Many Subtle Layers

I've been hard on very hoppy brews, especially IPA's over the years. Let's just put it this way. If a brewery comes up with some creative way to incorporate the word hop into the name of a certain beer I'm stubborn enough to convince myself to never try said beer. It's always been as easy as that.

With that said, I'm still open to having my horizon's broadened. Take for example a bartender at one of your favorite establishments giving you a small sample of a beer with hops in its name. I'll try pretty much open to anything if someone will put even the smallest effort in recommending a beer to try.

I was given a sample of Helltown Brewing's Idle Hands Zythos last week. Idle Hands is (or has been) Helltown's flagship IPA. I'm guessing that the addition of Zythos hops is fairly new. To be honest, I've never heard of a Zythos hop until last week when I tried this beer. Just as easy as it was to hear about Zythos hops, it was maybe just as simple to be blown away by the scents and flavors it can impart in beer. I was utterly floored. I'm so used to hops in IPA's making me feel like I took a big sniff of ammonia that the fruity aroma I got took me away to an island of paradise somewhere in the Caribbean.



There are some hopped-up ales that make me nauseous with the imparted aromas of intense grapefruit and/or pine. I never thought a hybrid scent imparted by hops could be so satisfying. It turns out that the point of the Zythos existence is to add more layers to a beer's flavor. Here's a screen cap of the Zythos page on the Northern Brewer website.

Wow. Not only grapefruit and pine, but there's also tangerine and lemon? That's mind-blowing. I really enjoyed the beer. Not only did I just have the sample that I was generously given, but I ended up getting a glass of it off of the hand pump afterwards.

The experience of this beer was only helped by the chorizo-dominated I was eating at the time. We all know how a beer higher on the hop scale goes with spicy foods. I'm glad to have finally become familiar with the intricacies of the Zythos hop. Still, the experience only reinforces my view that a hoppy beer still can't only be hops. There should be other great flavors to enjoy in beer and the Zythos hop gets the job done.

Pastry Pairing

How many times do you come across something totally mind-blowing and wonder to yourself how the hell you didn't think of it yourself? That's right tons of times. The same thing happened to me when I read this Flying Dog Brewery blog post.

I once tried pairing peanut butter cookies with Reese's Pieces alongside my homebrewed mocha stout, but I never thought how perfectly Girl Scout cookies could go with different craft brews.

I've linked you to the entire list the brewery staff came up with. I'm sure the possibilities are endless. In my humble opinion, the Thin Mints most likely go well with any type of chocolate stout.

Stout Paired With Cookies

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about certain pairings with wine and how I looked forward to experimenting with wine/food pairings as well as continuing to explore pairings with beer.

Not long after I had completed the post I came across a handful of chocolate chip/walnut and peanut butter/Reese's Pieces cookies. We have plenty of homebrewed stout lying around. So, I decided to crack open a bottle to see how it went with the cookies.

Believe what you are seeing. those are Reese's Pieces in cookies.

I'm sure many beer fans enjoy the chocolate-on-chocolate pairing, such as the stout with the chocolate chip cookies. It wasn't bad, but the complementary flavors I got from pairing the stout with the peanut butter cookies was fantastic.

The chocolate and peanut butter flavors bounce off of the other wonderfully. It was kind of like a peanut butter cup infused with a shot of coffee.

I don't think I'm done with pairing experimentation with this beer. Since there's plenty coffee flavor as there is chocolate and malt, one would think this would be an ideal beverage for breakfast. I'll keep you updated if I can come across a stack of chocolate chip pancakes with a side of sausage links one day soon!

Monday Rant: Food Pairings with Wine and Beer

Nice curves. Photo via Wikipedia

I've touched on the subjects of both beer and wine quite a few times in the past with a few posts. It was within these posts that I discussed and shared a few links and studies about the health benefits of both concoctions.

Over the past few days I've been pairing different types of cookies with the homebrewed mocha stout I have. One day this might transpire into a post of it's own, but I developed a conundrum last night when it comes to food pairings.

Both beer and wine snobs alike have been pairing their favorite adult beverages with all sorts of different foods. Since I planned on picking up a few bottles of wine tomorrow on my way home from work for a certain someone, I wondered which category of food pairings was more intriguing: pairings with wine or beer?

It's really a tough question to pose as I've obviously become more parsed in the ways of pairing foods with my favorite beers rather than wine. I've paired pilsners with spicy foods and fish. I've had stouts and porters with barbecue. Hell, I've even experimented with German foods and Marzenbier.

When it comes to wine, I've pretty much only tried white wine with Italian food (eggplant parmesan, to be exact). What I do love is that sour, tomato taste mixing well with a dry wine. It's awesome.

Still, I'm interested to find out what pairings there are out there in the world of wine. Are they similar to pairings with beer? Different? We will see.