Ben McFarland... on beer and cheese
Beer writer of the year Ben McFarland thinks wine and cheese should call it a day - beer and cheese is where it's at.
"Du Pain? Du Vin? Du Boursin?" Do me a favour! Throw in a Deuchars or a Duvel and you may be onto something - albeit something that doesn't rhyme particularly well.
Cheese likes beer more than wine. Wine rivals chalk in terms of cheese incompatibility. That the two tend to meet on the dinner table after a meal is merely a gastronomic marriage of convenience.
OK, so wine and cheese parties were all the rage in the Seventies, but so were brown velvet flares and Austin Allegros. As we're all eating and drinking better, cracks have appeared in wine and cheese's relationship and it's crumbling like a Danish Blue.
It's best if they call it a day. After all, wine is more sophisticated than before and really shouldn't have any trouble finding a companion away from the cheeseboard.
Cheese, meanwhile, can unshackle itself from its loveless plonk pretence and do what it's always wanted to - namely go and sow its wild oatcakes with beer - the spouse that cheese has always wanted to be with.
Aside from the informal meeting during a ploughmans, their eyes first met across a crowded room of greedy journalists at the salubrious Paxton & Whitfield (P&W) cheese shop in Central London last month.
Paxton & Whitfield is the big cheese of the cheese shop world. It sources and matures exceptional cheeses from throughout Europe and has supplied cheese to the Royal Family since 1850.
If you desire three hundred of the finest cheeses around then this is the place to go. P&W is not the place, however, to reveal your love for Kraft cheese slices.
The beer came courtesy of the Beer Naturally campaign, spearheaded by Coors Brewers. Beer Naturally has been tirelessly championing all things beer-related with a healthy focus on beer's kinship with food for quite some time now.
And finally it seems the message is starting to get across, permeating through chattering media types like a pungent whiff of Camembert. It was noticeable that, in addition to the usual freeloading trade hacks such as yours truly, acclaimed writers from the consumer media, finicky food critics and revered restaurant reviewers had all converged on P&W to give their blessing to beer and cheese matrimony.
And proper whirlwind affair material it is too. Both traditional farmhouse products sharing similar agricultural ancestry, both fermented, aged and shaped by tiny little organisms and both enjoyed at their most youthful - displaying simple, clear flavours - or with some maturity when a range of complex characters are on show.
Looking for something more exciting than a Foster's and a Double Gloucester or a Carlsberg and a slice of Jarlsberg? Then try these this Christmas:
Liefman's Frambozen (4.5 per cent) and St Felicien, France:
A nutty, no-nonsense, mountaineer's goat's cheese from the Alps versus a big sherbety-sweet and lip-twistingly sour raspberry beer didn't immediately have potential.
But they came together in a funky, fruity frisson that got sexier with every sip and slither. The Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas of the beer and cheese world, in that one's intensely fruity, sweet and pleasing on the eye and the other is small, old and a little bit smelly. A beautiful yet baffling relationship.
Fuller's 2004 Vintage Ale (8.5 per cent) and Brie de Meaux, France:
At £167.95 per kilo, this Brie means business. It's velvety in texture, pungent in aroma and eye-watering in flavour.
I held out little hope for the beautifully balanced bottle-conditioned ale in the face of such a powerful cheese. Yet the vivid aromatics of the beer illuminated the aromatics of the cheese while the balance of caramel, spicy and citrus-hop flavours allowed the beer to linger on the palate long after the cheese. It's a bit like the Olympic bid. You thought the French were going to win it, but then the Brits come and nick it at the death. A very cordial entente indeed.
Ben McFarland was awarded the title of Beer Writer of the Year 2004 by the British Guild of Beer Writers.
