Tag: beer
Pair Cheeses With Beer, Whiskey Or Wine For Your Holiday Party

Pair Cheeses With Beer, Whiskey Or Wine For Your Holiday Party

By Arthi Subramaniam, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

When alcohol and cheese meet, feel a chemistry and fall in love, it is a marriage made in heaven. And that’s what you want at your holiday party when you pair cheese with beer, whiskey or wine.

“The main thing is that you want a cohesive flavor from the cheese and the beer,” says Alix Wiggins of Wheel & Wedge, a premier source of American-made cheeses in Pittsburgh. “You don’t want one to overpower the other.”

Wes Shank of Wigle Whiskey in Pittsburgh’s Strip District echoes a similar thought and says whiskey and cheese should be complementary and not screaming at each other. “Think of whiskey as a rye or corn bread. If cheese goes well with a rye bread, it means that the cheese would be perfect with a rye whiskey,” he says.

Deb Mortillaro of Dreadnought Wines in Lawrenceville doesn’t favor following rules when pairing cheese and wine, but does advise to match the intensity. “The more intense the cheese is, the more intense the wine should be,” she says. “Also, start with a light and finish with a fortified wine.”

When it comes to tasting the cheese and the booze, do what the pros do. Smell the beer, whiskey or wine and get a nose for it. Then take a sip of the drink and get a sense of it. Take a bite of the cheese and then take a sip of the drink again. If the flavors linger and meld wonderfully, it’s a winning pair.

Neither the drink nor cheese should be served ice cold. Cheese should be taken out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving. Whiskey needs to be served at room temperature, and beer needs to be poured and allowed to sit for some time to bring out its flavors. Often white wines are served too cold and reds too warm, says Rob McCaughey of Palate Partners in Lawrenceville. So whites need to be taken out of the refrigerator 20 minutes before serving, while reds need to be put into the refrigerator 20 minutes before serving.

It could be daunting to choose from a wide variety of cheeses. Jen Lawton, a cheese coordinator at East End Food Co-op and a certified cheese professional by the American Cheese Society, says de-stress by first setting a theme. It could be done by picking cheeses from a certain region or going with a particular style such as those with interesting rinds. “From there you can play with mixing milks (goat, sheep, cow) or textures (hard, soft, spreadable) or appearances,” Lawton says.

Also, don’t overcrowd the cheese plate. Stick to three or five varieties.

Goat cheeses rolled in edible ash, which acts as a preservative and adds a mineral note, and blue cheeses covered with leaves such as grape, oak and chestnut will add oomph to a cheese plate. A saison or light rye whiskey will pair well with the ash-ripened cheese, while there’s nothing like a white port for the blue.

You could add a cheese that looks pretty like a young goat Gouda with a colorful yellow or red wax rind. Pair it with a beer with that has a little maltiness such as a bock, Wiggins says, to complement the tang of the goat’s milk. A mature Gouda with a black-wax covering will go well with a full-bodied, lightly oaked white like a California chardonnay, McCaughey says.

With harmonious pairings like them, you can be assured of merriment at your holiday party.

BEER AND CHEESE

There’s a natural marriage between cheese and a beverage made from fermented barley, hops, water and yeast. Cows live on grains, and so it’s only logical that the two flavors are complementary.

— The manchego-style Roth Kase Gran Queso, which dons a cinnamon-rubbed rind, would go well with pumpkin beers and Christmas ales that have cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon, says Alix Wiggins of Wheel & Wedge.
— Pit funk against funk by serving the semi-soft, beer-washed Bamboozle, which is aged for 70 days, with a farmhouse ale, light Belgian or saison.
— Porters and stouts pair nicely with blue cheese as the sweet molasses from the beer complements the saltiness of the blue.
— Jasper Hills Landaff, a semi-firm tomme (made from skimmed milk) that has cheddar characteristics and buttermilk notes balances the dry bitterness of hoppy beers, mainly IPAs.
— The roastiness of a stout or porter can cut through the buttery texture of a double cream Fromager D’ Affinois. The plain cheese also can be paired with a lambic or another fruity beer.
_ Beer’s carbonation also helps to keep the cheese flavors distinct and cuts through their fat. So the high carbonation level of a hefeweizen or a wheat beer would do exactly that to a fresh chevre.

WHISKEY AND CHEESE

Another natural partner for a hunk of cheese is whiskey, which also comes from grains, says Wes Shank of Wigle Whiskey. They are aged in a similar way and cured in caves. So even though whiskey has a high alcohol content and is in-your-face bold, it has the characteristics to create a foil for cheese.

