Boston Breweries is displaying innovative marketing of its range of craft beers. It has just announced a collaboration with SANCCOB, donating monies from its sales of Rock Hoppa craft beer to benefit the saving of Rockhopper and African penguins, as well as other seabirds. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: hops
Devil’s Peak Brewing Company pairs with Beerhouse food! Beer like no other!
Beerhouse opened a year ago, with the proud claim of having the largest collection of bottled beers, 99 in fact, as per the song. Last night a number of writers were invited to the first of a monthly ‘Meet the Brewer’ food and beer pairing evenings. The Devil’s Peak Brewing Company and Beerhouse food pairing was led by Brewmaster JC Steyn, previously a winemaker for nine years at Dornier in Stellenbosch, and a brewmaster for the past two years.
We were a mixed bunch: wine writer Harry Haddon, whisky aficionado Bernard Gutman, beer blogger Lucy Corne, blogger Amy Rankin, and blogger Karissa of ‘My love affair with Cape Town’, and others. The biggest surprise was seeing Chris Zöller, previously at Kloof Street House, now at Beerhouse, a gem of a host, an asset for Beerhouse. His brother had worked with Beerhouse GM Murray Slater when they worked in London.
Chef Roy MacAllister took us through the do’s and don’ts of beer and food pairing, and he said
there aren’t many. ‘Anything goes’, he said. It is not an exact science with hard and fast rules. The yeast and hops add flavour to the beer, and one needs to take this into account when choosing matching food. The bitterness in beer, which seems to go with a higher alcohol content, accentuates the salt content of food. Stronger beers can over-dominate the food, he warned. The chef had chosen the appropriate food pairings without the brewmaster. Each of the Devil’s Peak beers was paired with two or three food items. Each of the food items were prepared especially for the evening, and are not on the Beerhouse menu. It is planned to add Continue reading →
Beer and food pairings new trend, and it’s healthy too!
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the Toffie Food Festival, held at the City Hall last month and sponsored by South African Breweries, was the Food and Beer Pairing workshop, presented by SAB’s Trade Brewer Denis da Silva and Kitchen Cowboys Chef Pete Goffe-Wood. It demonstrated that many of our perceptions about beer drinking in general, and about specific brands of beers, are shaped by societal norms and packaging, and that beer pairs perfectly with food.
In notes that we were given, it was stated that one needs to know how a beer is made when deciding on a food pairing, in that a beer’s flavour comes from the ‘cooking process’ during the malting phase, when barley converts to malt. The flavours this creates is similar to the flavours created by cooking food. We were given the following Food and Beer pairing tips:
* Beer and food flavours should be compatible, and have some elements in common. The herby bitterness of hops is well matched to lightly spiced food
* Beer strength should be matched with food strength. As with wines, light foods should be paired with lighter beers, while full-bodied beers should be matched with more strongly flavoured foods
* In wine terms, a lager is white wine and an ale a red wine. Hoppy beers can play the role of an acidic wine in pairing consideration.
* In deciding on the food pairing, beers’ sweetness, bitterness, carbonation, heat, and richness should be considered
* The more hop bitterness the beer has, the more the food needs to be lively and hearty to hold its own
* The food and beer combination does not only have to be complimentary – contrasting flavours work well too
* More fully flavoured foods can be paired with beers with a higher alcohol content.
We were given suggestions for some food and beer pairings, to embody these pairing principles: green salad and vinaigrette with hoppy Brown Ale, roast beef and gravy with Scottish ale, Chicken Kiev and Pilsner Urquell, oysters and Castle Milk Stout, tuna and olives with Peroni Nastro Azzuro, black tiger prawns and scallops with Grolsch, and an interesting sounding pairing of chocolate and Castle Milk Stout.
