The lockdown inevitably led to all of CAMRA’s usual Christmas activities being cancelled so, to maintain the spirit, the North London Branch held a virtual beer and cheese tasting on the Tuesday before Christmas. We decided to throw it open to any CAMRA member who was interested and 65 of them, from all over Britain, participated; all missing the pub and in need of some fun! Those taking part were asked to supply their own beer and cheese and a great 90 minutes was spent munching and slurping.
The first combination was a wheat beer with a goat’s cheese. Quite a lot of people had not tried a goat’s cheese before and this certainly opened a few eyes with the wheat beer cutting through the creaminess. Beers varied from Erdinger, Franziskaner and Weihenstephaner to Moor’s Claudia, Patronus and German Kraft Hopeweizen.
Next was a golden ale with Camembert. This encouraged lots of people to find their local beers including ELB Jamboree, Quantock Gold, Glamorgan Jemima’s Pitchfork and Thornbridge Jaipur. The cheese was also creamy but needed a beer with a bit more bite and strength of flavour to cut through its richer characteristics and the beer’s bitterness provided a contrast.
People were asked to try both combinations with and without crackers to see how this affected their perceptions. With the Camembert, it was about even, with as many people preferring the cheese on its own with the beer as with the biscuit, but this changed with the goat’s cheese. Almost two in three preferred it with biscuits because the latter took some of the fattiness from the soft cheese.
The third combination was the very traditional one of bitter and mature Cheddar. Once again, our tasters were creative in finding a bitter of around 4.5% ABV, sourced from London, Yorkshire, Suffolk, Kent and Somerset. The malty, sweet nuttiness of the beer complemented the same aspects of the cheese and the hoppy fruitiness cleaned the palate.
You couldn’t do a cheese tasting without a blue and most people opted for the Great British Stilton, which was tasted with two different beer styles: a porter or stout and a premium bitter/strong ale. There were more varieties of porters and stouts chosen than for any other beer style category, including a Polish stout and a porter from Virginia, USA! For the ale, Fuller’s was a popular choice with people choosing ESB, 1845 and Vintage of various ages. The oldest Vintage was a 2008, which was described as port-like. With this pairing, it was important that the beer had the strength of flavour to stand up to the rich taste and aroma of the Stilton.
As always, with everyone’s palate being different, opinions were mixed as to which of the two beer styles went best with the cheese. The porter/stout match was the favourite preferred by 60% of people and this was chosen as the overall winning combination, followed very closely by the mature Cheddar with premium bitter/strong ale. It is worth noting however that every matching got votes. The lowest was the Camembert and golden ale with 10% of the votes, reflecting the recommendation not to have just one beer on offer, whatever food is being served.
Deciding on the best pairing wasn’t the only judging that took place on the evening. For a bit of fun people were asked to come with various styles of Christmas apparel and the enthusiasm and variety on offer reflected the daftness of the occasion. The winner, as judged by Branch Chairman Colin Coyne, was Sandra Crane for her ‘Santa stuck in the chimney’, accompanied by Chris wearing the dog’s antlers! Enough said! The overall results are shown at the foot of this page.
Christine Cryne
Editor’s note: I participated and would like to thank Christine (and John in the background) for a very enjoyable event. For the record, my preference was cheddar and bitter with biscuits.
