Hot Knives + The Bruery: Cheese & Beer Pairing at Verdugo Bar

As part of L.A. Beer week, the Hot Knives and the Bruery joined forces to host a cheese and beer pairing at Glassell Park's Verdugo Bar. They held a contest for tickets, and this post was my admission ticket.  (Above Alex Brown of Hot Knives with Patrick Rue of the Bruery.)

The menu was:

Andeerer Traum with brewer's candy
Seven Grains Saison

Brebis Rossiniere and arugula, strawberry, Szechuan peppercorns
Mischief

Brugge Rodenbach cherry-ciabatta grilled cheese
Oude Tart

Bavarian Limburger "ambient nachos"
Rugbrod

Bleu Des Causses stuffed dates with red curry
Gunga Galunga

Highlights included the Andeerer Traum with brewer's candy (pictured below), which meant a malt barley syrup was drizzled over the cheese.  The syrup was sweet, although very different from the maple version you might put on griddle cakes.  The cheese itself has a bold grassy flavor and is a hard cheese.  It is from Southern Switzerland and is the product of a husband and wife cheesemaking enterprise and won 2nd place at the World Cheese Championships earlier this year.

The pairing for this cheese was the Seven Grains Saison, which lives up to its name, with seven different grains  (barley, wheat, rice, oats, corn, rye and spelt (yes, spelt!)) contributing to the ale.

Another especially notable pairing was the Bleu Des Causses stuffed dates with red curry paired with Gunga Gulunga.  The date was stuffed with an assertive French blue cheese made from cow's milk and the combination of the blue cheese and the curry made the stuffed dates an explosive bite.  No shortage of flavor.

To pair was Gunga Galunga, a black beer from the Bruery Provisions series that has been brewed with galanga (blue ginger) according to the Bruery.  The beer is named for a scene in Caddyshack in which Bill Murray's character describes golfing with the Dalia Lama and the Lama's shot goes into a 10,000 ft crevasse, upon which the Lama says "Gunga Galunga."

The event was awesome because of the close collaboration between the Hot Knives and the Bruery, the great space at Verdugo Bar and the fun crowd of cheese and beer enthusiasts.  I know I will be back to Verdugo Bar to explore more of what they have on tap and to enjoy the amazing back patio.  I hope Hot Knives will do another event of some sort before next year's Grilled Cheese Invitational.

The Oude Tart also has to be singled out as it was tart and sour in a way I hadn't experienced quite like that before.  If you like your beer tart or sour, get some of this as it will throw you for a loop.

Tripel Karmeliet: The Beer that Seduced Me

I wasn't much of a beer drinker in the past, consuming cheap beer in college (PBR in bottles before it was ironic) and spending my first night in Manhattan post-college at McSorley's Ale House where I drank a large quantity of the beer in tiny glasses (you ordered by the half dozen); so much so I got sick.  It was only in 2006 when I spent several months consulting in Belgium for a client that I finally saw the light.  Quality beer was readily available everywhere and whether in Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, Mechelen or the countryside, I sought out the beers and wines that the locals were drinking.  It was there I was smitten with Tripel Karmeliet, a Belgian tripel brewed from wheat, oats and barley and with a light citrus and delicate aroma.

So for the Hot Knives beer and cheese pairing challenge I knew I had to go back to patient zero, Tripel Karmeliet, the source of my appreciation for beer.  Fortunately I was able to get a four pack at Beverage Warehouse, a store which is dangerous for me to enter as the variety of beers and spirits is enormous and it is tempting to keep on adding just one more bottle to my cart, budget be damned.  I picked up some other treats to be written about later, so stay tuned.

Next I needed some cheese to pair with the beer and I headed to Andrew's Cheese Shop in Santa Monica, a well curated cheese shop whose eponymous owner Andrew Steiner is a wealth of knowledge about cheese and isn't shy about sharing his opinions.  I opted for both a blue cheese in the Stilton tradition and a cheddar.  I am a huge fan of the Hook's, but Andrew convinced me to try the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar.


