Match of the week

Raspberry cranachan and Black Tokyo Horizon

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on January 31 2011 at 14:52

As it turned out the star pairing of my bizarre Brewdog Burns night was not the haggis spring rolls and Punk IPA but an equally off the wall pairing of raspberry cranachan and Black Tokyo Horizon, a 15% Imperial stout.

Fresh raspberries and dark beer might sound an unlikely combination, particularly one of 15% but in fact there was so much whipped cream and the beer, which was brewed in collaboration with Danish brewers Mikkeller and Norway’s Nøgne ø was so smooth and sweet it went an absolute treat.

Other good matches included Cullen Skink with Alice Porter (6.2%), a comparatively normal brew. (It was a designed to go with a barley wine called Bitch Please which I found way too sweet. Unsurprisingly as it includes Scottish toffee and shortbread)

The sweetness of the Brewdog Hardcore IPA (9%) also worked really well with Dunsyre Blue, a mellow Scottish blue cheese and I loved the TNP float a shot of 33% Tactical Nuclear Penguin Imperial Stout with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

In general the Brewdog beers seem to be getting progressively sweeter which I feel makes them harder to match with food. Hello My Name is Ingrid (yes, that’s a beer) an 8.2% IPA made from candied malt was again far too sweet for its destined pairing of sashimi though I can imagine it being great with pork belly. Not that I imagine Brewdog are overly concerned about the niceties of food and beer pairing.

Fun evening, though.

I attended the dinner as a guest of Brewdog

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