to find sensations that are really thrilling and that spark one another. Perhaps it’s similar to finding a good session beer. Lightning isn’t going to strike right away; it’s an association that takes time to build, and eventually it develops into a mellow old friendship.
Find harmonious aromas. This is an easy one, because there are so many common elements. Beer and cheese share a good deal of flavor vocabulary. Cheese displays buttery, nutty, caramelly, tangy, fruity, meaty and even toasty flavors. These either mirror flavors found in beer, or are part of combinations we’ve been enjoying since childhood. Nutty flavors are common in medium-colored beers and medium-intensity cheeses. Earthy aromas from goat cheese blend with earthy Belgian style beers. The herbal notes of blue cheese mingle surprisingly well with exuberantly hoppy beers. The carameliness of an aged gouda leads right into the smooth toastiness of a strong porter.
Deal with contrasts. This looks at specific taste and texture elements in the beer and cheese that can interact with each other. In cheese, the two main players are butterfat and umami. Either alcohol or hop bitterness can balance buttery/creamy flavors in cheese. For a really big creamy cheese, you might try both. Umami has a long, lingering flavor that hops also do a nice job of countering umami, but toasty, roasty flavors seem to pleasantly magnify.
In addition, there are pairs that work because they bring together familiar flavors in a new context. Well-aged cheese like a three year-old Gouda has intense caramelized meaty flavors, as well as a fair amount of salt. We’re accustomed to enjoying these in the presence of roasty flavors—think about a well-charred steak or smash burger. The cheese pairing recasts those familiar flavors into a new presentation. The first pair below recalls a sensation of peach ice cream, the milky cheese flavors mingling with the fruitiness of the wheat beer. The third pairing recalls a grilled cheese sandwich, with its comforting melding of toast and tangy, runny cheese. Naturally, these can be show-stoppers, and highly memorable pairs.
Putting a Beer and Cheese Tasting Together
Cheese offers the same kind of variety, subtlety, sense of terroir and sheer bliss a great beer, so there’s no reason not to dive right in. As a beer lover already you are more than halfway there. Here are my thoughts for getting started.
The simplest thing to do is show up at your local beer bar or taproom (that doesn’t sell food) with half a dozen cheeses, and some serving implements and have at it. Most breweries sell flights, so it’s easy enough to work your way through. Some kind of note-taking sheet is helpful
You may be lucky enough to find an organized public tasting of cheese and beer, but these, at present, are still few and far between. I organized one for the Chicago Beer Society recently that featured 24 pairings, from subtle to sledgehammer, and it was quite a treat for those who were able to attend. But I can tell you that the planning sessions were almost as much fun as the event. It’s a huge pleasure being able to try things out and discuss, even argue with a few other equally fanatical beer and cheese fans.
If you can rustle up three or four great cheeses and twice as many beers, you can have a fantastic little tasting. I’ll have some suggestions, but there are plenty of other places to look for inspiration. I find the folks behind the cheese counter at Whole Foods and other specialty markets to be well versed in what beers work with their cheeses. All you have to do is ask.
Here’s a few pairs that rarely miss:
Bavarian hefeweizen, with buffalo milk burrata (fresh mozzarella stuffed with curds and cream). Creates an illusion of spiced peach ice cream.
Almost any red fruit flavored beer with fresh chèvre. Like fruit on yogurt, but much more decadent.
Pale Ale and traditional English-style cheddar. These have been plowman’s pals since time immemorial, so they’re going to work for you as well.
A toasty brown ale and a nutty cheese. There are many cheeses that fit this description: Compte, Ossau-Itary, Raclette and many others. Pick one and go for it.
Brett saison with an ash-dusted ripened goat cheese. Intertwining worlds of funk, with the dryness and carbonation dealing with the extreme creaminess of the cheese.
A strong India pale ale (7%+) and a blue cheese. As there are lots of choices, fine tune your choices with the “match intensity” rule. A standard IPA might stand up to a blue brie, but it takes a huge Imperial version to match an aged gorgonzola.
Stilton and barleywine. Simply a more intensified version of the IPA pairing above.
A well-aged Gouda and an imperial stout. The caramelly, meaty cheese just melts in the presence of the smoothly roasty stout. Experience it either a chocolate-covered salted caramel sensation or as a liquid cheeseburger, with the beer providing the grill marks.
Resources
www.cheesesociety.org This trade association (ACS) has a good deal of useful information on its site, including a membership directory that lists not only cheesemakers, but specialty retailers as well.
www.cheesemaking.com In case you need another hobby. Honest, the microwaved mozzarella is like a miracle!
The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese, by Jeff Roberts This is the first book to cover the subject in any detail, and is a must-have for any American cheese adventurer.
Cheese Primer, by Steven Jenkins Good introductory book on the pleasures of cheese. Fairly Eurocentric.
Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Delicious Cheeses, by Ricki Carrol If you can brew your own beer, you can make your own cheese.
American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide to Making and Selling, by Paul Kindsedt So maybe you want to get into the cheese biz?
One final thought. Get the very best cheese you can find. Although if you’re used to grocery store cheese, the prices may seem high, in truth for the kind of rich experience, complexity and depth, great cheese is a true bargain. Sure, giant factories can turn out something that looks like cheese for a couple of bucks a pound, but artisanal cheese is a handmade product, and people in it are doing it because they have a passion and a mission to preserve these traditions that enrich our lives. They deserve our support.