My boy with a rack of Moses Sleeper

On Friday a group of us headed to Greensboro to visit the charismatic Jasper Hill Farm. I had been introduced to Mateo and Andy Kehler some years ago and having written about them extensively over the years, and had narrowly missed visiting Jasper Hill on on previouls Vermont trips.  This time I made it a priority.  Mateo gave us a nice tour of the relatively new affinage facility, and the kids had a chance to meet some of the ladies (40 Ayreshire cows) who provide the milk for Jasper’s own cheeses. Jasper Hill expanded a few years ago with the addition of Cellars at Jasper Hill, a new business entity which ages, markets and helps distribute fine cheeses from other New Enggland artisan and farmstead cheesemakers. The 22,000 square feet of underground cheese storage is tied directly to this endeavor, and both Jasper Hill and partner cheeses are aged in its five vaults. While pulling sample plugs from many of the cheeses, Mateo pointed out that ceiling of one of the vaults has begun to play host to one of the same molds that is present on one of the cheese that resides in the vault, and is now becoming an even more effective environment for affinage.

After seeing the caves we headed to the milk barn and met one of the cows and a brand new calf. Mateo and I swapped some Midwest beers for some Vermont cheese before our group took off. As we drove back out the driveway, the herd was coming up the trail from the pasture for its afternoon milking. I wish we would have had time to visit Hill Farmstead Brewery, just up the road from Jasper, but we’ll have to save that for another trip. I should note that Jasper Hill is not set up for public tours, but plans are int he works for a video tour to be added to the Cellars website.

Friday night we had a two-family dinner on the deck at he storied Vermont Pub and Brewery in Burlington, where the late Greg Noonan pioneered, and where James’ band the Slipper Kings has played a few sets over the years. The brewery seems to be in good hands after Noonan’s untimely passing in 2009. I tasted a several nice beers including the well balanced Forbidden Fruit raspberry wheat, a seriously wild beer called Tulach Leis, and a cask conditioned ESB, and we enjoyed them with a nice Vermont cheese plate. 

Old friends and new at Vermont Pub and Brewery

On Saturday, we left our hosts just after the rooster crowed, and drove across New York to visit an aunt in Buffalo. Took the kids to see Niagara Falls, and on Sunday we toured the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. I found the museum to be mostly outstanding (accounting for personal tastes), but I’ll try to limit my observations to two. The first song I heard in full as we approached the museum entrance was Johnny Cash’s Luther Play the Boogie Woogie, so the place had earned creds from me before I got in the door. Inside, I was most impressed with seeing Joe Strummer’s workhorse guitar—a 1950s Telecaster covered in political stickers, cuts and bruises. Any Clash fan who may have forgotten how intense the band was and how hard Strummer worked at his art, should go to Cleveland and see this worn, rusted and tattered instrument, looking like it had spent 20 years on the road to rock and roll and another 10 or 15 in a barn somewhere. Maybe in Vermont.

So that was our summer vacation, and the kids go back to school Tuesday. Later this week I’ll post a piece on a great new brewery from Wisconsin, and soon, the first report from my cheesemonger training.  I’ve got a bunch more great pics from this trip, so I’ll try to put them on my Facebook page soon.  Cheers, and happy Labor Day!

In the Cabot Clothbound vault

As with other cheese cultures, a handful of Spanish cheeses are purposefully infected with bacteria to produce blue mold. The first of those cheeses I every met was Cabrales, which a sampled in a fantastic Spanish cheese event some years ago at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese. I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like, and I really liked tasting an array of them accompanied by Spanish wines at the VIAC event.   

Valdeon wrapped in leaves

Cabrales is a farmstead cheese made in the Picos de Europa Mountains of Northern Spain. It is aged in caves which are aired by cool, damp, and sea breeze blowing up from the Bay of Biscay. Traditionally Cabrales is made with a mixture of cow, sheep and goat milk. The cheese has a strong aroma and a nice tanginess. It is not too salty, but does bite the tongue. Some describe it as having woody, lemony tones. Cabrales is very crumbly and does not weep the way Roquefort and other moist blues do.

