by Anto Coates
On Tuesday night I attended the BrewNZ Beervana
dinner, billed as ‘Beer vs Wine: the Tussle for the Table’ in true Don King
style. Wine writer John Saker and American brewer Sam Calagione were the ring
announcers for wine and beer respectively, with Saker firing his erudition barbs
at Calagione’s impenetrable barrier of humour and psyched-ness.
To say that the crowd at the Beervana dinner was
slightly partisan is like saying Tiger Woods was slightly promiscuous. There
was a heavy bias towards beer and some tables kept it in check rather better
than others. Personally, I was intrigued to see how the beers would fare
against the wine with food, as I’ve always thought beer is better suited to hot
days, salty snacks and spicy ethnic food than to the delicate flavours and
textures of fine dining. But preconceived notions aside, I was in a good chair,
sitting next to brewer and judge Graeme Mahy who, as luck would have it, had a
hand in the first beer of the night, the Moa Original.
The Moa vied with the Allan Scott Les Joues Rouges Methode for the affections
of the first course, a duck liver parfait with toasted gingerbread, served with
corned beef, red coleslaw and mustard club sandwiches and cheddar and caraway
jumbo straws (which had to have been a nod to the beer, but came across more
like a red herring). This match came complete with sibling rivalry as Josh
Scott, brewer for Moa and former winemaker for Allan Scott, baited his sister
Victoria, the marketing manager for Allan Scott Wines. The Allan Scott lived up
to its name and was left red-cheeked as our table voted against it 8-6 (average
points out of 10, not votes). For the record I scored the fight 6-5 to the wine:
I thought the hoppy bitterness of the Moa was overwhelming, a common theme for
me throughout the night, and I found the Les Joues Rouge’s acidity and bubbles
cut through the fattiness of the duck liver in a more civilised fashion, though
only a good not a great match. But democracy is a fickle mistress and I sighed
and conceded in the spirit of the evening. Beer (and brother Josh) eventually
emerged victorious as the votes of the room were tallied.
Seeing the second course, my eyes lit up as I sensed a
certain victory for the wine: scampi tails with roasted garlic aioli and crispy
chorizo, served with spent grain loaves with extra virgin olive oil. Surely the
rich yet delicate Ata Rangi Lismore Pinot Gris 09 would be a far better match
than the cloudy Tuatara Bavarian Hefe! Indeed I thought it was—the delicate
rose blossom florals and 11 grams RS gave support and complexity to the simple
flavours—but again the beer won the popular vote. Our table voted for the wine,
scoring the match 8-4 in its favour, agreeing that the beer had to get a fail
mark. The only redeeming feature I could see for the beer was its beautiful
quenching quality for the oversalted spent loaf (which was made from spent
Tuatara Pilsner grains), but I’m not sure an overenthusiastic salting should
really count as a positive. By that rationale, blowing would be a good match
for a hot soup.
The third course was what I would call a safe wine
match – pork and pinot. Ruth Pretty presented a delicious confit of crisp pork
belly with white beans, rainbow chard and prunes, and the Dux Brewing company
presented their Hereford Bitter to duke it out with the Mt Difficulty Pinot
Noir 08. Most at our table agreed that the wine had the edge pre-food, with
summer ripe plums, black cherries and lilac florals, but results with the food
were less conclusive. Some of the beer lovers reported excessive tannins when
combined with the fatty pork belly and felt that the wine was not as good with
the food as on its own. I personally found the pork accentuated the
concentration of the wine, but did have the effect of thinning it out a little
bit. Perhaps the richness of the dish might have required something with a
little more body, or more acid like a Gewurztraminer. I called this a fair
match and gave it 7 out of 10 to the Hereford Bitter’s 5. The table was less
sure and scored it a draw at 6-all. Finally the wine appeared to be making some
gains, taking the win overall for course 3.
The fourth course I anticipated would be a tight
tussle. If there was one item on the menu that just might call for a beer it
was the steak, kidney and Hopwired IPA pie with minted pea purée and syrah
syrup. The Hopwired beer was naturally chosen to pair and is renowned for its
brutal hop character. Tony Bish, whose Sacred Hill Halo Syrah was up against
it, said it was "so hoppy it should be called Bugs Bunny.” If there is one rule
of food pairing it is to match the weights of the dish and the drink, and I
felt the beer and the wine actually bracketed the pie, the syrah just lacking a
touch of concentration and length (Deerstalkers would have been spot on) and
the Hopwired bludgeoning the palate into submission with its persistent hoppy
finish. I scored it 7-all as both were pleasant enough but didn’t quite achieve
harmony. The table called it 6-5 in favour of wine, and the room concurred,
making it 2-all after 4 courses.
Next up was the Martinborough Vineyard Pinot Noir
2008, a great wine from a great vintage, fresh off winning a major
international award, though the echoing acoustics and my table’s lack of
proximity prevented me from hearing what it was. The poor soul up against it
was the Monteith’s Doppelbock Winter Ale, trying to tame the Cervena®
venison rack marinated in apple syrup, Tamari soy sauce and sesame oil with
Shiitake mushrooms, olive oil enriched jus, kumara and manuka honey mash and
parsnip crisp. Wow. What a mouthful, and it certainly was too – for me the food
and wine match of the night. The Shiitake mushroom, sesame and soy base sauce
brought out the truffle/mushroom characters that mark a pinot of this quality,
while the sweet manuka honey mash made the red cherry fruit dance. I gave it 9
out of 10 while the poor old Monteith’s fared less well with a 4 out of 10,
though it did improve with the food, it was just hopelessly overmatched. The
table didn’t see it quite as skewed as I did, marking it 7-5 in favour of the
Martinborough Pinot. The room concurred and the wine had its nose in front 3-2 with
1 round to go.
The final course was always going to be beer’s most
difficult assignment, as no one has ever heard of a dessert beer (well at least
I haven’t). But in the same way you send in your best slugger when the pressure’s
on at the bottom of the ninth inning, beer wheeled out Superbrewer Richard
Emerson and his Emerson’s Weizenbock to go up against sticky specialist P