It’s not all Budweiser in the USA. Craft beer is getting bigger than ever and we met some of the producers, over a few beers, of course.
The Brewers Association, the not-for-profit trade association for small and independent American craft brewers, is exploring the pairing potential between fermented foods and beverage, specifically American craft beer, in a unique culinary experiment to demonstrate the versatility and wide flavour spectrum of American craft beer as a food accompaniment.
The UK is an important export market for American craft beer, accounting for 7.9% of all exports and ranking as the third largest market globally.
Rocking up at Brat x Climpson’s Arch, an ever so trendy pop up restaurant from the man who gave us Mountain, I find the brewers already in situ. I was expecting massive blokes with huge beards but in fact they all look very normal apart from the glint of passion in their eyes
Two Michelin-starred chefs are here Chef Song So Kim of Super 8 Restaurants in London and and Chef Mara King from Id Est Hospitality in Boulder, Colorado both of whom are renowned experts in fermentation, along with Adam Dulye, Executive Chef of the Brewers Association and a world leader in beer and food pairing himself.
It’s hot out and it’s even hotter in, as the kitchen uses a great big charcoal fired grill. I need a cold beer. I get one, Rahr Texas Red, an amber American lager using Tettnang hops which is very thirst-quenching.
We sit down to have four courses paired with a different beer style, each exploring fermentation in different ways to fermented flavours together to demonstrate how fermented flavours can complement and elevate the flavours of American craft beer – from spice to salt, sweet to tangy, and to fermentation’s ultimate by-product, alcohol.
The flavours of each dish have been designed with the respective American craft beer in mind, finishing gently with a lightly sour beer and ice cream.
Armed with a glass of Rogue Honey Kolsch, brewed with Wildflower honey, subtle floral notes we tuck into a Bread and butter, radish and fresno sriracha amuse
Sriracha, often called Milennial Ketchup, can be a crude thing, just heat, but this is made over an approximate 7-day ferment period and incorporates the key elements of this fermented sauce; spicy (fresno chili), sweet (sugar), salty (salt and radish), and tangy (fermentation). It’s pretty spicy but the Honey Kolsch subtle sweetness tames it nicely.
Then with a glass (we are only drinking small amounts of each beer) of Paradox Pils we try this beer made from old-world pilsner malts and Noble hops which is a golden, crisp, good to gulp, pilsner
It’s matched with Beef Tartare with sourdough gochujang, new potato chips and cured egg yolk. The gochujang paste, a Korean staple , has been made using leftover sourdough bread to ferment. The paste is pretty fiery but the beer blend well and damps it down
Now we’re on to Allagash White, a Belgian style witbier brewed with oats, malted wheat and unmalted raw wheat spiced with coriander and Curacao orange peel as is traditional.
I have a soft spot for white beers and this is excellent with Konbu cured fish with fresh and aged daikon radish with brodo and apricot kosho. Brodo is of course the strong stock Italians serve stuffed pasta in.
Kosho is a fermented sauce made from chilis and, in this case, apricot instead of the traditional yuzu. What this means is a less astringent, sharp, sauce. Rather too much salt in this dish, though.
Heading to the end we try Alpine Duet, a West coast style single IPA brewed with Simcoe and Amarillo hops. This being London Fields we could have been served the over hopped and over hyped beers beloved by the postcode but this IPA is subtle and delicious.
I can’t say I liked the Squab (young pigeon) we ate with it. I’m a bit squeamish about some foods and this looked like something out of Eraserhead, but I did like the Koda rice and pickles, with home-made Worcestershire sauce (which no American can ever successfully pronounce, and we had some good natured fun making the brewers try).
Koda farms rice is from a small, family run farm in California that arguably grows the best rice in the world. It takes six years for each harvest from seed to dried.
The squab had been dry rubbed, deep fried, then rubbed again, stuffed with herbs and finished in Brat’s wood fired oven. I pecked at it a bit very nice, but visually it wasn’t for me. Great beer though and went well with the pickles.
Finally we had some Virginia Beer Co. Lovey Dove. This is stone fruit sour beer featuring peach, apricot and mango. The sourness is pronounced, quite mouth -puckering which may not suit everyone but which was perfect with Amazake Ice cream with “Chocolate” and fruit.
WinWin chocolate is made from spen tbrewer’s yeast (so is Marmite, by the way) and Amazake is a Japanese beverage made from rice and koji, essentially using the same process as that used for making miso or mirin.
Koji produces enzymes that break the starch down into sugars and carbohydrates. If left for a few days lactic acid bacteria will start to turn it sour,then eventually break the sugars into alcohol and if left even longer…you get sake!
It has all been delicious and I am keen to seek out some more of the beers, preferably in larger quantities.
In the UK, American craft beer is available from select national wholesalers for the trade and on-line retailers such as Athletic Brewing, Sierra Nevada shop, Brew Export, BeerMerchants.com, Beers of America, select bottle shops, off licences, on-line subscription services, supermarkets and select pubs and bars.
The work of the Brewers Association’s Export Development Programme, of which the above Event was part, is funded by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to promote and develop American craft beer overseas.