Good Taste / December 2006
Cheers to Beers
When women feel festive, their go-to beverage is often Chablis or a nice Zinfandel, Merlot with dinner and on special occasions, something colorful and frozen or served with a paper umbrella. It’s hardly ever a beer.
But despite the guys-being-guys, jock and frat boys hype, beer has as much to offer in flavor, variety and complexity as wine. Actually, the number and variety of beer styles outnumber those of wine.
For the uninitiated, beer can be just as bewildering as wine, and for the same reasons. There’s a multitude of choices and tastes.
As a beverage, beer isn’t any more fattening than liquor or wine though it does have a few more carbohydrates.
Though beer is associated with six packs and ball games, it is an excellent accompaniment to food and is just as complex as wine. And, there’s a lot to choose from.
Unfortunately, most beer guides, like most wine guides, only complicate the issue, with insider phrasing regarding gravity, bouquet and mouth feel.
But, in beer as in wine, all that matters is what tastes best to the individual. For beer, the choice is ultimately based on whether a woman likes a “hoppy” beer or a “malty” beer.
Hops give beer a sharp, bitter flavor. Malt gives it a round, nutty flavor. Most people distinctly prefer one or the other. Brewers today, especially smaller “craft” brewers, have gone overboard with for hops, adding enormous amounts of the vine’s buds to create super-bitter lagers and ales, but there are plenty of satisfyingly malt-rich brews still available.
Sometimes an actual taste is the only way to know whether a beer leans toward malt or hops. Sometimes the brewer will provide a brief description on the carton. ometimes the name says it all: An India Pale Ale, or IPA, is generally a very hoppy beer. Sometimes beer brands boast their hop content: A “60-minute” or “90-minute” ale is a heavily hopped brew.
Color is not necessarily a clue. A “blonde” beer is not necessarily low in hops. IPAs tend to be pale and translucent, but heavy on hops. Blackish-brown stouts and porters, in contrast, are typically malty rather than hoppy. The dominant flavor component of most dark brown beers mirrors the richness of coffee or chocolate. They offer a deeply flavorful accompaniment for beef, stews, cheese, and–chocolate! A hostess can please herself and her male and female dinner guests by serving a porter and fine chocolate at the end of the meal.
“Hoppy” brews, on the other hand, stand out with spicy curries or with Mexican foods. Fruited beers, like those made with raspberries or apricots, are nice with fruit salads and cakes.
It’s been documented that the Mayflower abandoned its voyage and landed in Plymouth because the ship stocks ran out of beer and that one of the first establishments constructed in the Pilgrim colony was a brewery. It is much more likely that the Pilgrims served beer with their turkey rather than a crisp Chardonnay.
Like specialty vineyards, though, makers of beer have embraced charming and unusual nomenclature to sell their products, like Smutty Nose Old Brown Dog Ale and Old Speckled Hen, Bluebeery or Erin Go Braless and, perhaps not surprisingly, from Titanic Brewery, Lifeboat Ale.
Copyright © 2001-2009 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
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