Noted San Francisco cheese writer Janet Fletcher says she loves Cabrales, but that for her money, Valdeon is a better Spanish blue. Valdeon is produced in the mountainous northwest region of Leon, also from mixed milk. Fletcher notes that the two cheeses are sometimes confused:

 Retailers sometimes label Valdeon as Cabrales, possibly out of ignorance, possibly because they think it will sell better under the more familiar name. One sure   indication that you’re getting what you want is the wrapper. Cabrales is always foil wrapped; Valdeon is enveloped in sycamore maple leaves, which makes it especially attractive on a cheese board.

Valdeon’s flavor is famously strong, and descriptions warn to place it as the final cheese in nearly any flight. Fletcher says its flavor is “in your face,” and that she even tones down the intensity with honey.  A lesser-known blue from the peninsula is Picón, another three-milk blue cheese from the mountains of Picos de Europain the Northern region of Cantabria. It has a sticky, soft rind that is gray, with yellowish-green spots, and is also traditionally wrapped in leaves.

To match the intensity of these cheeses you will need a very flavorful beer. An imperial IPA with some malt backbone (Three Floyds Dreadnaught, or Avery Maharaja would be my picks) or a big malty beer like a barley wine, a good imperial stout or a strong malty Belgique such as Lost Abbey’s Ten Commandments would also do the trick.

A few days ago I was in Wisconsin for a beer festival that has one of the best settings of any in the world. The Great Taste of the Midwest is held each August at Olin-Turville Park in Madison. Festival goers enjoy the shade of ancient oaks, lounge on grassy hills and gaze across Lake Monona at the Wisconsin State Capital. There are also more than 100 brewing companies serving more than 500 beers and vying for the attention more than 2,000 attendees. The whole thing lasts just five hours.

I’ve been attending the Great Taste since 1996. I usually take the bus trip organized by the Chicago Beer Society. I’ve had my glass filled from a Nebuchadnezzar by Larry Bell, I’ve heard some of the most outrageous and sublime music, and I’ve gotten a stamp, stepped out the gates and taken a swim at one of Madison’s public beaches in between sips. One year I drank almost nothing but Kolsch. This year was as wonderful as any. Bell’s Brewing was celebrating its 25^th anniversary with numerous special beers, including many that had not seen the light of day in years. There were plenty of beers from breweries that are not distributed in Chicago including Shorts, from Michigan and Wisconsin’s own Ale Asylum. I also enjoy visiting those Chicago area breweries I know well, and this year I had a chance to say hello to Half Acre and taste the Gomorrah Small Stout from Revolution. I love big, full flavored beers, and I tasted a number of them including the ever-so-pop Kentucky Breakfast Stout, but I’m also a session beer fan, so I was thrilled to see that most of the brewers had at least one beer with an ABV of around 5%. I tasted several of those.

The Madison Homebrew and Taster’s Guild which does a fine job as organizers, believes that the GTOM may be the second oldest modern beer festival in the United States. A much younger event takes place from 3 to 7 p.m. this Saturday in Downtown Oak Park, Ill. The Oak Park Microwbrew and Food Review is another outdoor event that began just two years ago. Organized by Seven Generations Ahead, Downtown Oak Park and The Illinois Craft Brewers Guild, the festival’s 3^rdannual presentation will include more than 75 beers from 25 breweries from Illinois and adjacent Midwestern states. Oak Park restaurateurs showcase samples of select dishes, incorporating sustainable and organic food. And, for the first time this year, the festival will be the host event for the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild’s Replicale event, with this year’s style being American Pale Ale. The festival is held on Marion Street, a block east of Harlem, just off Lake. There will be a VIP party held at Marion Street Cheese Market from 1:30 to 2:30 pm. Check the Seven Generations website for ticket availability and more details.

Before I forget, I want to thank everyone who came to The Small Bar Fullerton at the end of July for Freshly Fermented, our 5X5 cheese and beer pairing event. Small Bar’s Chad Lynd and I had a great time presenting the pairings, with help from the Small Bar staff. I can’t wait to do the Cremont and I-Beam Alt pairing (Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery and Metropolitan Brewing) again. Stay tuned for more tasting events at Small Bar, Marion Street Cheese Market, and the Map Room.

 We’re past the apex now of the one of the warmest Midwest summers in recent decades. In Chicago, aside from the swarming mosquitoes, the heat and humidity have been pretty well received. Personally, while I don’t like the insect boom, I’m enjoying the heat and humidity. As some of you know, I Have Never Met a Beer I Didn’t Like.  And there are few beers better suited for quenching the thirst and embracing the hot hot, sticky season than the Berliner Weisse.  

