The Session - October 2007 - Cooking With Aged Beers
By jason on Oct 5, 2007 in Cellaring News and Events, Featured
It’s the first Friday of the month, which means it’s time for beer blogs across the web to pull up a stool together and write for The Session. The Session is a group writing event hosted by a different beer blog each month. Each blog participating will write around a common topic. This months Session is being hosted by Captain Hops over at Beer Haiku Daily and the topic is Food and Beer.
I was so excited to be able to participate in my first Session, but I have to admit my heart fell a little bit after first hearing the topic. It just didn’t seem to be a great fit for the Brew Basement site (just wait until the topic is beer cellaring, though….) However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that cooking with aged beers would actually make a lot of sense in some situations, and could provide many benefits over cooking with fresh beer.
The main difference I see in cooking with aged vs. fresh beer is the bitterness levels. I love my IPA’s (even though you wouldn’t know it from this site), but you don’t see too cooking being done with them. The reason is simple - lots of bitterness may be good for beer, but it’s rarely good in food. The low bitterness profile of aged beers allows them to be used in situations where a hoppy beer would otherwise ruin the flavor. Try substituting a rich aged ale for red wine in your favorite stew or braised dish, you’ll probably be surprised by the result!
Go ahead and try your favorite vintage beer in a sauce too. Here’s a recipe for Duck with Port-Cherry Sauce in which a nice cellared strong ale or barleywine would make a great substitute for the port in the sauce. I would probably up the amount of beer used to 3/4 of a cup instead of the 1/2 a cup listed for the port.
One place to stick with a fresh beer is when making a beer batter. One of the reasons beer batters can be so light is because of the carbonation factor. Since aged beers are typically flatter then their fresh cousins, they wouldn’t be a good choice for beer-battered fish and chips (or beer battered anything, for that matter).
I’m sure I’ll be experimenting more in the future with using aged beers in cooking, I hope you do too.
Be sure to check in over at Beer Haiku Daily where you’ll find a listing of what all of us are blogging about today!
Thanks,
Jason
jason@brewbasement.com
Jason,
Back in the Colonial Era, pre-U.S., a number of food recipes reluctantly suggested using stronger ales in lieu of ports or madieras.
The wines, however, were typically favored since they seemed to hold up better to abuse (temperature flucuations, rocking, as in a ship’s hold) rather than ale, even a higher-alcohol “ship’s ale.”
There was some speculation at the time that the more abused the stronger wines were, the better they became. They were, however, more expensive than imported ales or the few decently-brewed local ones, probably the biggest reason ales crept into the recipes as a cheaper alternative.
Just a little history…
Bob Skilnik | Oct 5, 2007 | Reply
Good stuff Bob, thanks for the info. Do you know about any good sources where I could read more stuff like that?
Thanks for stopping by. BTW, I just went by and checked your site out, It’s great!
jason | Oct 5, 2007 | Reply
Without making too much of a self-promotion (but I am anyway), my latest book, Beer & Food: An American History should be a good start. It’s the only book I know of that looks at the beginnings of American food and beer, with either beer as an ingedient, or later on, as a recommended accompaniment to food.
The bibliography alone might be worth your while and give you a roadmap to delving deeper into all of this.
I do like what you’re doing too. It’s a nice niche that no one else has devoted time to. A real good idea, especially with the current emphasis on “big beers.”
Thanks Jason,
Bob Skilnik
Bob Skilnik | Oct 5, 2007 | Reply