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Beer & Cheese Pairings: Brooklyn Brewery’s Brooklyn Monster Ale

Beer & Cheese Pairings: Brooklyn Brewery’s Brooklyn Monster Ale


SACRAMENTO, CA

Welcome to this installment of Beer and Cheese Pairings. For this edition, I have three strong and tasty blue cheeses to go up against Brooklyn Brewery’s sweet Brooklyn Monster Ale. Let’s get started!

BEER:

Brooklyn Monster Ale from Brooklyn Brewery is a very sweet and flavorful English Barleywine. It smells of sweet caramel and tastes of raisin, honey and molasses with astringent tones and a hint of sherry. Its sweet qualities should pair well with the lineup of flavorful blues. Brooklyn Brewery's Brooklyn Monster Ale

CHEESES:

Smokey Blue is a delightful blue cheese from Rogue Creamery that is cold smoked over the shells of hazelnuts. The earthy tones of the smoke join beautifully with the cream flavors for a cakey and smooth blue cheese. This was my personal favorite cheese of the day. Unfortunately, the caramel notes that developed with the smoking process paired with the sweetness of the beer made the pairing very unbalanced and over sweet. Rogue Creamery's Smokey Blue

Bay Blue from Point Reyes Cheese is a rustic-style blue cheese that is very reminiscent of Stilton. This beautiful cheese is aged 90 days and boasts a mild and mellow-blue mold flavor. It has slight earthy notes and a salted-caramel finish. That blue mold flavor helped cut through the sweetness of the Ale and made for a very nice pairing. Point Reyes Cheese's Bay Blue

Valdeon from Cowgirl Creamery is a hearty blue made with a blend of pasteurized cow’s and goat’s milk that is produced by La Caseria in the province of Leon, Spain. This delicious cheese is wrapped in giant sycamore leaves and aged for a minimum of two months. It has hints of chocolate, spice, roasted meats and crusty baked bread. It made a beautifully balanced pair with the ale, cutting through the sweetness of the beer.

Cowgirl Creamery's Valdeon

Be sure to check back for more delicious beer and cheese pairings.

Rogue Creamery

Point Reyes Cheese

Cowgirl Creamery