Whiskey also shares nuances with wine and beer. Sniff and swirl whiskey in a glass, much like wine, and watch the “legs” drip down. If the legs are thick, the whiskey has a heavier mouthfeel; when the drip is thin and fast-moving, it is more delicate. Whiskey has beer notes as well, whether it’s dark and complex or fruity with a hint of sweetness.
— With its earthiness, Wigle’s flagship Monongahela Rye Whiskey complements the funky power of the Fat Cat, which has a grassy finish. Also, the distinctive black pepper spice in the drink melds well with the washed-rind creamy cheese.
— An aged sheep feta that is not salty but very smooth does wonders with Wigle’s Maple Wood Wheat Whiskey. It highlights the soft maple notes that the whiskey has acquired after being aged in maple wood for several months.
— Apple and blue cheese go on a roller-coaster ride when Wigle Walkabout Apple Whiskey is paired with Birchrun Blue. Sweet apple notes shine through the spicy characteristics of the whiskey and the slightly peppery creaminess of the blue.
— Wigle’s Pennsylvania Bourbon and Old Gold Gouda are loud when paired, but the caramel and vanilla characters of the whiskey made with an earthy corn give a wonderful background to the firm, tangy and aged cheese.

WINE AND CHEESE

This is the quintessential match with a universal appeal.

Variety is the name of the game, and so arrange a plate with aged and younger; soft and hard; and rind and rindless cheeses. Uncork wines with higher acid and lower acid; high alcohol and low alcohol; and full-bodied and light. But don’t pull out everything at the same time at the party, says Deb Mortillaro of Dreadnought Wines. “Staggering them is key.”

Mortillaro says there is no need to fear the great whites when it comes to cheese. “Whites are not only OK with cheese, but they are better than their red counterparts,” she says because sometimes the tannins in the reds clash with the cheese.

— Pair regionally by opening a Pares Balta Cava, a sparkling wine from Spain, and complement it with a light and relatively neutral Spanish Pata Cabra.
— A long aging process gives the Park Provolone Sharp an extra kick to uncork the creaminess in the De Wetshof Limestone Chardonnay, a unwooded white.
— Aged Calabreso Pecorino has a meanness to it. But it meets its match in the intense Pares Balta Mas Elena, which is meaty and has nuances of licorice and spices. The red is elegant, but it knows how to stand up to the sheep cheese.
— Bold and blue with a dense veining, the chestnut leaf-wrapped Valdeon draws out the nuances of flowers and fruit in the Ferreira White Lagrima Porto.

(c)2015 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Cheese paired with alcohol, whether beer, whiskey, or wine, is a match made in heaven. (Fotolia)

Beer Run: A Craft Brew Language Primer

Beer Run: A Craft Brew Language Primer

By Blair Anthony Robertson, The Sacramento Bee (TNS)

If you’re looking to become part of the thriving beer scene, it can be a lot of fun. But it can also be intimidating, especially when it comes to the language of beer. What, exactly, does your beer geek friend mean by “hoppy?” And did he say “bread” or “brett” when referring to the yeast? Session beer: Is that a good thing? And are you considered cool if you still love Pliny? Or you’ve moved on?

With excellent brews flowing around all sorts of areas, what follows is an informal primer to get you up to speed and help you feel at home at your favorite brewery or beer-centric pub.

Craft beer: This refers to the little breweries, the underdogs, the up-and-comers. But wait. Aren’t behemoths Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas craft breweries? Well, yes. Craft beer gatekeepers keep changing the definition.

The Brewers Association says any brewery that produces 6 million barrels or less annually, uses traditional brewing methods and is not more than 25 percent owned by non-craft brewing interests qualifies as craft. What about craft breweries that have been gobbled up by the giant breweries? That will probably be up to the consumer.

Do all craft breweries make well-crafted beer? No. Do all giant beer companies make bland beer? For your answer, try a head-to-dead taste test.

Barrel: A unit used to measure beer. It’s equal to 31.5 gallons or two standard kegs.

Hoppy: This adjective may refer to the bitterness you smell and taste in a beer. The term generally is associated with India pale ales and pale ales, whose hoppiness or bitterness is actually measured as international bittering units (IBUs). The higher the IBUs, the more bitterness you’re going to taste and feel raking over your palate. To some, it’s unpleasantly harsh. To others, it’s joyous. But it’s also very broad. It can mean citrus, tropical fruit, earthy, dank and more. Interestingly, the human species is not naturally fond of bitter things, likely because bitter things in the wild tend to be poisonous. Hoppy can mean so many things that it really isn’t very helpful if you use it to describe an IPA.

Hops: They grow on vines and brewers use the flowers, or cones. There are all kinds of hops used for flavoring and bittering beer, but you only have to know a few to start.

Cascade is the most popular hop and is important because it was the first American-bred variety, dating to the 1950s, and it is the hop used to brew Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Centennial hops have similar, though bolder and more bitter, characteristics.

