THE BEST CHRISTMAS BEERS
Christmas is coming, and whether we prefer Christmas light decorations and tinsel all around the house, or if we are more Scrooge-like, I am sure that one way or another we will be taking part in family and social events featuring big meals and drinking more or less amounts of alcohol.
These singular occasions are particularly suitable for trying out winter recipes, which tend to be heavy meals rich in calories, oven-roasts and more often than not with tasty sauces or gravy. Those delicious meals combined with the occasion just beg for us to accompany them with an alcoholic drink.
It is traditional in Spain to serve wine at this time of year, and although to a lesser extent cava too, usually serving it with the dessert, but which can help lighten up our stomachs with its bubbles and fresh taste. But cava is not the only drink with those properties, beer too can play an excellent role in our Christmas menus.
Having said that, we need to ask ourselves if the typical golden lager is the best Christmas beer. Not wishing to make a too categorical statement, there are other options that we could consider to serve with our traditional Christmas dinners. As mentioned earlier, our Christmas dinners tend to be highly flavoured and rather heavy, meaning that pairing them with beer is ideal to set off that stuffed feeling we often get.
This means that a general recommendation would be to serve more full-bodied, maltier beer with a higher alcohol content, that pairs well with the dishes we serve, but at the same time it will refresh our palate thanks to the carbonation and bitterer taste, alleviating that stuffed feeling with each sip.
Apart from some of the specific Christmas beers that international brands bring out that are not easy to find in Spain, there are some classic brews that will reward us with an excellent culinary experience, which include:
- Monkish beer, known as double and quadrupel beer > more full-bodied and higher alcohol content, their caramel tones and fermentation using ale type yeast confer more complexity to them, meaning they pair perfectly well with all manner of stews and roast meat. These beers include some of the Abbey beers such as Leffe Bruin (6.5%), which can be more easily found in our supermarkets than Trappist beer such as Chimay Red (7.2%) or La Trappe Quadrupel (10%).
- The same Monkish beers in their blonde or tripel varieties > offering the same degree of complexity and intensity, but less roasted and paler in colour. They pair wonderfully with fish, shellfish and all manner of cured and smoked foods. Some examples of these beers are Leffe Blonde (6.6%), Tripel Karmeliet (8%) and Westmalle Tripel (9%)
- The German Bock beers > particularly the stronger ones such as the Doppelbock or Eisbock, which pair well with meat dishes and also sweet desserts and are even ideal for serving during the chat over the table after dinner is finished. Some other interesting options include Paulaner Salvator (7.9%) and Schneider Aventinus Eisbock (12%).
¡Salud!
