Wine and food pairing is a popular practice that many restaurants/connoisseurs endorse. After all, what’s a good meal without a good drink? This technique is something that has been around for ages with respect to wine; however, pairing food with beer is a relatively new endeavor.
Luckily, the Brewer’s Association has been very proactive in making sure that craft beer gets similar respect.
A few companies, like Rogue Brewery, are taking this practice a step further and literally advertising food pairings on their bottles. This is pretty creative.
Join me in these scenarios:
1) You’re a young college graduate, finally making some cash in the real world. You’re not living on your parent’s dollar anymore, so you decide to do make a nice dinner for your friends. You don’t feel old enough (nor classy enough) to drink wine, not to mention you don’t know anything about it. Since you’re not five, soda is strictly out of the question. Beer is the perfect intermediate…especially since you’ve just graduated from college.
2) In your spare time, you’re a middle-aged chef prepping a meal for your family friends. You are looking to do something different than the hackneyed 3 course meal with wine. You have heard a lot of buzz recently about craft beer so you decide to go to your local shop and find out what you can about pairing beer with food. Unfortunately, the dealer is a national chain and you can’t find a knowledgeable employee to tell you what beers would pair well with the filet mignon you are planning on making.
This is where Rogue Brewery has made it really simple for those who 1) don’t know about craft beer food pairing charts or 2) don’t have a smartphone in the store with them.
Beef and Pork Symbols Indicate Food Pairing.
The swine and bovine busts displayed on the back of the bottle indicate the food pairings, making it easy for the consumer on the fly.
It’s also important to comment on the fact that Rogue has taken the connection between food and beer even a step further and literally invited one of the greatest chefs in the world, Masaharu Morimoto, to help develop two beers with them. One to pair with fish and poultry, and the other to pair with pork and beef.
The Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale and the Morimoto Soba Ale are consecutive 2009 and 2010 World Beer Cup Gold and Silver Award Winners, respectively.
Craft Beer and food pairing is just another example of how craft brews are creeping into parts of the beverage world that are perennially dominated by wine.
Clink!
brew&you 