Citra is all about creating wonderful aromas in IPAs. Take a big whiff of many an IPA and you’re likely to get notes of grapefruit, melon and more. That’s probably the Citra hop on full blast. Look no further than Knee Deep’s Citra Extra Pale Ale, a self-proclaimed citrus bomb done right.

Simcoe: This is the signature hop in Russian River’s renowned double IPA, Pliny the Elder. It’s bitter, fruity, earthy and piney, and its overall aroma is alluring and complex. You’ll find Simcoe in plenty of other robust IPAs, including Track 7’s Panic IPA.

Brett: This is a term you’re likely to hear more and more often. Not so much at breweries but at beer bars that carry certain Belgian styles. Short for Brettanomyces, brett is the wild yeast that can either contaminate beer and render it undrinkable or infuse beer with a kind of funky complexity that makes it taste magical. A very unlucky and, perhaps, careless brewer creates the former; a very skilled brewer, the latter.

Nitro: The process of using nitrogen (usually 70 percent) along with carbon dioxide to create carbonation with smaller bubbles that imparts a smooth, creamy mouthfeel. Guinness stout is the most famous nitro beer. Some beer bars have experimented with serving nitro IPAs on draft, though the effect tends to mute the bitterness you might be expecting with that style.

Bomber: This is a big bottle of beer, a 22-ouncer. Not to be confused with “a 40,” as in a big can or bottle of cheap beer designed to get you inebriated good and fast. The bomber is the most commonly used container in craft beer and is usually sold as a single. Many of the best beers in the world are bottled this way.

©2015 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr

 

AB InBev, SABMiller Brew Up $100 Billion Deal

AB InBev, SABMiller Brew Up $100 Billion Deal

By Philip Blenkinsop and Martinne Geller

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) — The world’s top two brewers, Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI.BR) and SABMiller (SAB.L), have agreed in principle to one of the biggest mergers in corporate history after a near month-long courtship resulted in SABMiller accepting an offer worth more than $100 billion.

The planned combination announced on Tuesday would marry AB InBev’s Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona brands with SABMiller’s Peroni, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell and brew almost a third of the world’s beer, dwarfing other major producers like Heineken (HEIN.AS) and Carlsberg (CARLb.CO).

If it goes through, the deal would rank as the fourth-biggest takeover in history and the largest deal for a UK company. It also breaks all records in the consumer sector and comes only days after news that Dell Inc [DI.UL] and EMC (EMC.N) agreed the biggest ever deal in the technology sector.

Mergers and acquisition deals done this year stand at a record high as low interest rates embolden companies searching for new areas of growth.

For AB InBev the SABMiller deal will give it more breweries in Latin America and Asia and an entrance to Africa at a time when some of its home markets such as the United States are weakening as drinkers shun mainstream lagers in favur of craft brews and cocktails.

Africa is expected to see a sharp rise in the legal drinking age population in the next few years and a fast-growing middle class which prefers branded lagers and ales to the illicit brews which have long been a feature of markets there.

CLOSING TIME

An agreement between AB InBev and SABMiller was reached on Monday evening, just two days before a deadline that would have forced AB InBev to make a formal bid or walk away for six months.

The breakthrough came when AB InBev bumped up the main offer price for a fourth time, to 44 pounds in cash per SABMiller share, as well as raising the value of an partial share alternative offer by 4 percent to 39.03 pounds per share.

The partial share offer was expressly designed to suit SABMiller’s two biggest shareholders, cigarette-maker Altria (MO.N) and the Santo Domingo family of Colombia, who together own nearly 41 percent of the company.

SABMiller said its board was now prepared in principle to recommend the main cash offer to shareholders and has asked for a two-week extension to the deadline, which is now Oct. 28.

Altria, with a 26.6 percent stake, said it was pleased with the deal, although it had also endorsed an earlier lower offer last week. The Santo Domingos, seen by banking sources as the holdouts who helped secure the higher offer, have not made any public comments.

Meanwhile South Africa said it would need to assess the tax implications of a merger and could “in the extreme” try to block it.

SAB shares closed up 9 percent at 39.55 pounds in London, while AB InBev shares closed up 1.7 percent in Brussels.

“We have written extensively on the attractions of (an ABI/SAB combination) since 2011 and continue to see major long-term benefits for ABI shareholders,” said Canaccord Genuity analysts.

Yet analysts say the benefits will not come easily, even for AB InBev with its well-known track record for making a series of successful acquisitions.

“We think AB InBev must extract close to $2 billion in annual cost savings in order to create value from this deal,” said Morningstar analyst Phil Gorham. “After closure, effective execution will be required.”

The accepted offer of 44 pounds a share increases a proposal made on Monday to pay 43.50, which in turn was an increase on a 42.15 offer which AB InBev made public last week after previous proposals of 38 pounds and then 40 pounds had been turned down.

Based on AB InBev’s share price on Tuesday the company is offering to pay 68.5 billion pounds ($104.2 billion).

