Beer and Cheese Pairing Night - Explained

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idzy

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Hi Guys,

I couldn't find too much on the forums regarding Beer and Cheese Pairing Nights and I thought I might write down my thoughts on an event that I ran for my Company's Social Club on Friday Night.

Caveat: I am not a seasoned brewer, beer taster, BJCP judge, or expert in any way. I haven't ever attended a Beer and Cheese Pairing night, but thought it would be fun and gave it a go anyways. This information is supposed to be helpful, but should not be treated as exhaustive.

The night was really well received and we had about 25 people in attendance. It was amazing the differences in opinion on certain tastes and the different descriptors people used when describing flavours of beers and cheeses and their compatibility together.

Planning the night
The Social Club Committee met and agreed to the night, we sent out the invitations with a bit of a blurb to encourage people to attend.

I did originally try to organise someone from Purvis or Slow Beer to facilitate the night, but they apparently don't do this as much any more, particularly for our size event. Once I realised I probably needed to faciliate it myself I started doing lots of research.

I did lots of googling and talking with people regarding the pairing of the beers. This was partly how the selection was made. There are a number of great blog posts and sites on the internet, and I believe I also read a section in Radical Brewing about arranging a night like this (which was my original inspiration).

For the 30 RSVP'd, I allowed for approximately 100ml of beer (per flight), 25g of cheese (per flight), and 1/4 of a packet of crackers per person. Crackers for cleansing between flights and serving the cheese.

The main factor to determine is how long you want the event to run for and how many flights you want to have. I decided on 6, based on factors including after work event, safe consumption and travel. This equated to approximately 2 normal sized beers. Which I thought would be appropriate for the average men and women that would be in attendance.

This leads me to the next point. I think it is important to survey what beers and cheeses may be most well received. It is one thing to have a preference to really heavy malt/hop forward beers, like stouts, porters, brown ales and imperial IPAs. It is another than your general populous will also like/appreciate those beers being served as the main attraction at your event, so be mindful of that.

The aim for me really was to introduce people to new Beers and Cheeses and give them a really enjoyable experience. Having a high hit rate of enjoyment across the board was definitely the goal and one which was achieved with reasonable success.

For one of the flights, we tasted a White Rabbit Dark Ale with Aged Gouda. This beer is probably one of the more commercial examples in Melbourne and also quite popular. Even though this is the case, about 50% of people did not like this beer and didn't finish it. They did take the time to describe why they didn't like it, but nonetheless, if this was backed up by other bitter / malt heavy / / carmelly beers, then it may have been quite bad.

So my recommendation is to plan to work with the lowest common denominator in this type of environment, to be introducing the non-beer drinkers to beers that they can and will like to drink and for the more seasoned beer drinkers to some different varieties that are produced locally and internationally.

Ordering
For the first little while, I was going into Woolies and Dans and calling Slow Beer and Purvis for ideas and beer selections.

After a while and after getting a bit of an idea of products that were available, I started using the online shopping features of these sites.

Once I was done, I did the ordering through them as well. This was partly logistical, due to working in the city and not wanting to carry Beer and Cheese from QV to the other side of town. The other reason was availability. When you are order 4x each cheese variety and ordering a range of different beers, sometimes they are not available, which is a PITA.

To save this hassle, I ordered online and got them delivered the day prior. They went in the fridge and were ready. This is the first time I have used online shopping, but very glad I did. The Feral Hop Hog needed to be grabbed from Regional Melb, as none was available, so it made it worthwhile.

Glasses / Plastic Cups - If you have access to lots of glasses great. Otherwise 200ml clear plastic cups can be had at Reject Shop for 100. I spent quite some time looking for the right size cups, including BigW, Coles, Woolies, Dan's, etc. 200ml I thought were way better than having less than half filled 275 ml or larger cups. Hope this helps.

Running the night
Depending on the setting will really depend on how you run the night. If it is standing room only, the vibe will be very different than a sit down.

I found for my standing room only environment, some people were very engaged with the literature that I had provided and others weren't.

I had two documents available:
Style Descriptions
Print on A3 - Up on the wall and a bit dumbed down descriptions from BJCP.

With the six flights that we had, the total time was approximately one and a half hours from first flight to completion of last. This was way longer than I had anticipated, but was needed in order to allow people to enjoy their beer/cheese and not rush them.

Individual Tasting notes
A4 copies for all the participants. Some people used them, but generally people were just happy to taste and eat and describe on the spot and talk about what they were experiencing with eat other.

For me, it was important to recognise that this is completely okay. To allow people to do what they feel comfortable with, rather than turning everyone into a BJCP Master Judge in one night.

Some people took photos of the bottles (which we had on display) and also took notes on their phones.

My learnings:
  • You don't need as much cheese as you think. 12.5g per person is probably enough, maybe even 10g.
  • You don't need to worry about cutting the cheese prior to the flight, just take it on a plate with a cheese knife. People will apportion their own serving(s).


If you like the idea of this kind of thing, I hope this information is in some way helpful in your endeavor to run one for your family and friends. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

If you have run one before yourself and have some information to share that would be awesome too!

View attachment Beer and Cheese Pairing - Style Descriptions v1.0.pdf
View attachment Beer and Cheese Pairing - Shopping List v1.0.pdf
View attachment Beer and Cheese Pairing - Tasting Notes v1.0.pdf

EDIT: Grammar and info regarding Cups.

Cheers,
Idzy
 
Surely you mean 1000ml per person, not a 100ml. That would be a teaspoon per flight each. You work for a Scottish finance company?

Otherwise, nice write up. Should lighten the burden for anyone contemplating the same. I think I will stick to beer tasting poker nights... Besides, working for myself, I know my boss is an asshole and would never spring for a social club night
 
Love my cheese as I love my beer,just been reading about a Leicester brewery which infuses the whey of Stilton Cheese into a beer, now I am not a fan of infusing anything beyond the norm into beer, but this one I have got to taste.
 
NewtownClown said:
Surely you mean 1000ml per person, not a 100ml. That would be a teaspoon per flight each. You work for a Scottish finance company?

Otherwise, nice write up. Should lighten the burden for anyone contemplating the same. I think I will stick to beer tasting poker nights... Besides, working for myself, I know my boss is an asshole and would never spring for a social club night
Hahah NewtownClown. Tasting by the 1L Stein sounds like the Reinheitsgebot way!

DU99 said:
Yeah these and they have similiar in Woolies, in the dairy section. They are pretty good, unless you want to customise or catering for large numbers. Very good way to get into it though. Thanks for linking.
 
NewtownClown said:
Surely you mean 1000ml per person, not a 100ml. That would be a teaspoon per flight each. You work for a Scottish finance company?
What he meant was 100ml per flight, not per night, per person. Thought that was pretty obvious from the next paragraph.
 
Florian said:
What he meant was 100ml per flight, not per night, per person. Thought that was pretty obvious from the next paragraph.
Thanks! Originally thought it was a joke, but realised it was probably my poor grammar. I have fixed up for future readers.
 
idzy said:
Hahah NewtownClown. Tasting by the 1L Stein sounds like the Reinheitsgebot way!

Yeah these and they have similiar in Woolies, in the dairy section. They are pretty good, unless you want to customise or catering for large numbers. Very good way to get into it though. Thanks for linking.
Nice edit (per flight)


This thread caught my attention because i was actually making halloumi (first attempt) at the time - the leftover whey is now turning into ricotta. Very timely... now for a beer and some fried halloumi
 
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