Curds & Ale, June 11th

We would be attending this if we weren't going to be out of town...
We are so very sad to be missing this. This lineup was just sent out to the Chicago Beer Society list, and it looks fantastic.

This is the June event of the Chicago Beer Society, but it is open to nonmembers. Cheese and beer lovers, unite!

For more info see http://chibeer.org

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Curds & Ale, will take place next Sunday, June 11th from 1 to 5 pm, at Rock Bottom Grand & State, downtown Chicago. Tickets are still available.

This is shaping up to be one really great beer and food event. We’ve worked hard to get some really stunning pairs put together, and I feel fairly confident this may be the beer and cheese event of our lives, well, at least so far.

We’ve got a fruity hefeweizen paired with a fresh milky mozzarella, a sensation like ice cream on fruit pie. Camembert and brown ale combine for a toasty grilled cheese effect, the earthy tang of brettanomyces melds with ripened goat cheese, and a super concentrated aged gouda stands up to a barrel-aged imperial stout. And as usual with CBS events, many of these products are ones you can’t easily get any other way.

The format will be a walk-around, with a number of tables each holding several suggested pairs, but we are encouraging people to go beyond the boundaries and put their own combinations together. A number of brewery and cheese producer representatives will also be there to talk about their products, as will our cheese purveyor Giles Schnierle of the Great American Cheese Collection.

In addition we will have some smoked meat from Andy’s and Joes, two great sausage houses in Chicago, and some assorted breads, crackers and the like.

Price is a measly $30 for members, $35 for non, which includes all food and drink and a nice souvenir glass. At this point it looks like we will have tickets available at the door, but to ensure your spot, we recommend either downloading the form available at http://chibeer.org right now and printing it out and sending it in with your check, or emailing Randy Mosher at randymosher@rcn.com and confirming number of tickets desired and membership status, and we’ll hold them for you at the door and you can pay as you come in. Sorry for the redundancy if you're already signed up.


Cheese and Beer List (Subject to a few last-minute changes):

America's Brewpub Barley Wine with Gore Dawn Zola, a very intense Gorgonzola style American artisanal cheese.

Blue Cat Tripel, with Brigid’s Abbey Trappist style cheese

Brass Hefeweizen, with Burrata, a fresh mozzarella stuffed with curds and cream

Flossmoor Station Pullman Brown, with ColoRouge Camembert

Emmett's Dunkel Lager with Fair Oaks Farms Sweet Swiss

Goose Island (Pub) Maibock with Fair Oaks Farms Triple Cream Butter Käse

Goose Island (Fulton) Matilda, with Haystack, a ripened goat cheese

Goose Island (Fulton) Père Jacques, with Green Hill Sweet Grass Triple Crème

Lindemann’s Framboise with Redwood Hills Fresh Chèvre

Mickey Finn's Kolsch with Butter Käse

Okocim Polone, a very lightly smoked schwarzbier, with Roth Kase Vintage Van Gogh, a Gouda aged 18 months or more

Onion Doppelbock, with Jasper Hills Bayley Hazen Blue

Prairie Rock Smoked Porter with Fair Oaks Farms aged gouda

Rock Bottom (Warrenville) ESB with Roth Kase Knight’s Vail, a delicate rinded semi-soft cheese

Rock Bottom (Downtown) Hoppy Robust Porter with Lack’s 9-Year Cheddar, a small Wisconsin producer

Rock Bottom )Downtown) Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout with Winchester Farms Boer Kaas, an intense, dry-aged Gouda

Rogue: Chocolate Stout and Soba black beer, with Rogue Creamery Smokey Blue and Oregonzolan (final pairings TBD)

Samuel Smith’s IPA with Neal’s Yard Westcombe Cheddar, a mix of Stilton and Cheddar

Stockholms Dunkelweiss, with Redwood Hills Goat Milk Camembert

Three Floyds Dark Tripel, with St. George, a dry, artisanal aged cows milk cheese

Two Brothers Dog Days Dortmunder, with Canasta Pardo, a sheep cheese with a very delicate dusting of cinnamon

Thanks so much for mentioning this. I heard about it several weeks ago (maybe at Beer on the Pier) but had forgotten about it. It looks like an outstanding event.

