Steve Jones - Cheese Beer Wine Cider: A Field Guide to 75 Perfect Pairings

BEYOND THE BOOK:
CONTINUED EXPLORATIONS

W ine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.

So said The Gastronomical Me and The Art of Eating author M. F. K. Fisher, and she knew a thing or two about food. Who can counter an argument framed with such eloquence?

Convention dictates that when you slice into a creamy Brie, a funky Camembert, or a nutty Gruyre, prying the cork from a vintage Bordeaux or crisp Beaujolais Blanc is the logical next step. The concept that wine is the beverage to pair with cheese is so ingrained in the public mind-set that diners pay it allegiance without sparing a single thought on the actual experience.

At Cheese Bar and Chizu, my shops in Portland, Oregon, I serve wine with the 250 varieties of cheese lovingly crammed in the display case. I also serve beer and cider, both on tap and in bottles. It makes sense to have all three on hand, because each beverage is a worthy suitor for the right cheese.

But what is the right cheese? Most people go in blind, their dutiful faith in the wine and cheese conceit setting them up for a game of culinary Russian roulette in which the loser receives a menagerie of off-putting flavors spread like butter over the palate. One of the great joys of my dual job as a cheese-monger and bar owner is steering my customers in the right direction, offering tried-and-true recommendations that I picked up the only way I knew how: firsthand experiences.

Those experiences began in the mid-nineties, when I had the fortuitous and life-changing opportunity to work in a fantastic wine shop in St. Louis called the Wine Merchant. Every day, we sold magnificent vintages from the premier winemaking regions of the world. Then, the challenge was given to me to create and curate a cheese counter that focused not only on the classic cheeses of Europe, but also the wonderful American artisan and farmstead cheeses that were experiencing a simultaneous rebirth and awakening. So, alongside the imported Parmigiano-Reggiano, Manchego, and Comt, we had cheeses from Vermont Shepherd, Juniper Grove, and Roth Kase. Every evening, we drank Puligny-Montrachet or Champagne, and then we finished the night sampling the American craft beers that were coming to light for the first time for us.

Of course, to fuel our explorations we depended on a quantity of the great cheese we were selling every day. While enjoying these cheeses and beverages together, I initially stumbled across some immaculate pairings. As I continued, I started to lean on what I had learned until I had accumulated a portfolio of good matches and solid rules to use for pairing cheese not only with wine, but with beer. Everyone knew, it seemed, that cheese went well with wine, but we were finding it went just as well, if not even better, with beer. Then, one night, someone showed up with a cider from the Normandy region of France, and I was immediately convinced that the beverage also had fantastic merit with cheese.

As we and our customers continued to enjoy cheese with wine, beer, and cider, I discovered that each balanced notable merits with flaws. For example, wine often carries a lovely acidity that works well with cheese, but its tannins can discolor flavors. Beer has an effervescence that scrubs the palate clean, keeping it sharp and lively, but hops can crush subtle notes in younger cheeses. Cider associates quite nicely with many cheeses, but the beverage has not yet matched the stylistic breadth of beer and wine (though its certainly well on its way). Through the years, I have presented cheese with many different beverages: coffee, tea, Scotch, vodka, even a few colas. But beer, wine, and cider are the three that most interest people.

ONE GOOD PAIRING WAS ALL IT TOOK TO OPEN THEIR EYES TO POSSIBILITIES THEY MIGHT NEVER HAVE IMAGINED

In 2012, the organizers of Bon Apptits first annual Feast Portland event invited me to moderate a panel on the virtues of wine and beer with cheese. Teaming up with Joshua Wesson (cofounder of the Best Cellars wine shops in New York) and Christian DeBenedetti (author of The Great American Ale Trail), we agreed to steer our presentation away from the format of a stodgy lecture (where it quite easily could have gone) and toward the looser, more approachable concept of a SMACKDOWN!

Riffing off a boxing theme, I played referee to Wessons and DeBenedettis five rounds of wine vs. beer bouts, and the results were not only hilarious but educational. The crowd ate it up, and the events success led to other smackdowns with such participants as James Beard Awardwinning writer and wine connoisseur David Lynch. I began to make it a point to convince wine aficionados like Lynch to try cheese with something other than their favorite bottles of red or white. It was just a matter of tearing down the mental walls that have kept cheese lovers from exploring a stunning new world of flavors. The amazing thing to me was how often and how quickly I could take people from the wine and cheese is always best camp and flip them to the beer and cider camp. Usually one good pairing was all it took to open their eyes to possibilities they might never have imagined without that first push.

Let me share one other story with you that had a profound impact on my way of thinking. A number of years ago, while journeying through Frances Savoie region en route to Piedmont, I somehow convinced my fellow travelers to stop and take a short hike up one of the absolutely gorgeous mountains we were passing through. We pulled off the motorway and found a sign that read simply Source of the Glacier, situated at the base of a rough trail leading up the mountainside. Off we went. About a kilometer up the trail, we encountered a small hut, not much to look at, just a simple little hut that had obviously been there quite some time. But upon closer inspection, we discovered it was actually a bar serving local cheese, simple food, and beers from the region! As hungry and thirsty as we were by that point, we werent certain whether it was real or whether we had stepped off the trail and into the afterlife. Everything tasted ten times better than it would have in any other setting, and it cemented my resolve that beer and cheese would not go uncelebrated on my watch. I will never forget that moment!

And thus the idea for this book was born. At Cheese Bar and Chizu here in Portland, I find myself offering advice on which beverages to pair with cheese six days a week. Ive been commissioned year after year to provide cheese pairings for beer and cider events, and its both challenging and rewarding. Ive developed a knack for it, Im not too humble to say, but theres always something new to learn and a new combination to explore. Its that sense of experimentation that runs through the heart of this book, and the quality I most want you, the reader, to take from it.

More than anything, sampling cheeses with these brilliant drinks should be Fun with a capital F. If this book is even half as fun to read as it was to write, were in good shape.

STEVE