Beer with food - Indian link
Renowned US brewer Garrett Oliver hosted a special beer-and-food matching dinner at Quilon, the Indian restaurant in London. Andrew Burnyeat was there.
Of the 400 beer dinners hosted by top American brewer Garrett Oliver, only two have involved Indian food. That's weird when you consider that, on his home patch in Manhattan, there's a district on 6th Street that is wall-to-wall Indian restaurants, where up to 200 different types of beer are being consumed at any one moment. Not many of them sell beer - they are run by strict Muslims who, while they may not buy, sell or consume liquor, may permit their customers to bring in their own. Underground matching experiment.
As a result, an underground consumer experiment has been running for years. It has produced any number of beer and food matches, the vast majority of which have gone unnoticed by the experts. But one expert in particular has been looking into the phenomenon. Garrett, Brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery in the US, who began brewing after a year spent tippling and experimenting in the UK more than 10 years ago, tried out a few of his recommendations on an audience of unsuspecting journalists at Quilon, in Buckingham Gate, London.
Garrett began the evening by talking about those Indian restaurants on 6th Street. "There is no Budweiser or anything most Americans might recognise. There is English, Belgian, German and of course beer from US microbreweries. Almost no-one brings wine," he points out. Controversially, Garrett added: "Wine does not go well with Indian food." I say controversially because some of the finest Indian restaurants in London sell far more wine than beer with their food. Many feel wine is a better match Tamarind, for instance, in Mayfair, London, regularly invites journalists and top chefs to try food and wine matches.
Gordon Ramsay is known to be a fan of the place. Its general manager, Rajesh Suri, although open to beer, has long felt that wine is a better match. As it's the only Indian restaurant with a Michelin star, his views must be respected.
Garrett says wine is too alcoholic for the spiciness of Indian food. The combination of a drink with an abv of 14% with all the flavours in the food is simply too much for the palate. Also, wine does nothing to refresh the palate between mouthfuls, unlike a carbonated beer. So the flavours build up and up and eventually go into overload.
Beer's hops mimic wine's tanninsGarrett believes beer can do anything wine can. The beer equivalent of tannin is hops. Carbonation concentrates the hop character to give it all the qualities of wine and more. This is especially relevant when it comes to cheese, especially in the light of recent expert advice that wine and cheese do not go together as well as previously thought. At this point, there is very little a diner can properly taste. He starts to lose interest in the food, concentrating instead on the taste and effect of the alcohol.
Beer also has more suitable flavours - roast, smokey, caramelised tones that wine cannot match. "Wine is a one-trick pony," says Garrett. "It's all about fruit. The more I learn about wine, the more impressed I am with beer," he adds. "Its range of flavours is so much more varied." Indian food is just about Britain's favourite, with thousands of pubs including it as an option on their menu. With so many beers from all over the world available these days, pubs make the perfect place to match beer and food. As customers become more sophisticated in their tastes, they are likely to become more discerning about the kind of beer they want to drink with their Indian food.
Wine is still very new to this country. Like Indian food, we've only been consuming it in any numbers for a few decades. One gets the distinct impression from Garrett that although he admires English real ale, he doesn't put them at the top of the list when it comes to matching a beer with Indian food. He says: "Cask ales are more bitter but there is less carbonation so it doesn't bring out the flavour as well." He makes an exception in the case of India Pale Ale, because its very origins lie in its association with Indian food way back when.
An IPA might match well with some traditional dishes, such as lamb biryani, which might be good news for readers in Greene King pubs, for example. The mixes and matches were a pleasure to take part in and would make the basis of a fine gourmet evening for customers, of the kind regularly run at Okells pub Thomas Rigby's in Liverpool, but that's another story…
These matches are hot!
So what did Garrett choose in his mixand- match extravaganza - we take a closer look…
Cauliflower chilli-fry and crab cakes / Duvel (8.5% abv)The hops in this pale yet strong Belgian beer produce a rich, creamy mousse of a head that cuts through the chilli to create a perfectlyrefreshing but simultaneously flavoursome introduction to the meal. Duvel's alcoholic strength gives it enough of a constitution to stand up to the flavours in the chilli, yet it's light enough (just!) not to overpower the cauliflower and the subtle tones in the crab cakes, at which, incidentally, Garrett claims to be something of a dab hand.
Roasted scallops and pepper shrimps / Schneider Weisse (5.4% abv)As well as a description of the flavours involved, Garrett often spices up his talks with a delve into the history of each beer. Schneider Weisse used to be the preserve of the Bavarian Royal family until burgeoning commercial interests successfully lobbied to be allowed to sell it to the grateful wider public. You can see why they wanted to keep it all to themselves. It's a delightfully refreshing beer, made using a special Hefe yeast that produces flavours of banana, cloves and smokiness. Its low in hop content, so it helps the diner to appreciate the delicacy of the scallops, which, the table agreed, were some of the finest they'd ever tasted.
Black cod and banana flower vada / Chimay Red (7% abv)Another beauty of a dish, where the fennel seed ingredients combined well with Chimay's spiciness. This is a sweet, "nutmeggy"- flavoured beer which is technically very dry. Its astringency and caramelised malts are almost reminiscent of banana, marrying well with the sweeter elements of the dish.
