Pairing: Gorgonzola & Pear Tart with Temptation
Eli had a hankering to make a savory tart. She found this base recipe on the Food Network site, and set to work. Rather than use a store bought crust, she made a pastry crust from scratch, and set about caramelizing the pears. Meanwhile, I was tasked with finding a pairing. The gorgonzola and cream cheese filling would be tangy and rich, while the caramelized pears would provide sweetness and roasted carmel flavors. Finally, we planned on serving it with a small arugula salad with a light vinaigrette to provide some contrast and cut the richness.
I started digging through my beer closet and quickly found a winner.
Russian River’s Temptation would be a great foil for the tart. The light malt would match up nicely with the homemade crust, while the sour brett aging in barrels would provide a tangy counterpoint to the gorgonzola and rich prosciutto strips on top.
The pairing turned out to be perfect. We served the beer to our friends Mat and Jodie, neither of which are huge beer drinkers. I explained a bit about the beer, what to expect from a barrel aged beer and how the brett would impact the beer. Mat commented that he wouldn’t even know that it was beer if he hadn’t been told. I’ve started to notice that barrel aged beers are the perfect segue beers for wine drinkers intot he beer world – the sour tang and oak provides a great bridge and similar vocabulary for the transition. Jodie took a few sips of her glass, but wasn’t as enamored with the brew as the rest of us.
It was a young bottle, and the sourness was mild, but present. There was a lot going on in the tart – the cheeses, the pears, the prosciutto – and the sour beer cut across all of the layers gracefully, and tied the whole thing together. The slight sour finish was just what the tart needed.
With my bottle of Temptation empty, I took the dregs and added them to a yeast starter I’m planning for a brett beer. The only problem is that it was my last bottle of Temptation. Any more left in San Francisco?
Tags: Russian River, tart, temptation