The Tripel is a light clear color and has notes of citrus, with light spices and a hint of lemon.  The yeast is front and center and the foam is serious.  I first tried it with the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar which is a whitish yellow sharp cheddar from a cooperative family creamery in Vermont.  I can just picture the happy cows.  It was won awards, and as it tastes delicious I can see why.  It was very sharp and nutty and tangy flavors predominate.  The cheese overpowered the beer, which was too delicate for such a bold partner.  A strong dark brew would be a better partner for the Cheddar.

Next I turned to the Stichelton, a blue cheese from England that was created as a partnership between Neal's Yard in London (go if you haven't been) and Joe Schneider, an American cheese maker.  It is a raw milk Stilton style cheese and despite being a blue, has the subtlety to be an appropriate dancing partner to the Tripel Karmeliet.  The cheese, which I let warm up to room temperature before trying (cheese served too cold is a pet peeve of mine), has an assertive flavor without the sharpness of the cheddar.  The cheese is salty and creamy and luxurious without being too soft.  No runny brie here.  The Stichelton sneaks up on you with its flavor, demanding more and more bites, until I realized I had gone through two bottles of Tripel Karmeliet and a fifth of a pound of Stichelton in one sitting (not counting the cheddar I couldn't help but find a more suitable partner for).

Tonight is the beginning of LA Beer Week, where you can have your patient zero experience.  It all begins tonight at Naja's Place in Redondo Beach, where there will be 40 Stone beers on draft, the most ever available in one spot outside of the brewery.  This could certainly be a bragging rights worth event to go to.  Just bring a big appetite and a designated driver.  The fun continues all week long through the finale at Union Station on Sunday October 17th.  I already bought my ticket for Josh from FoodGPS's 2nd Annual Beer Float Showdown at Verdugo Bar, coincidentally the same location as the sold out Bruery and Hot Knives beer and cheese pairing extravaganza on the 14th.  I can only dream that they pair one of the beers with my favorite assertive cheese, Époisses, which I first sampled at a restaurant in New York more than ten years ago when the maitre'd took a liking to our table and said, "Do you like cheese." As they say, the rest is history. Delicious stinky history.

Grilled Cheese Invitational - 2010

This is the last cheese related post of the day. This past weekend about 8,000 Angelenos lined up to attend the 1st 8th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational. Unlike at the innagural LA Street Food Fest, the lines to get in moved very quickly. Admission was $10 and entitled attendees to a sample of a Tillamook grilled cheese sandwich and the opportunity to purchase mini grilled cheese sandwiches from a variety of vendors.

The lines for purchasing sandwiches/food was frequently very long, a consequence of less than 10 vendors selling grilled cheese sandwiches and the capacity crowd of 8,000 excited fans and judges.
The best of the sandwiches I ate was the fresh burrata with cherry tomatoes and salsa verde from the Campanile/Point booth. It was $4, double the price of the other sandwiches. Spendy but tasty. Chef Mark Peel was there in person working the grill.

Chef Eric Greenspan of the Foundry on Melrose and the upcoming Grilled Cheesery was also there grilling up with his staff. His line blended in with the Hot Knives folks, making it confusing.

It was fun and a good vibe but it was too hard to actually get some of the product. Waaaay better than the LA Street Food Fest, but there was still room for improvement if your goal was to sample several grilled cheeses that you couldn't normally get. I skipped the Grilled Cheese truck as their product is available all the time - why wait an hour in line in the heat for something that I can get another day without the wait?

Also sampled the Greenspan sandwich and one called "band Camp" from the Hot Knives folks which included cheddar and apple butter. I found it way too sweet - the apple overpowered everything else. The lines at Hot Knives were also the worst and most confusing as there was one line to pay and another to get your sandwich. As the lines were so long and the Hot Knives folks changed their offering each hour, when you got in the ordering line there was no way to know what sandwich you were likely to get when you finally made it to the front of the food line.


The photos to the left are of Mark Peel at the griddle and Eric Greenspan at his tent.