The difference between beer types was explained, lagers made by fermenting yeast which is subjected to cold maturation. Taking longer to ferment than ales, lagers are cleaner, less sweet, more rounded, have a less complex flavour, less fruit aroma, and usually have grass on the nose. They are clear and light in colour. Ales are fermented at a warm temperature, with a short maturation period. They have complex flavours, and a more pronounced fruity aroma and palate. They are served at room temperature, and have a lower carbon dioxide content. Pilsners, originating from Pilsen in the Czech Republic, are gold in colour and clear, and have a bitter taste and hop aroma. Stouts are almost black in colour, with a roasted taste, coming from roasting the malt, making them flavourful and given them a strong hop character. SAB makes its beers from water, yeast, hops, malted barley, and maize, making them nutritional too, in containing vitamins, potassium, soluble fibre, with little sodium, reducing cholesterol, and slowing down digestion. Beer has no additives, unlike wines.
In taking us through the beer and food pairing, Denis said that a beer should be evaluated as one does a wine, but with additional aspects, looking at its colour, clarity, foam, sound of the bubbles, aroma on the nose, and taste. We tasted a ceviche of line fish with fennel, chilli and avocado, prepared by Chef Pete, paired with Castle Lite. Containing only 4 – 5 % alcohol, it allows one to drink more beer than wine when one eats. A spiced black urid lentil bunny chow was paired
with Carling Black Label, a lager containing 5,5 % alcohol, and with a banana nose, slightly sweeter, not so hoppy, and often chosen as a favourite in blind tastings by women, Denis said, despite its masculine marketing focus.
Toulouse sausage and bacon, served with lentils and a mustard sauce, was paired with Pilsner Urquell. Denis told us that Urquell was the first clear beer made, being more golden in colour, and being quieter on the ear in containing less carbon dioxide, and undergoing ‘triple decoction’, the name for the caramelisation process. It has toffee, honey, citrus and spicy aromas. They use the very aromatic saaz hop. It is a serious beer, good to pair with goulash and steak tartare. The Czechs are the largest beer drinking nation, Denis said. 
I enjoyed the pairing of Chef Pete’s delicious sticky toffee pudding (the only toffee we had at the Toffie Food Festival!) with Castle Milk Stout, called that due to its addition of lactose. This beer has caramel, milk, molasses, and butterscotch on the nose, with a hoppy, malty and burnt taste.
The health benefits alone would be a good justification to drink a lot more beer, and the workshop proved how well different beers can be paired with a variety of foods.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
Pub Review: Watching the World Cup at &Union Beer Salon and Charcuterie
&Union Beer Salon and Charcuterie is a very trendy pub that is one of the favourite haunts of bloggers Dax of Relax-with-Dax, The Foodie and JamieWho, and they give its beer brands regular coverage via Twitter, so much so that I had to try it out – the first time about a month ago – and then I went back for the Brazil versus Portugal match last week.
To review &Union one needs to know that the owners were the founder owners of Vida e Caffe (Brad Armitage and Rui Esteves), who broke away to create &Union. &Union does not give one a Vida franchise feel at all – exactly the opposite is true, and it is commendable that the owners could start and maintain a business so radically different to what they did before. Also, untypically for Vida e Caffe, &Union has no visible exterior branding on Bree Street, but those that love the brand and share the passion, know where it is!
&Union is not a traditional pub – one sits outside on wooden tables and benches in summer, and for the World Cup a Moroccan style tent has been erected to cover all Cape Town winter weather options, with heaters if it gets cold. The tent has three strips of material on it, which are linked to a painting near the entrance, all related to the Puma Africa Unity Kit. It would be lost to most present, unless they had been invited to the launch of the new Puma beer a few days before.
We arrived just before the match starting time, and there was only a little bench available to sit on, a little removed from all the other benches, and without a table. I was impressed with Simon Wibberley, the Operations Manager, who seemed to know everyone coming into &Union, hugging and kissing (the ladies at least), and the guys all seemed to be friends. Simon stood near the entrance, and kept an eye on things continuously – no sitting back and having a beer and watch the soccer for him. It became so full that he eventually locked the gate, yet it did not feel crowded. The only problem was a lack of seating for everyone.
The beer list is an unusual brown A3 recycled sheet which shows its seven beers and tells the &Union story. The owners wanted to develop beer brands that are authentic, truthful and honest, and that stand for quality, heritage, tradition and taste. This led them to find “some of Europe’s oldest family-run breweries in search of artisan-produced beers that we are not only proud to produce for our customers but love to drink ourselves. We don’t believe we can single-handedly change the world of beer as it exists but with a little raw passion, blind optimism and reckless resolve, we can perhaps make a difference”, the beer list says.
