I started by attacking a huge pile of fresh fruit that was taunting me to go bad.  I has already lost some raspberries to mold, and wasn’t going to loose anymore.  I cleaned and chopped  the blackberries, strawberries, and peaches into a bowl, and lightly dressed them in a bit of sugar and flour.  Still looking a little too empty, I added two more plums.  Perfect. 

I then turned my attention to the topping. My girlfriend was putting in her usual dessert request of “more chocolate!” but I was determined to keep it lighter, and not drown out the summer fruit with heavy cocoa. (I compromised and got chocolate ice cream for her to put on top.)

In the food processor i ground together macadamia nuts, rolled oats, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar and butter.  Lots of butter.  The whole thing went into a hot over for 40 minutes while we did dishes from dinner.

Onto the beer. 

I love dessert beers.  They bring a fantastic level of complexity often not found otherwise in many beer, and open up palate choices that aren’t the first thing to come to mind when you think beer. A recent explosion of interest in sour beers has expanded the market even more, and krieks and gueuzes with tart flavors and complex, wild flavors.  Think of them as the sourdough’s of the beer world. 

I had on hand a bottle of Ommegang’s Three Philosophers, a belgium Quadrupel which is blended with cherries. It has more of a distinct malt flavor, light sugar, and a much more mild cherry finish than many other fruit beers.  Avi, a dessert beer skeptic, tasted the beer and remarked “It’s not nearly as sweet as i thought it would be.”  The smooth mouthfeel of the beer belies its 9.8% alcohol content.

 

 

My crisp came out great.  High heat for a short period of time left much of the fruit fairly intact, with a light syrup, and not too sweet (it didn’t need to be with such great fruit).  The macadamia nuts in the crisp topping picked up some color in the oven, and resulted in a great toasted nut flavor that brought out the malt in the beer.  The cherry in the beer matched nicely fruit in the crisp, and mirrored the overall composition of the dish: toasted flavors paired with lightly sweet fruit.

 

 

I topped the whole thing with a scoop of ice cream, and sent it out the hungry diners. It was a hit. 

 

 

Tags: Dessert, Fruit, Ommegang, Three Philosophers

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 7:33 pm and is filed under Pairings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.