Rene G wrote:Thanks so much for mentioning this. I heard about it several weeks ago (maybe at Beer on the Pier) but had forgotten about it. It looks like an outstanding event.

I agree: very promising.

I'm going to try to make it. Giovanna?

David "Beer and Cheese; What's Not to Like?" Hammond

The beer list looks pretty good. I have never had the FFF Dark Tripel and wonder how it taste like. Can someone post a review after the event? Thanks.

Curds & Ale was a fantastic event, the most interesting several hours of eating and drinking I've done in a long time. Chicago Beer Society events are always good but the organizers really outdid themselves this time (for what it’s worth, I'm not a member). I loved the informality of the session. At many tastings you get carefully metered pours; here it was serve yourself as much beer and cheese as you wanted (I overheard one guy wondering out loud if he could eat his weight in cheese). There were about 2 dozen cheeses and as many beers plus some nice breads and sausages. The pairings seemed well thought out and I’d like to think I learned a lot.

Canasta Pardo (Bass Lake Cheese, Wisconsin)

The prettiest cheese—no contest—was this mild sheep cheese with a cinnamon rind. Very nice, and not as weird as it may sound.

Schwartz und Weiss (Golden Ridge Cheese, Iowa)

The wildest looking cheese was probably Schwartz und Weiss, a blue from an Amish cooperative in Iowa. A truly excellent midwestern blue cheese, it completely outclasses the current Maytag.

One of my favorite cheeses was Rogue Creamery’s (Oregon) Smoky Blue, cold smoked over hazelnut shells for 16 hours. This was so good I can’t understand why smoked blue cheeses aren’t more common (I suspect they will be soon). The pairing with Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout was phenomenal.

Haystack Peak (Haystack Mountain Creamery, Colorado)

There were quite a few goat cheeses and this was one of the best, a funky pyramid teeming with mold. I think these specimens were rather young; I’d love to try an older version. I liked the pairing with Goose Island’s spicy Matilda Ale.

Camembert (ColoRouge, Colorado)

This washed rind cow cheese was essentially a liquid, a very tasty liquid. My memory is a bit foggy but that might be a glass of Flossmoor Station’s Pullman Brown Ale.

Sausage Plate

There were generous quantities of very good sausage and excellent bread (from Red Hen and Chris’s Bakery among others).

Pork Jello

The organizers wisely waited until mid session, after everyone had a few beers in them, to bring out the sulze. It was received with, um, guarded enthusiasm.

Thanks for posting this review. It sounds like it was a great event. Hopefully, I will be able to go when and if they do it again.

In a related update - Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere is back in cask form at Map Room.

Thanks Rene G for this wonderful report --
Especially that smoked Rogue blue sounds amazing!

Happily, FFF had their dark tripel on tap at the brewpub on our way back into town yesterday so atleast we did not miss that!

Rene G wrote:One of my favorite cheeses was Rogue Creamery’s (Oregon)Smoky Blue, cold smoked over hazelnut shells for 16 hours. This was so good I can’t understand why smoked blue cheeses aren’t more common (I suspect they will be soon). The pairing with Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout was phenomenal.

I noticed, or rather an employee called my attention to, this cheese today at Uncorkit!, a maybe year-old wine store across from Fox and Obel. I normally don't pay too much attention to their cheese counter, but this recent addition (and the recent hire of a cheese-savvy former co-worker of mine) may change that a bit. I didn't purchase the Smoky Blue today in favor of a wonderfully rich, creamy Grippsland Blue from Australia. One bite and I was sold. I think its lingering richness overwhelmed the smoky accents of the Rogue cheese, which I tried second. Shakespeare Stout is also available here, and I look forward to trying the combination soon.

Aaron