Beer with Food

[Jason Perlow]

But with Indian food I promise you an Auslese is best. Try it.

A Riesling Auslese? Oh my. That sounds awfully sweet. I would normally reserve that for a dessert wine. I mean thats only 1 step below TBA, which, I would almost never consider drinking with anything savory.

Wouldnt a Kabinett be better? Spatslese on the extreme outside depending on the dish? I'm thinking trocken or halbtrocken actually.

I mean youre on the right track with the acidity and low alcohol, but Auslese? Really?

[jhlurie]

Jason... did you somehow clone this thread?  I see it in both the Wine and Beer forums now...  since the Wine one is the new one, maybe this is the "extra" one...

[mamster]

I'm going to make one of those statements that invite goblet-throwing from the more learned, but don't kabinett, spatlese, and auslese refer to ripeness, and trocken, halbtrocken, or the lack of such modifier refer to fermentation?  I've never seen a trocken auslese, but couldn't one exist, and wouldn't it be a dry, high-alcohol wine?

Of course, I've seen a trockenbeerenauslese, but I've never tasted one.  Also, can we add "Trocken" to our list of rock group names?  It's like Dokken, only drier.

[A Balic]

Adam-Fox Creek Sparkling Shiraz was one of the most deadly things I ever drank. I opened a bottle, poured some, and even before I tasted it the people in my house were screaming about the color which was black as mud. Nevertheless I was brave enough to taste it. Pure piss. The bottle was immediately poured down the drain. Now if you want a good sparkling red wine, try a Bugy de Cerdon from the Macon. Extremely delighful and sells for something like 10 pounds a bottle.

As for Gewurz and Asian food, it depends on the cuisine. Even though I'm not a big fan of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc's, they do go well with Thai food because of their grassiness. But if we switched to Chinese food I would prefer a Gewurz.

I completely agree with you on the Fox Creek Sparkling red. FC wines are over extracted to the max., but Americans like them that way so they sell well. I sayed in Macon for a few weeks a couple of years ago (outside of Cluny). I  had a few sparkling reds there, nice wines, very pleasant in the sun. The Australian Sparling reds I was thinking of were the more age worthy types. 10-15 year old sparkling show reserve shirazs from Seppelt, very nice. But they may be a local taste?

[Jason Perlow]

Jason... did you somehow clone this thread?

No, its one of those rare times I symbolically link it into both forums.

[Jason Perlow]

don't kabinett, spatlese, and auslese refer to ripeness, and trocken, halbtrocken, or the lack of such modifier refer to fermentation?

Nope. Trocken (dry) and Halbtrocken (half dry) are below whatever the "normal" level in sweetness is for whatever classification it is supposed to be -- you might see it combined with Spatlese or Kabinett to refer to one that is somewhat drier than a Kabinett or in-Between Spatslese, with QBA and not QmP wines).  For some funky examples check out  http://www.wineavenger.com/germany.htm. Its a new fangled way of doing things and is supposed to make these weird Teutonic wine labels understandable to the average Chardonnay sucking American. I sure as hell don't think so.

Everything with Riesling has to do with residual sugar level. And you NEVER see a high alcohol reisling from Germany. I mean the highest I have seen is like 11.5 and thats rare. High alcohol in a German Riesling would be considered a flaw. Most are between 8 and 10. Alsatian Riesling tends to be a lot boozier (I've seen em as high as 12.5 or 13, which is why I consider it inferior). It tastes like gasoline to me. Alsace is really known for Gewurtztraminer and Pinot Gris.

TBA (TrockenBeerenAuslese) is above Auslese in sweetness. Its one step below Eiswein which as you know is a late harvest nectar. The Trocken Beeren is translated as "Dried Berries" not "Dry".

And yes, I drink a lot of Germanics. Willie Gluckstern Imports

[Shiva]

Is there something generational or regional about this belief that beer is nutritious?  I've never heard of anything so foolish, and to my knowledge nobody from my part of the world or my approximate cultural background believes it either.

The concept of beer (now demonized as "Alcohol") being un-healthful is a recent US invention.

The idea that a pregnant woman drinking a pint or two of Guinness is putting her unborn baby at risk is even newer.

I'm not sure which is sillier.

[tommy]

The idea that a pregnant woman drinking a pint or two of Guinness is putting her unborn baby at risk is even newer.