 The wheat beers of Germany and the other brewing nations are an odd lot to begin with, but Berliner Weisse may be the weirdest of all. It’s typically brewed to very low gravity,  giving it an alcohol level of 4% or lower, and its chief flavor characteristic is a tartness rivaling that of the lambic beers of Belgium. While German brewing traditions, some of which are law, forbid the inclusion of fruit as a brewing ingredient, servers are permitted to add various fruit and flavoring ingredients while serving beer, and this is a key aspect of Berliner Weisse which is traditional served with raspberry, or woodruff syrups to balance its tartness. That tartness, by the way is typically achieved by utilization of a higher fermentation temperature and/or a long mash regimen leading to the production of lactic acid, according to Wild Brews author Jeff Sparrow.  Berliner Weisse is typically served in a schooner, with a cocktail straw.

Label image from Weihenstephan 1809 Berliner Weisse

The history of this style can be traced back more than 300 years, having something to do with the  French  Huguenots. Among successful brands of the 20th century were Berliner Kindl and Schultheiss Berliner Weisse. Berliner Kindl in particular has long been imported to the U.S. More recently, Professor Fritz Briem, of Doemens Academy in Munich, worked with  Brauerei Weihenstephan to produced Weihenstephan 1809 Berliner Weisse, a historical interpretation of the style that is brewed to a slightly higher gravity than those currently exported. That beer is also now available stateside.  There have been some Berliner style beers brewed in the North America as well, including Festina Pechè, a peach-flavored beer from Dogfish Head Brewery, and versions from Southampton Publick House, Great Divide Brewing and Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel in Montreal.

A classic wheel of Brillat Savarin.

This is a bloomy rind, pastuerized, cows milk cheese from Normandy — the same pastoral region that produces the cousins brie and Camembert. It’s a triple crème that must have a dry matter content of at least 75% milk fat, which makes for a whopping 45% milk fat in the cheese. Super creamy and indulgent, it is named after the famous French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the author of the ‘Physiologie du gout’ (Physiology of Taste), published in 1826. The cheese was first crafted a little more than 100 years later. It’s typically made in a flat cylinder weighing about a pound. It has a white rind, and an ivory paste, and ripens from the outside in, like all bloomy rinds. Most who have commented on it call it creamy and luscious with hints of salt and lemon.

As I enjoyed the cheese with a New Zealand stout I got some of the salt and the lemon, and oh, the lusciousness!  One source recommends a yeasty champagne with Brillat Savarin. I’d say why not?  Or, how about a yeasty, bubbly beer, like Urthel Saisonniere, Goose Island Sofie, or Ayinger Brau Weisse or Ur Weisse?  With other triple crèmes I’ve had happy results with big malty beers in the vein of a Belgian dubbel or a quad, or a doppelbock.

The petite weighs about six ounces.

 The wedding planner, we’ll call her Vera, asked me to provide a really nice list of beers and alternates—enough so that we could cover a good cross section of styles to appeal to the 200 + guests. We would have sample glasses so that the guests could try different beers, but also full-sized pours for those who just wanted a long pull on something that struck their fancy. We settled on 11 different beers ranging from Hoegaarden to Bourbon County Stout, and I showed up a few minutes early on Saturday afternoon.  The place was an art space near Lake Michigan, filthy with beautiful art works and eventually with beautiful people, a good number of them around 23 to 25 years old. The first bar I came to had a sign that read Freddy’s Bar, and there were cases of American and Belgian beer behind it. I worked with a great bartended from the catering service and together we gave the guests plenty to enjoy. Emily brought Fred in and he was surprised and thrilled. Vera made sure the photographers got some shots of them hanging at the bar sampling great beer.

The other two bars offered frozen drinks, a full line of liquor, and nice wine selection, but none of it was nearly as interesting as the beer, according to many of the guests. This is what beer in America is today. The youngsters from the wedding party have grown up sipping their daddies’ Sam Adams and Sierra Nevadas and they know whether they prefer hop bombs or sour Belgians.

 So, next time you are planning a wedding or another big event, don’t settle for the pedestrian. Dare the planner to include great beer. Of course, if he or she seems perplexed as to how to go about it, you might want to mention Cheese and Cheers.

