Edible brew

Ravenous, a food column by Jennifer Brizzi

Edible brew

This column originally ran March 9, 2006, in The Woodstock Times and The Kingston Times.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

--Benjamin Franklin

In places like Italy people don’t view wine as a cocktail or even a beverage but rather a food that’s as much a part of a meal as bread or broccoli. Wine complements the rest of the meal, washes it down and brings out the best in it. Or in the kitchen wine serves as a savory ingredient to add another layer of flavor to a well-crafted dish.

Now I know none of this is groundbreaking news, but consider that beer is just as worthy of a place on the dining table and in the kitchen pot as wine. Those snooty types who think that beer is always inferior to wine, good only for numbing the brains of the lower classes, should do a tasting. Try a fine Belgian aged Trappist ale followed by a sip of Boone’s Farm or Night Train (kids, don’t try this at home), and see which is the smoother, classier and more sophisticated beverage.

Shed those pre-conceptions and move that beer from the living room or deck to the kitchen and dining room. Beer as a cooking ingredient enhances chili, sauerkraut or zesty Welsh rarebit. It moistens and flavors the deliciously lowbrow classic Grilled Beer Can Chicken. Nothing accompanies Asian foods better, whether Thai green curry chicken, incendiary Indian lamb vindaloo or takeout Chinese moo goo gai pan. Beer goes best with barbecue, fried chicken and other classic American dishes of the heartland, the South and Southwest.

In Italy, do you think they sip fine Chiantis with their pizza? No way; even most Italians agree that beer goes better, according to my own informal poll.

Not only is beer the second most popular beverage worldwide (after tea), but it showed up about 2000 years before wine. The oldest recipe ever found--actually the oldest thing written down, some say--was a recipe for brewing beer. Ancient Sumerian temple workers got a ration of just under two pints a day, senior dignitaries more than eight pints. Later, in the Middle Ages, beer-brewing monks were allowed five quarts each per day. The Puritans ended their 1620 trip prematurely, stopping at chilly Plymouth Rock instead of seeking out a warmer place to dock, because they were running low on beer.

Historians claim that the love of beer has repeatedly affected the course of history, including turning us from hunter-gatherers into an agrarian society who needed to settle down and cultivate grains for beer-making. For centuries in human history, drinking water teemed with poisons like vermin, bacteria and human waste, so beer was the healthful hydration vehicle of choice for all ages and all times of day.

To make most kinds of beer, stewed malted barley is filtered, the liquid is left to ferment with hops, and then carbon dioxide fizzes it up. Some beer is made with wheat or other grains instead of barley, and differences in brewing techniques produce a huge variety of beer and ale types from sweet to dry, from transparent to murky, from nearly clear to opaque black. You see red beer and orange beer, and if you’re not so lucky you’ll see a green one on the bar in front of you next week on the 17th.

Some beer is aged for a while to develop character and some is consumed fresh the same day it’s made, like the mild bia hoi we tried in Hanoi, Vietnam, that’s sometimes paired with dog meat, goat stew or dried squid.

Around the world, brewers tired of the same old suds flavor their beers with raspberry, cherry, peach, cranberry, orange peel, pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, clove, lavender, woodruff, pine, honey, chocolate or oysters. You’ll find beer smoked or spiced with a whole chili pepper in the bottle, or even mentholated like the infamous Cool Colt, marketed to inner city residents with a taste for menthol cigarettes. That sounds nearly as nasty as the eighteenth century English beers infused with tobacco or licorice.

Tastes in beer vary, and what some like, others abhor. My own favorites are Bass Ale on tap and Dos Equis dark (actually an amber), neither one too fancy or hard to find. In general I’m not nuts about stouts and porters but prefer a dry medium-hued amber reddish ale or lager. Most of our mainstream American beers are too bland for my taste and I prefer to seek those from our microbreweries, from north or south of the border, or from across some intercontinental pond or another.

When it comes to cooking with the stuff, possibilities are many. It makes a perfect crispy batter for fried vegetables, goes in cheese soup, and leavens crepes and pancakes. Paired with port, Guinness is part of the dark, rich Barbados black cake. It’s an essential component of the sweet Belgian beef stew carbonnades à la flamande and the German potato salad Kartoffelsalat mit Biermarinade. Some stew vegetables like carrots, red cabbage or Brussels sprouts in it, and it’s peerless for simmering hot dogs or bratwurst.

Moving from the kitchen to the dining room, try pairing beer with asparagus or artichokes, which clash with most wines. Mild lagers and pilsners that aren’t too hoppy go with mild fish or chicken breast. Hearty stouts and ales go with raw oysters or other seafood. Sausages and hearty cold cuts like those sold at the Smokehouse of the Catskills in Saugerties go with hearty German-type beers with an edge. Japanese beer is perfect with sushi. Ale complements long-cooked barbecue, hearty stews and Mexican food. Some say brownies, cheesecake and crème brulée go with brown ale, stout or porter, although I can’t yet vouch for that one. Most of us lowbrow types agree that potato chips and pretzels pair perfectly with whatever’s cold out of the cooler or fridge.

Give beer a chance. If you don’t like the cheap stuff, go upscale. Although many women don’t like beer at all, I come from a long line of beer-swillin’ women. Many people of both sexes look down on the stuff, like Anon E. Mous, who said "Beer: Take pure spring water. The finest grains. The richest ingredients. And then run them through a horse."

But keep an open mind, experiment with beers, and maybe you’ll find, like Winston Churchill, that "most people hate the taste of beer - to begin with. It is, however, a prejudice that many people have been able to overcome."

Overcome your prejudice in time for that great beery holiday, St. Patrick’s Day, but instead of green Bud celebrate with some dark creamy Guinness or Murphy’s Stout (my favorite, not as bitter as Guinness). Or try Mother’s Milk, a rich stout from our local Keegan Ales on St. James Street in Kingston. And with eight tasty lagers and ales brewed on the premises, the Hyde Park Brewery across the river is sure to have something to please you.

Jennifer Brizzi | P.O. Box 48 | Rhinecliff, New York 12574 | U.S.A.

jenniferbrizzi@yahoo.com