I'm not sure which is sillier.

with all due respect, you're joking, right?

[jhlurie]

Shiva... your entire argument seems to be that because the idea that alcohol isn't the most healthy thing in the world is "new", that therefore it is inaccurate.

With due respect, that's not much of an argument.

That would be just as much of a blanket statement as someone here saying that just because a belief is "old" that it is inherently wrong.  Sometimes old beliefs are true and sometimes not.  Same as with new ones, except that new ones often have some more advanced science behind them.

Besides, the original point was about nutrition.  Beer certainly has some minor amount of vitamins or minerals in it (almost everything edible does), but if it was ever used as a food substitute it was obviously because of economic circumstances and portability.  Whether it's un-healthful is something else, although certainly related.

I'm not going to get anywhere near the "pregnant woman--beer drinking" thing.  Hopefully someone around here who is actually a doctor or nutritionist (or at least a parent) can provide a better informed opinion.

[Wilfrid]

Far be it from me to offer a well-informed opinion, but I know a little bit about risk assessment.  Consuming alcohol while pregnant increases the risk of damage to foetal health.  The risk is dose-related, by which I mean that the more you swill down the greater the danger to your unborn child.  The reverse applies:  very moderate alcohol intake causes very little if any increase in risk to foetal health.  The public health community, however, reason in the following way: complete abstinence eliminates any alcohol-related risk;  alcohol consumption is absolutely unnecessary; therefore pregnant women should be advised not to drink at all.

This makes good sense as a public health policy.  But individuals will make up their own minds.  My Beloved consumed the occasional glass of wine while pregnant, and it didn't concern me in the slightest.

Note:  I am not a doctor - consult a physician, don't listen to me.

[tommy]

my mom drank when she was pregnant and look at me!

note: you may chose my as an example for either side of the argument that you see fit.

[A Balic]

Everything with Riesling has to do with residual sugar level. And you NEVER see a high alcohol reisling from Germany. I mean the highest I have seen is like 11.5 and thats rare. High alcohol in a German Riesling would be considered a flaw. Most are between 8 and 10. Alsatian Riesling tends to be a lot boozier (I've seen em as high as 12.5 or 13, which is why I consider it inferior). It tastes like gasoline to me. Alsace is really known for Gewurtztraminer and Pinot Gris.

Well you would say that if you liked sweeter wines. God, don't tell me your a Plotnicki as well

Alsace not know for Riesling? I read that and started choking on my Clos Ste-Hune. What German Rieslings do you drink? I had a whole load of 1988 Dr. Loosen that I drank at about ten years of age and they were great. My impression was that they (German riesling) needed at least five years of age to become interesting, what do you think. Oh, and do you drink them with food? The old theroy (opinion of pre-WWII wine writers) is that they didn't go with food very well.

[Jason Perlow]

Alsace not know for Riesling? I read that and started choking on my Clos Ste-Hune. What German Rieslings do you drink?

Its not that they dont have a LOT of Reisling, its just that the German ones are a lot better in my opinion -- I drink a lot more Alsatian Gewurtztraminer and Pinot Gris than I do their Riesling. Alsatian Riesling is certainly not bad, I just dont like the high alcohol levels compared to the German ones. hell if you put a $60 california chardonnay and a $14 Alsatian Riesling in front of me, I'll take the Alsatian. :) Everything is relative.

In terms of German Reisling I am partial to stuff from the Rheingau region if I can find it. I like the slatiness. Most of the stuff I have is kabinett-level, typically 1997er-1999er so its ready to drink. If find particularly good Spatslesen or Auslesen I buy em, but yeah, they need about 5 years or even 10.

I had a 1988 Weingut Kurt Darting TBA recently, it was amazing.

Dr. Joseph Prum is also really good.

Robert Weil is a great producer too. I had a 1992 Spatslese in California at a German restaurant in December, it was fantastic.

As to the food... I ONLY drink wine with food, which is why I tend to buy only Kabinetts or even off dry ones, which is still pretty sweet by normal wine standards. We eat a lot of seafood and spicy asian cuisine, for which germanic wines are a perfect match.

I do keep a few TBA's and Eisweins around, but only for special occassions.

[mamster]

Why are so many German makers doctors?  Are they MDs or philosophers?  Or is it a self-bestowed honorific like "Dr. Love" (which is not far off from "Dr. Loosen," now that I think about it).

