Beer vs wine
Beer and wine go head to head at the Ra!n Bar in Manchester, at an event organised by JW Lees brewery. Sally Toms was there.
It’s fight night and inside the Ra!n Bar, an elegant yet traditional pub in Manchester, a crowd begins to gather.
Invited by regional brewer JW Lees, a small group of brewers and wine merchants glance furtively at one another, wondering who is for the grape and who for the grain?
Two contenders step into the ring, each one ultimately qualified to partner up the dishes cooked up by Ra!n Bar chef Brian Regan. In the blue corner: George Bergier, chairman of Manchester Guild of Sommeliers and three times Sommelier of Year; in the red corner: Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, author of The Brewmaster’s Table and driving force behind beer and food matching.
The rest of the group would participate in Ready- Steady-Cook fashion, holding up a card to indicate or vote for which drink went better with each course, the beer or the wine.
The bell rings and the fight begins…
ROUND ONE
Rare beef salad with a herb and cheese tortellini, sautéed new potatoes, spinach and horseradish mayonnaise.
The beer: Schneider Weisse A delicate wheat beer with notes of banana, cloves and smoke. It has that distinctive wheat beer tang, but with a healthy dose of residual sweetness. Like all wheat beers, it has a cleansing character that with this dish cuts through the creamy sauce and very iron taste of the beef.
The wine: Chianti DOCG – La Pieve 2005 Red fruits of the forest, not black fruits as the wine is young. George admits that horseradish is a killer of wine, and spinach doesn.....
To read the rest of this article you can buy this issue
or subscribe to Beers of the World to have every issue delivered direct to your door.
By Sally Toms
Section : Beer and Food
Page number : 40
