Straub's Beer and Cheese Pairing with Schlafly

I just happened to be at Straub's, now that I work in Clayton, and saw a sign for a beer and Wisconsin cheese pairing with Schlafly for a few days later. You know I had to sign up! An extra bonus is that this class also benefited Operation Food Search.

Wisconsin Cheeses with Schlafly Beer

Cheese in the sun by Jessie Corno

Straub's was very gracious and started off the evening with a light meal consisting of pulled pork sliders, mac and cheese, charcuterie, olives, and fruit. I was relieved since I had just come from the gym and needed something before tasting beer. Also, the cheese samples were in the two-bite range unlike the classes I take at Dierbergs.

The beer instruction was led by former Brew Master Stephen Hale and for the first time I met The Cheese Impresario, Barrie Lynn. It's nice to see another "cheese champion" in the St. Louis area. Her favorite term was "cheese highway", which means to coat your tongue for the beer pairing. hehehehe

Much like Dierbergs, we started with a welcome beer, the easy-drinking Summer Lager, that we got to have with our appetizer course.

The first beer to be paired was the Schlafly Hefeweizen and the lighter beer went perfectly with an equally mild Crescenz-Stracchino cheese from BelGioioso. The cheese was so creamy!

The also popular, Pale Ale, was paired with a Roasted Red Pepper and Cracked peppercorn cheese from Wood River Creamery. I thought the cheese was a little too big for the beer, but it helped to take care of any hoppiness in the Pale Ale.

A new beer to me, the Belgian Style Golden Ale, had a bit more hoppiness than the Pale Ale so this was well paired with the Aged Brick Cheddar from Widmer's Cheese Cellars, which had quite a bite.

The other cheese from Widmer's Cheese Cellars, their Aged Brick Spread, was also paired with another hoppy beer, the AIPA.

And to mix things up a bit, instead of pairing the blue cheese with the AIPA, it was paired with the Lewis Osterweis Hard Ginger Beer! The ginger was good for cutting through the thick, creaminess of the BelGioioso's Creamy Gorg blue cheese. Pretty ingenious!

Resources:

Straub's = http://straubs.com/

Schlafly = http://schlafly.com/

Operation Food Search = http://www.operationfoodsearch.org/