I did a Google search and it looks like there are auslese trockens and halbtrockens, and the trockens, at least, are pretty high in alcohol, but this is obviously a tiny niche;  I've never seen an actual bottle.

[Jason Perlow]

I've seen Auslese combined with halbtrocken or trocken on a Gewurtztraminer or even Chardonnay label, but never Reisling. I mean what the hell is a Trocken or Halbtrocken Auslese?

I mean going from dy to sweet, the normal range for Riesling is

Dry

Kabinett Trocken or just simply Riesling Trocken

Kabinett Halbtrocken (I rarely see these)

Semi-Sweet

Kabinett

Spatslese Trocken   (again, rarely see them, only in QbA I think)

Spatslese

Sweet/Dessert

Auslese (noble rot starting to set in on the grape, some shivelage)

BeerenAuslese   (noble rot is heavy duty)

TrockenBeerenAuslese (the sucker is practically raisin juice)

Eiswein (juice from frozen late harvest grapes)                       

Dont tell me you've seen a BeerenAuslese Halbtrocken or I will have to beat you with a jaegerschnitzel.

To confuse things more, depending on how long the wine has been cellared, a 5 year old sweeter wine may have the same residual sugar than a drier wine that has been recently bottled. Also depending on the region and the Qualitswein classification you might see a QmP Spatslese as sweet as a QbA Auslese of the same year.

[tommy]

I had a whole load of 1988 Dr. Loosen that I drank at about ten years of age and they were great. My impression was that they (German riesling) needed at least five years of age to become interesting, what do you think. Oh, and do you drink them with food? The old theroy (opinion of pre-WWII wine writers) is that they didn't go with food very well.

after following this thread for a while, i decided to pick up some alsatian and german wines.  i happened to be out of the NYC area and went to a wine store that carried more of a selection of these wines than my local merchant, and more that were less than 20 dollars.  

as it happens, one was this Dr. Loosen, strictly by coincidence.  i shared this bottle tonite with the perlows and jhlurie during a chinese dinner.  it was a 2000, and it was 8 bucks.  perhaps it could have benefited from a few years in the bottle, but at that price, it was a very reasonable purchase for immediate drinking (maybe jason has some further thoughts one way or the other about that bottle?).

bottom line, thanks to all of you freaks for spending so much time on this stuff.  i think i'll actually make an effort to get into the germanics and alsatians, as i've been putting it off for years.  

[mamster]

I'm now offering my private-label TBA trocken.  I'm calling it "everclear".

Let me just say once again before conceding that Jason is correct and I need to drink more and google less:  Dr. Loosen.  Thank you.

[A Balic]

Chaps -  to clear up the Trocken thing. Trocken just means that the wine has 9 gm/L residual (unfermented) sugar. So they could be wines from a poor year/area that didn't get very high sugar levels or they could have been made from better quality wine and had the sugar femented into alcohol. I have seen Trocken Auslese, but haven't tried. My guess is that they would be pretty unbalanced.

Jason I had a bottle of 1988 J.J. Prum Auslese (long gold capsule) and drank it when it was about 12 years old, way to young, it tasted like it was only a couple of years old. I was very annoyed. Have you tried any Australian Rieslings? They are very dry, but are my favorite white wine with Asian (Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian etc).

Dr. Loosen - glad I could enrich all your lives.

[tommy]

Dr. Loosen - glad I could enrich all your lives.

fyi, i picked up the same 2000 dr. loosen at my local liquor store...the same that i picked up in MA last week. it was 8 bucks in Mass and 11 or 12 bucks in the NYC area.  sigh.

[jhlurie]

Back on topic...

What think you all of this advice (click here)?

[cabrales]

In "Delights and Prejudices", James Beard described beer as matching a spit-roasted pork dish:

"Pork is a meat much neglected for the spit. But if one has two loins of pork boned and tied together, rubs them well with thyme and salt and pepper and spits them, cooking them slowly and basting with a little melted pork fat blended with a touch of Dijon mustard, the resulting meat will prove sensationally good. Serve with a 'sauce Robert' or merely a mustard sauce; apples sauteed until crisp and buttery; and fresh cabbage sauteed with champagne or white wine. Drink *beer* along with this, or champagne, and you will have a meal that is a masterpiece."

At St John, I have had Brittany cider with fairly hoppy overtones with several pork dishes; it worked. See"Son of St John" under UK.