Manchego + Beer: Round 1
For the March edition of #temptingtuesday I asked the Twitter and Facebook world for their best beer match with manchego cheese …
#temptingtuesday happens on the 1st Tuesday of the month where I throw a question into the social media world, a beery question, one that might set your tastebuds thinking and one that will tempt me. I get inspired and I blog the delicious results.
I got a lot of responses and they were quite diverse, so diverse and oh-so intriguing so I had to try at least three of the pairings. Hence, three separate posts. Oh and it’s also a really neat way for me to get a lot of mileage from one topic. Aren’t I a clever little cookie?
The Beer …
Westmalle Dubbel – a real, authentic, proper Trappist beer meaning it’s from a brewery where trappist monks either make or oversee the making of their beers. There are only seven such breweries in the world.
This gorgeous Belgian baby pours a muddy brown with flavours of light citrus, some earthy qualities with a warm hug at the end in the form of a fruitcake-like booziness.
The Cheese …
Manchego, aged for three months, that I got from The Re-Store in Leederville. A Spanish sheep’s milk cheese that must be made in the La Mancha region of Spain in order to be a true Manchego.
I love this cheese. It’s nutty, semi-hard with some tropical fruit flavours and a parmesan-like sharpness.
Together …
Westmalle Dubble was just a little too boozy for the cheese. Outside of this it would have been a terrific match, the warm earthy flavours of the beer complimenting the nuttiness in the cheese, the soft tropical flavours of the manchego matching the fresh citrus in the beer.
A Silly Analogy to sum things up …
Like school kids who catch the same bus but aren’t friends – they could be really good together but one distinctive element, in this case booze, stops them from playing nicely together.
Nevermind … learning by trying is a great way to approach beer and cheese pairings!
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