Moses Sleeper, released earlier this year,  is a bloomy rind cheese made from pasteurized cows milk. Like all Jasper Hill Farm cheeses, that milk is produced by a small herd of Ayrshire cows which graze seasonally on the farm’s pastures. Those pastures have been developed by herdsman Andy Kehler, and the excellent milk stays on the farm where it is converted to cheese by a team led by Andy’s brother Mateo. Moses Sleeper is compared to French styles like Reblochon and Camembert. The cheese matures for about 40 to 60 days and it develops a thin pliable white rind with some pink patches. The paste develops eyes or holes. The flavor should be mild, with notes of fresh milk when it is released, gaining complexity as it ages further.

This cheese was a natural for a tasting I am planning on new beers, new cheeses and new artisans. (Freshly Fermented, July 29 at Small Bar Fullerton in Chicago. More details below). I chose a beer from the very young California company, The Bruery, for an at-home preview pairing to post on the blog.

Trade Winds is a summer seasonal from The Bruery, based on a Belgian Tripel, a strong beer that none-the-less can be nice beer to enjoy in the summer. Trade Winds is also made with rice and Asian spices, although to me it remains pretty true to the classic Belgian style. Lately I’m finding that a well done beer of this style lends its self nicely to a variety of full bodied cheeses. The Bruery, also a family run business, is less than three years old. Not to confuse things, but at Freshly Fermented we will pair Moses Sleeper with a similar style beer made in collaboration by a Belgian and American brewer. So, on to today’s pairing:

 First the Cheese: I bought about a ¼ wheel of Moses from a flat disc shaped, 1-lb. wheel at Marion Street Cheese Market. It was at a perfect degree of ripeness, with the rind maintaining its countenance and the paste oozing ever so slightly.  I opened it at home the next day and the appearance was still fine. The paste was ivory and shiny, with the impression of small to medium eye holes in the ooze. From the rind and the paste there was an earthy aroma, mushroom; asparagus. There was a fresh asparagus note on the attack, and fresh cream on the finish. The mouthfeel was soft and silky, like melting chocolate punctuated by chewy bits of rind. Some bitterness on the rind, but nothing off-putting. The overall impression I kept getting was of a nicely-made cream of asparagus soup. Most reviews note the clean freshness of this cheese, but keep in mind that mine was a bit further into the ripeness curve. I loved the complex vegetal flavors, but I would also love to compare it to a younger Moses. 

The Beer:  Trade Winds pours a deep golden-amber with a white, fluffy head that falls quickly to a compact ¼-inch cap. It’s bright and clear with columns of tiny bubbles ascending. The aroma is sweet like cotton candy. The flavor attack is bitter, sweet and alcoholic. Very much what one would expect of a Belgian style Tripel. The mouthfeel is perfect, with a fairly light body, and an ebullient carbonation. There was a hint of the Thai basil, but it was nicely layered with the other rich flavors.

 Beer Plus Cheese: These two play off each other well, but they keep a bit of a distance. They are well matched in terms of intensity — the ripeness of my piece of Moses may have helped here. Two very nice, bold flavor packages. In your mouth together the asparagus soup theme continues, with an overlay of exploding bitterness and alcohol esters. This is a nice, if not completely harmonious pairing. The sweet, high octane flavor of the beer and the rich vegetable and cream flavors in the cheese don’t quite wrap around each other enough to be a perfect pair, but instead seem to stand together nicely.

I’d give this a 4 out of 5.

 BTW, there are still  a few seats left for Freshly Fermented, which kicks off at 7 p.m. Thursday at Small Bar Fullerton. Call 773.772.2727 for reservations.  Here’s the full lineup:

 Reichert’s Chevre, fresh goats milk cheese, Lois Reichert Dairy, Iowa.  Paired with Orchard White Ale, Belgian style wit, The Bruery, Calif.

 Moses Sleeper, cows milk, bloomy rind (think Camembert) Jasper Hill Farm, Vt. Paired with Biere de l’Amitie, Collaboration Strong Golden Ale. St. Feuillien, Belgium and Green Flash, Calif.

 Bandaged Cheddar, cows milk, Bleu Mont Dairy, Wis. Paired with 14th Anniversary, English IPA w/ Burtonized water, Stone Brewing, Calif.

