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Bollocks and beer pairing

There are brewers, big and small, who are trying to show the world that beer shouldn't be seen only as a refreshment, but that it could also be a great match for all kinds of food, and they deserve praise for that. Unfortunately, there are times when those efforts are almost pathetic.

That's the case with this article that quotes Beer Expert Javier Soriano, Teacher at Gambrinus School of Hospitality (which belongs to Heineken Spain) and co-author of that Beer Tasting Method.

There Soriano tells us that beer can play an important role in high end gastronomy and that it can also take the place of wine at restaurants. Something I fully agree with. He then adds that "In Europe, a lot of beer is served at room temperature, something that isn't possible in our country, where pale beer is predominant and is served very cold. We have adapted it, making it lighter to make it more drinkable and refreshing, something necessary because of the weather".

Well. Where can I begin?

Everyone is free to enjoy their beer the way they see fit, be it straight from a bottle or can or from a specially designed crystal glass, alone or with a slice of lemon, ice-cold or piss-warm. It's a matter of taste. However, the idea of a pairing is to combine the aromas and flavours of a drink with the aromas and flavours of food, hoping to have a new sensory experience. Of course that there aren't rules or formulas and that what works for me might not work for someone else, but you can't speak seriously about beer and food pairing when the beer you are pimping is served at a temperature so low that you won't be able to properly appreciate those aromas and flavours (which, in the case of Cruzcampo, might be a blessing).

That weather thing is also a big, steamy pile of old bullshit. Last April at a bar in the outskirts of Ávila, at over 1400m above sea level and on a far from torrid day, I was served Cruzcampo bajo cero at a temperature that honoured its name, and I'm very sure that if I went tomorrow for lunch to a restaurant in Sevilla and ordered a bottle of red wine, it will not be served ice-cold in glasses that've been in the freezer.

(And since we are on this topic. Considering that those beers that are expected to be drunk ice-cold tend to be kind of crap, I wonder if they became so crap because people have always drunk them very cold, or people started drinking them so cold because they've always been so crap).

Professor Soriano and the company that employs him should either be more honest with themselves or stop taking us for idiots. Cruzcampo and other similar beers of the world are refreshments, they've been sold and bought as such for a long time already, and, qualities and personal tastes aside, I don't see anything wrong with that. To me, there's no better refreshment in the world than a beer or, to be more precise, a 10-11º Plato pale lager served at 6-8ºC, which is refreshing enough in any kind of weather.

Na Zdraví!

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