However, Neil Wilkinson, senior equities fund manager at Royal London Asset Management and an AB InBev investor, said he was pleased with the deal, “which will enable AB InBev to perpetuate its growth story.”

FOLLOW-ON DEALS

The merger is also expected to have repercussions for the rest of the industry, particularly in the United States where the two companies would have about 70 percent of the beer market unless they sell off some assets.

Denver-based Molson Coors (TAP.N) is widely seen by analysts as the logical buyer of SABMiller’s 58 percent stake in their U.S. joint venture.

In addition analysts say the combined group might also have to sell interests in China, where SABMiller’s CR Snow joint venture with China Resources Enterprise (0291.HK) is the market leader.

Businesses in Eastern Europe could also come up for sale, they say, which could be attractive to rivals such as Heineken and Carlsberg looking to narrow the gap with the new group.

And the deal may also bring change in the soft drinks sector, where SABMiller is a large distributor for Coca Cola (KO.N) while AB InBev has ties with rival PepsiCo (PEP.N).

Bernstein Research beverage analyst Trevor Stirling said that he rated the chances of the deal going through at 80 percent, with antitrust issues being the main risk.

“There is a chance that due diligence throws up something nasty,” he said, but added that SABMiller was unlikely to have accepted AB InBev’s approach if they knew of any major problems.

(Additional reporting by Kate Holton, Sinead Cruise and Freya Berry; Editing by Keith Weir and Greg Mahlich)

Photo: A bartender serves a beer produced by brewing company SAB Miller at a bar in Cape Town, September 16, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

Megamerger Makes Sense In Mature Beer Industry

Megamerger Makes Sense In Mature Beer Industry

By David Nicklaus, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (TNS)

Here we go again. The world’s largest beer company wants to be even bigger, and it has a rival brewer in its sights.

SABMiller, the latest target for the acquisitive Brazilians who run Anheuser-Busch InBev, is not much like the old Anheuser-Busch, which InBev gobbled up in 2008. It’s bigger, it’s global in scope and its cost structure is not nearly as flabby.

Still, most observers seem to regard the latest beer merger — which so far isn’t even a formal proposal — as all but a done deal. What makes this combination so compelling, and why is it happening now?

First, deals are what A-B InBev Chief Executive Carlos Brito and his investors, led by Jorge Paolo Lemann, do. They’ve digested their last big purchase, of Mexico’s Grupo Modelo in 2013, and are ready for what they see as the logical next step.

Second, SABMiller is vulnerable. It has no controlling family shareholder who could block a deal. SABMiller was rebuffed in a 2014 attempt to buy European rival Heineken, and its shares had fallen 19 percent in the past year.

Third, all the big beer companies are under pressure. Their most lucrative markets, the U.S. and Europe, aren’t growing and their big brands are losing market share to craft brews.

“There’s a lot of chaos in the market and the best way to effectively sell your product is to have scale,” says Tom Pirko, managing director of California consulting firm Bevmark. “It’s a critical-mass game, and SABMiller is standing exposed.”

The big question is whether the companies can agree on a price. April Scee, an analyst at Sterne Agee CRT, wrote a report predicting a price of between $100 billion and $120 billion for SABMiller, which would rank among the five biggest acquisitions in history. It also would be at least a 33 percent premium over the company’s value before A-B InBev’s overture became public.

That’s a lot, especially since the news wasn’t a complete surprise. Investors have been talking about this match off and on for at least four years.
Brito, though, will pay plenty for something he covets.

“SABMiller is worth a lot more to A-B InBev than as an independent company,” says Bill Finnie, a former Anheuser-Busch executive and adjunct professor at Washington University’s Olin Business School. “It will slash corporate overhead costs and use its larger size to cut operating costs significantly. They are world class cost cutters.”

Antitrust regulators may be the deal’s most significant obstacles. A-B InBev is almost certainly prepared to sell SABMiller’s interest in MillerCoors, its U.S. joint venture, but the Justice Department may want more than a sale. Pirko thinks the government may take a hard look at A-B InBev’s distribution network, seeking concessions to make sure that MillerCoors remains a viable competitor and that craft brewers can get their products into bars and stores.
A-B InBev also may have to sell brands in China and other countries, including Peru and Ecuador. Negotiations will take time, but Pirko doesn’t think any one country can derail a deal that makes global sense.

“The reason this deal is going to go through is that it is a classic win-win,” he says. “It is in the interests of both parties.”

The only losers may be the world’s other large brewers. They’ll face a behemoth competitor with an unparalleled cost structure and marketing budget, while craft brands nibble away at their profits. It’s no fun to be in the middle feeling a squeeze from both ends.

ABOUT THE WRITER
David Nicklaus is a business columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Readers may send him email at dnicklaus@post-dispatch.com.

(c)2015 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.