The Beer Triangle
Back in the hazy mists of time I can just about remember Chemistry lessons at school. In between lighting the gas taps and throwing nuggets of caesium into water (both despite warnings of dire consequences), something that dimly comes to mind is the Fire Triangle. Handy for the budding arsonist, it gives you the three things that no inferno can be started without – heat, oxygen and fuel (although unless you’re trying to light a fire on the moon, you usually get one of those things for free).
All that is a typical roundabout BeerCast way into something I thought of (and expertly illustrated) the other day – the Beer Triangle. The concept of pairing beer with food, rather than wine, has spread from the US and is taking hold here – albeit slowly. There are plenty of great blogs about matching various foods to various beers – and we even talk about it on occasion. However, there are two things I’d never pair with beer – soup, and ice-cream.
Let’s start with the more contentious – I have read plenty of posts about pouring imperial stout over a bowl of vanilla ice-cream. But to me, that just sounds daft. I’m all for drinking beer at every opportunity, but with ice-cream? Really? No chocolate sprinkles or hundreds and thousands to hand? Must everything be alcoholic? Something about the freezing cold mixing with the hoppy and/or roasty just doesn’t sit well with me.
Likewise, having beer and soup. Maybe it’s a hot/cold thing – when in Japan I made like the locals and bolted down bowls of ramen with chilled Sapporo. All I got was an alternating kind of toothache. It might also be the liquid/liquid thing – soup needs a bready partner, and beer needs a similarly solid accompaniment, of any nature (other than ice-cream, obviously). Having that amount of different liquids sloshing about inside, I wonder if they settle out into layers, like oil on water?
The final no-go is the non-beery combo, that of ice-cream and soup. Unless you’re a true foodie and going for something Michelin-esque like scallop sorbet in a pea gazpacho, the idea of soup and ice-cream together is just wrong on every level. Unless, maybe having a beer at the same time as the other two would cancel everything out? You’d either end up with something calamitous, or the perfect blending of tastes and textures. I’m not going to find out though…
What are the things that just don’t mix with beer? Or is the answer to that question – ‘nothing, you triangular fool’?
4 Comments
Blair
September 23, 2011i, for one, could put some stout on ice cream. that said, this is a great article!
Richard
September 23, 2011Blair I reckon you’d put stout on anything – you’d probably moisturise with it if you could… 😉
tania_nexust
September 23, 2011I too would have been against the ‘beer and ice cream’ suggestion, had I not been introduced to perhaps the one time that it does work – I was dining with beery friends in Bruges, and at the end of the set meal, a desert of plain but good quality vanilla ice cream was served. One of the party also ordered a small bottle of Lindemans Kriek, and insisted I do the same. Normally that beer would be too sweet & syrupy for my liking – I prefer a Girardin, Cantillon or Boon Kriek – but I did as I was told. Then they poured most of the bottle over their ice cream. I was skeptical to say the least but I’m always up for experimentation and having my untested viewpoint challenged, so I tried it myself. It actually worked very well – the vanilla brought out a kind of almondy/marzipan flavour from the beer, and overall it tasted a bit like a Battenburg-cake flavoured pudding. It was lovely, and I don’t normally even go for dessert! So, there you go – the one time I was surprised to find, ice cream and beer DID mix!
tania_nexust
September 23, 2011Oh also, I had a great brown beer, cheese & bacon soup at Straffe Hendrick / Halve Maan brewery in Bruges on another occasion – and it was really sublime. So that side of the triangle can work too 🙂