Hello! Welcome to Drinks Tube. I'm Tim Anderson, I'm a chef, a food writer and a professional
beer geek. I'm here at Club Gascon in London where today we're going to served an exquisite
French, five course tasting menu paired with some of the best American craft beers you
can get provided by the Brewers Association. What we want to show you today is that the realm of
fine dining is not just for wine, beer is often as good or a better match that any wine
you can get your hands on. Now some the food today is going to be quite fussy, quite complicated
but I'm going to give you some ideas of things you can make in your own home kitchen that
are based on what we're eating today.
Alright first course is here, that means time for
our first beer. It's called Berliner Weissbier, it's a actually a sour wheat beer which I
think is going to be perfect for this oyster dish. Mmm, it's really fresh and biscuity.
It's got a little bit of a honey note to it but then there is a nice tart apple character
and underneath all that there is some nice lovely rich cracked wheat. It's like a great
vintage champagne, that's what it's going to be perfect with this dish. It smells amazing
and looks crazy good. How do I eat this. Let's see if I can do this down in one, that's how
I usually do oysters.
That's fantastic. This oyster dish has so much going on it all comes
together beautifully but it's really just wave after wave of flavour. You've got this
briny, briny oyster and that's accented by the seaweed in there and along with the beer
all that sort of comes together, it melds together- it feels more complete. Excellent,
we're doing great so far. Now this beer actually comes from my home state of Wisconsin and
I can vouch for this brewery it's delicious. Now Amber Logger, not something you see that
often on these British Isles but it's a pretty common style in American brewing. This one
is malt forward and malts tend to be sweet and caramelly, and nutty and mellow. Mmm.
It is a lager, you can tell it's a lager because it's quite clean and dry. That's got a lot
more flavour that you might expect from a typical lager, it's a like a toffee apple
but with a little hint of bitterness from the hops to just sort of clean it up. The
sweetness in here is going to be absolutely perfect with this dish. This is wood pigeon
with barigoule orange and glazed kumqaut. Let's have a go. Mmm. Delicious! It's a perfectly
balanced dish, it's got richness from the pigeon- it's got sort of a mellow fruitiness
and sweetness from the orange and there is complexity and herbal character from that
barigoule. And this, with it's perfect straight down the middle balance and sweetness, it
almost acts as like a glaze that sort of ties everything together and coats everything in
this nice sweetness. I could eat this everyday, all day- I love pigeon and I love this beer.
Now, if you're new to beer and food pairing, you may wonder well how do I actually do it?
The way I do it is I like to get a little bit of both flavours in my mouth at the same
time. Basically I'll take a swig of beer, get that flavour let it linger, then while
it's sort still in there... take a bite. The flavours sort of match for a bit, you get
a little bit of both and then... more beer. It's the flavours that sort of linger from
sip to bite, sip to bite that's where you get that interplay and that's where that alchemy
happens where things become more than the sum of their parts. You start to notice different
flavours in both the beer and the food that you didn't notice before. It's about teasing
out different nuisances and complexities of both what you're drinking and what you're
eating. It's good fun. Third beer, now we've actually got the brewer here with us, he just
described it as cascade hops beginning, middle to end. And oh yeah, it's got two of the defining
features of cascade hops right out of the glass, it's white grapefruit and rose. It's
really, really floral. Really, really citric. I'm going to enjoy this one. You get that
grapefruit pith, you get that little bit of rose. It's really balanced, really refreshing
but it's also this sort of nice toasty malted character to it. So to pair with it the chef
has made us a lovely silky duck flan. It smells awesome, let's give it a go. Mmm. Haw! This
like the bomb, this is so perfect. That fruitiness and that toastiness, and this richness. They
all work so well together. It's got this mouth sort of creaminess to it and the bubbles in
here clean up the palate a bit and refresh between bites. This is good, yeah... good
****. Now if you wanna have something like this paring at home, you've got yourself a
good bottle of pale ale like this mirror pond. Try any other kind of chicken liver or even
a pork liver pate with some sweet tart chutney and some good crusty bread. You get a similar
kind of pairing here. Lovely. We're starting to ratchet up the flavour a bit. Now India
pale ales and pale ales, what's the difference? The bottom line is IPA are typically stronger
and hoppier that your typical pale ale. Wow, straight away notice this intense, sort of
freshly cut Christmas tree, sort of sappy, pine aroma. Woo, that's got a kick to it.
It's definitely full of sentential hops, it's more bitter than the last beer. There is also
like this maple syrupy sweetness to it. It's pretty dangerous that one, let's try it with
the food. We have a black pudding cappuccino with lobster and asparagus. Which sounds awesome,
looks awesome and smells awesome... and tastes awesome. That works so well, there is this
real rich almost haggis-y flavour coming from this black pudding broth. It's just real meaty,
and savoury and satisfying. What the beer does, it almost adds this sort of lighter
layer to it- just sort of perks it up. If you got yourself a nice hoppy, resiness IPA
at home then you could do this with simply fried black pudding, a haggis dish would be
perfect. Something really sort of rich, that's got a lot of iron flavour would be perfect
for a beer like this. So here we are at the last course, the last beer- I'm feeling pretty
fat and happy but there is always room for desert, and there is always room for this
beer. This is the beer that got me into beer, I'd never had anything like it and it is still
one of my all time favourites,and I've had lots of beer. You can just tell by looking
at me, I'm rich and oily like an espresso. The smell it's just incredible. Dark chocolate,
that's the first thing, well pulled espresso, a little bit of like a coffee liqueur and
then there is also this nuttiness to it, this sweet nut thing, like an amaretto or a marzipan
note. It's really rich and really, really just- well, it's... it's pretty good. Wow.
It just slips down, like the worlds most grown up chocolate milkshake. So for a rich, chocolaty
desert beer, we have a rich, chocolaty desert.
Mmm, that's perfect. I can die happy. That
chewy caramel, it's not only sort of the same flavour as the beer, it's almost the same
kind of texture. They're just made for each other. It's like if you distilled this, you'd
get this. They're perfect. I'm going to drink all of this one. Now if you're lucky enough
to get yourself a stout as rich, strong and delicious as Old Rasputin, just get yourself
a good rich chocolate brownie, top it with a scoop of caramel, praline or hazelnut ice
cream and a few fleck of sea salt. And that is what will convince you that beer and fine
food are made for each other. Well I gotta say, great American beer, fine French dining-
fantastic together. I really, really hope you guys will track some of these beers down
and try them for yourselves. You can search for them online and find them in mail order
shops. If you have any questions, just leave them in the comments below and don't forget
to click subscribe.