This mission for &Union has led to the development of “luxury beers, handcrafted by our artisans from the finest natural ingredients. Our pils and amber ale are brewed using only 100% barley malt, yeast, hops, and water”. The beer is brewed for up to 8 weeks. The Pils and Amber are unpasteurised, the beer list says, to allow a “fuller, richer taste”. The passion comes from “Eating. Drinking. Living. That’s what we love. Pairing real beer with real food…”. This passion is lived in a small selection of food options, the seven beer choices, and, surprisingly, wines.
The beer list has a prominent packshot of each beer sold, and as an infrequent beer drinker and having been ignorant about the brand, the seven beer names meant nothing to me at all. The beer list is there to help, with better-than-wine descriptions of each:
* Unity Lager was developed for Puma’s “African Unity Kit” football campaign. It is “medium-bodied”, “silky smooth”, “malty”, “hints of apple and honey”, and has a “bittersweet floral finish”. It costs R40 for 500ml
* Brewers &Union Unfiltered Lager is “unfiltered, unpasteurized”, “bursting with flavour”. Cost is R 40 for 500ml
* Steph Weiss is a wheat beer, “delicate, smooth and creamy”, “aromas of vanilla and clove”. Cost is R 40 for 500ml
* Berne Unfiltered Amber is German-style, “buttery”, “toasty, bready malts”, “hints of caramel and toffee”. It costs R 40 for 500ml
* Brewers &Union Dark Lager is “beautifully hopped”, “dark roasted malt flavor” (sic). Cost is R 40 for 500 ml
* Touro Tripel Blond has a “creamy palate”, “fruity spicy malt flavour” It costs R 125 for 750ml
* Touro Tripel Amber has a “honeyed-amber malt aroma”, “hints of vanilla and caramel”. Cost is R 125 for 750ml
The menu is short and sweet: eight food options- a biltong bowl (tasted a bit vinegary) at R25; pate – made from charcuterie off-cuts and a bit too coarse for my taste – at R35; grilled weisswurst with mustard was excellent – at R60; Prego rolls cost R 60, available in beef and pork; the Charcuterie Board costs R65, and consists of coppa, parma ham and felino sausage; the “grilled juicy saucisson” board – a North African sausage made with 16 spices – costs R60; a 3-cheese board costs R65; and the salmon carpaccio board R75. Three “sweets” are offered, almond croissants (R15), Italian chocolate liqueur (made by Massimo from Hout Bay Pizza Club) at R20, and an espresso chocolate at R25. &Union also serves organic coffee. One can also have an early breakfast at &Union.
Two white and two red wines are served by the glass: Haut Espoir Sauvignon Blanc (R35) and Tamboerskloof Viognier (R40), and Landskroon and Boer & Brit ‘The General’ red blends, both costing R 40. Ten wines by the bottle start at R 130 for the Haut Espoir, and The Hedonist is the most expensive at R 210. I loved the name of the sparkling wine brand – Suikerbossie ‘Ek wil jou he’, made in Kimberley, a surprise wine region.
&Union is a refreshingly (pardon the pun) different ‘beer salon”. It cares about beer, food and its clients. It knows how to build relationships with its customers. It is not pushy nor hard-sell, maybe a little too laid back on the service, but regulars go inside and order what they want, not waiting to be served. The soccer did not have much “gees”, despite there being so many soccer fans. It is trendy, and no doubt will grow into an eatery and beer salon that will set new standards in responsible eating and drinking in Cape Town. The only dissonance for me is that wines are served (with some unfortunate typos in the wine list), given its name and beer focus. The challenge for the owners will be to keep it small and personal, the opposite to what they achieved with Vida e Caffe.
&Union Beer Salon and Chacuterie, 110 Bree Street. Tel 021 422-2770. www.brewersandunion.com. Twitter @andUnion. Blog: www.andunion.blogspot.com Free wireless internet.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com.