St. Patrick’s Day Inspired Cheese & Beer Pairings

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again - cheese loves beer.  With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, we wanted to share with you some of our favorite pairings using Irish (or Irish-inspired) beers*.  We suggest grabbing a few friends when tasting these pairings or they’ll be green with envy that they missed out. 

 

AmaBlu + Dead Irish Poet, Finnegans Brew Co., Minneapolis, MN

AmaBlu is our flagship Blue cheese that is cave-aged for 75 days.  The cave-aging creates a creamy texture with bright, sharp flavor notes with a clean finish.  Finnegans Brewing Co.’s Dead Irish Poet beer is a complex and dark Cork-style Extra Stout.  It is dry and smooth with a roasted quality and dark chocolate and stone fruit notes.  The subtle hints of chocolate pair extraordinary with the lactic, creamy flavor in our AmaBlu.  The dry Stout acts as the perfect palate cleanser for this rich, creamy cheese.  This pairing isn’t overtly piquant, or overly roasty.  You can taste the delicate nuanced flavors in both the cheese and the beer.

 

AmaGorg + Magners Irish Cider, Tipperary, IE

AmaGorg is a Gorgonzola cheese cave-aged for 90 days.  It has a bright, sweet flavor profile and a bit of a gritty texture in the blue veining.  Magners Irish Cider is made with 17 varieties of apples and uses a similar fermentation style to wine, for a fruity, complex character.  It is semi-sweet and traditionally served over ice.  Okay, so technically cider is not a beer, but with its bubbly effervescence and crisp flavors, we knew it had to be included as a St. Patty’s Day pairing.  Our AmaGorg is incredibly creamy and the carbonation helps to balance the fatty texture on your palate.  The sweet nature of the apples used in Magners help to highlight the signature sweetness in the AmaGorg.  It's a refreshing pairing that will tickle your palate with sweet and tart flavors.

 

St. Pete’s Select + Smithwick’s Irish Red Ale., Dublin, IE

St. Pete's Select Blue is a 100+ day cave-aged Blue cheese.  It is deliciously creamy with a pronounced piquant sharpness and a clean finish.  Smithwick's Irish Red Ale is a copper colored Ale with a thick, pillowy head.  The aroma is sweet and the beer has a clean taste with great hops flavors and sweet, caramel maltiness.  Now, usually we like to match intensities in our pairings, but this time we went the route of contrast.  The beer is lighter than the St. Pete’s Select, but we knew from previous experience of soaking St. Pete’s Select in malty beers that the two would be the perfect match.  Since St. Pete’s is one of our creamier Blue cheeses, the higher carbonation in this beer is a great way to scrub the rich cheese off your tongue.  We also love how the malty, caramel notes balance the hallmark sharpness in this Blue cheese.

 

Felix + Irish Coffee Stout, Lift Bridge Brewing, Stillwater, MN

Felix is our natural-rind Blue cheese.  The combination of the edible natural-rind and unique aging process creates a dense, fudgy texture with sharp, piquant complexities and a distinct rind flavor that highlights the terroir of the cave.  Lift Bridge Brewing’s Irish Coffee Stout is a toasty and creamy Milk Stout that is blended with whiskey barrel-aged Imperial Stout before it's finished off with responsibly sourced coffee from the Minneapolis-based Five Watt Coffee.  The roasty flavors from the coffee are a winning combo with the complex rind on this Blue cheese.  The sweetness in the cheese highlights the Stout’s sweet, lactic flavors while the cheese’s complexity allows it to withstand the presence of the whiskey barrel-aged Stout.  A big cheese like Felix can stand up to a big beer like Lift Bridge Brewing’s Irish Coffee Stout.

 

*We used a couple Irish beers (Smithwick’s and Magners Cider) that are easily found in stores this time of year.  We also used two local Minnesota beers that may or may not be available in your area.  No need to worry though. We are positive your local craft breweries will be brewing some extra special, Irish-inspired beers this time of year, too, so you can make your own unique pairings!