 Cremont, aged mixed-milk (sheep, goat and cow), Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery.  Paired with I-Beam Alt, Metropolitan Brewing Co., Chicago

 Little Boy Blue, sheeps milk blue, Hook’s Cheese Co., Wis. Paired with Lake Erie Monster, Imperial IPA, Great Lakes Brewing, Cleveland

 .

Many of us beer crustygenarians remember the first time we heard of and tasted a barleywine. It was kind of magical knowing that beer could be so transformed as to be ”like wine” and those big, fat, Juicyfruit and gin flavors were amazing.  I won’t say I’ve Never Met a Barleywine I Didn’t Like, but I have fallen for a lot of them, and especially those in the English substyle, (BJCP 19B).

Good examples of this style include Young’s Old Nick, JW Lee’s Vintage Harvest Ale, Thomas Hardy’s Ale, and Robinson’s Old Tom. BJCP puts Anchor’s Old Foghorn in the American Barleywine category (19C), probably due to the use of American hops, but to me, its malt forward balance makes it more of an English.

That’s the key distinction, by they way. American barleywine and its British cousin have the same big body and flavor, the same alcohol level (8-12% to be within BJCP guidelines), and the same alcoholic flavor notes. An English version, however, has a greater emphasis on malt and fruit, often due to the behavior of their Brit-bred yeast strains. The Yank versions can be drier, and are often all about the hops—typically American hops. A good example is Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot, with its giant hoppy nose and flavor. The hop range for English is 35-70 IBUs, for American it is 50 to 120(!).

While I have admitted a preference for the Brits, I love a good American barleywine too. My brewing partner Kyle once offered me a Victory Old Horizontal on a day when I was suffering badly from a head cold. That’s a fine beer, and a barleywine might have been the only type of beer I could have enjoyed that day.  I’ve almost never sat next to a fireplace without having (or wanting to have) a snifter of golden or ruby-colored liquid bread in my hand. Barleywine is great beer for aging. Stash some bottles away and sample from them over consecutive years to see how they develop. Good beer bars love to do vertical flights of various vintages of beers like JW Lee’s.

My unscientific impression is that you don’t see too many breweries introducing barleywines these days. Not much fermenter space left with all the barrel aged stouts, black IPAs, and sour beers to be made. This style may soon become somewhat of an antiquity, although I’m pretty sure it will never disappear, especially in its Merry Old homeland.

For years, I thought of barleywines as a nice partner for bold blue cheeses. Big IPAs have elbowed in there too, but I would encourage trying both with blues, especially if you are putting together a multi-cheese tasting for a party or something. The hoppy Americans are especially good there. With a restrained, malty British barleywine, try a triple crème. A nice hard Alpine cheese, or well-aged Dutch style should work with the Americans.

Clearly a nice pairing.

Marion Street Chef Leonard Hollander, and Cheese Specialist Lydia Burns worked with Salazar to develop the pairings. The one-cheese/one-beer cheese course concept is interesting. This one was truly outstanding. Brigid’s Abbey, from Cato Corner in Connecticuit, is a Trappist style cheese that’s slightly odiferous with full creamy and salty flavors and an incredible almost spongy texture. The Blonde, from NB’s Lips of Faith series, poured so clear and golden you could read a newspaper through it. It had a lovely hop-malt-yeast balance and a nice light texture and clean flavor for its 8% ABV.  The two played very nicely together, as did all the pairings.  The dinner finished with a caramelized fresh-peach cobbler with La Folie, a sweet-sour contrast.

Salazar gave attendees a neatly distilled version of the New Belgium Brewery story which, no matter how many times you’ve heard it, never gets old.  Cheese and Cheers must apologize for inadvertantly overlapping with Eric’s second course dcescription in relaying stories of our own experiences with this remarkable brewery.  Stay tuned for news of future dinners at MSCM.  If you haven’t yet been to one, what are you wating for?

Cotswold cheese is also just called ‘Double Gloucester with Chives’ or ‘Pub Cheese’. In the pub it is usually served with toast or rustic bread. It’s a mellow cheese with strong added flavors, so it will add some complexity to a cheese plate. I would try a hoppy but balanced American pale ale like Dogfish Shelter Pale, Two Brothers Bitter End or Oscar Blues Pale. This could compliment the onion and chives while contrasting with the buttery tones of the base cheese.  Another approach would be a malty brown ale, or a malty lager, like a Maibock or Doppelbock. These would go the other way, assuaging the sharp onion flavor and harmonizing (hopefully) with the cream.