Blue Cheese and Barley Wine

There are few things I love more than planning a spontaneous cheese party, so that was my gift to myself last Saturday. It was the first day of spring break, and there was my tenure to celebrate. So off I went to Rittenhouse Square on a mission to buy any blue cheese that called my name.

Most people think all blue cheese tastes the same. But you know and I know that’s not true. Some taste mushroomy and mild, while others pop your eyes out with a peppery hook on the finish. The common thread is salt. Most blues taste like tears.

What alleviates tears? Sweet stuff.

That’s why blue cheese calls for port or sherry. Over the summer, a homebrewer suggested I try blue cheese with barley wine. I wrote it down, then looked it up. High in alcohol. The cognac of the beer world. Intriguing.

On Saturday, I picked up four barley wines at my local beer joint and trotted home to match sorrow and joy, blue veins and barley malt.

Here is what we tasted, cheese-wise:

Cremifacto Verde Capra

Rogue River Blue

Bleu de Basque

Colston Bassett Stilton

Blaue Geiss

Now for the Barley wines:

Blithering Idiot (Weyerbecher Brewing)

Insanity (Weyerbecher Brewing)

Cereal Killer (Arcadia Brewing)

Horn Dog (Flying Dog)

Our cheeses ranged from mild and creamy (Cremifacto) to sharp and clayey (Blaue Geiss) with a mellow sheep’s milk blue (Bleu de Basque) and a traditional British wallop-packer (Stilton) thrown in.

Not all of the barley wines worked with blue cheese, but we found a few favorites. And as the night wore on, the conversation grew livelier and livelier. You can guess why. "Blithering Idiot" and "Insanity" are apt names for these beers – they’re not for the lily-livered.

Blithering Idiot was deemed “O Negative.” It worked well with every blue in the house. Pairing it with Rogue River Blue, a grapey leaf-wrapped blue, earned yelps of “A stunning combo!” and “These were made for each other!”

Cereal Killer, which really did smell like Honeynut Cheerios, made a happy marriage with Cremifacto. Creamy meets creamy, go figure.

Horn Dog loved Blaue Geiss. The heavy grapefruit and honey sweetness of this beer pattered along perfectly with this dense, fudgy cheese -- even with its peppery head butt at the end.

Insanity paired off with feisty Stilton, no surprise. Insanity also spent the night with Rogue River. Two magical mates, very flexible.

And that left Bleu de Basque. With its curious flavor combination of mutton and grass, mixed with a hint of coconut (I kid you not – I made cheesemonger Dan Black confirm this tasting), this Spanish sheep’s milk blue couldn’t find a match, although Blithering Idiot worked okay.

Stick around for more of the Blue Cheese Invitational. In the coming days, I’ll unpack these cheeses, blue by blue. As for Saturday night's guests, special thanks to my blue-cheese guinea pigs: Meat Man Mike, Andre of Canada, and April Lindner whose new book, Jane, makes a perfect accompaniment to strong cheese.

Monastic Cheese Board Redux

My friend Gerard is a colleague and former monk. Last weekend, we celebrated the first night of Advent at his apartment, a homey place with an organ, a meditation corner, and a very nice liquor cabinet. The life of an ex-monk is not without its pleasures.

For the evening, I prepared a special cheese plate. I brought over half of an Epoisses, originally developed by Cistercian monks.

Next: Frumage Baladin, a gorgeous raw milk cheese with Trappist connections – specks of barley malt (left over from barley wine) add nutty, boozy undertones. It tastes like the peanutbutter of angels.

Finally, my gem: Pecorino di Fossa. I’d learned that this cheese is buried in the ground to referment, then unearthed on the Feast of Saint Catherine.

“Which Saint Catherine?” Gerard asked, when I unwrapped this cheese. Even as an ex-monk, he still knows all of his feast days. He darted to his bookshelf and withdrew The Liturgy of the Hours from his days as a Benedictine. A photo slipped out, a picture of Gerard in his monastic garb.

Gerard poured martinis and put on some Anonymous Four. We sat down to taste the cheeses and read about Saint Catherine, a virgin and doctor from the 1300s, now famous for convincing the Pope to return to Rome.

The Pecorino di Fossa was so magnificent that Gerard was moved to phone another monastic acquaintance – a fromer Trappist turned sous chef, a man who once taught me to make the perfect omelet.

We regaled him with descriptions of each cheese, via speakerphone.

Our favorite of the night? Pecorino di Fossa. Talk about a nuanced cheese. It tasted sweet and milky on the front end, then grew brighter by the moment, dissolving on the tongue to leave a pleasant buttered-popcorn-saltiness.

It was an auspicious beginning to a lovely dinner, followed by scotch and chocolate éclairs. A beautiful toast to Advent. If you are curious to try Pecorino di Fossa, may I recommend serving it with a martini? It's a perfect cocktail for this hard sheep's milk cheese.

Gerard makes his martinis with Noilly Prat Vermouth, Tub Gin, and meaty green olives from Whole Foods. He claims these are the only olives with pimentos that actually taste like red pepper. And he should know. He spends a lot of time in deep thought.