Sometimes when you learn your lesson, you will remember it forever. In fact, both my wife and I still do. This meal must have been the best and longest collaborative project I embarked on with my now wife. It featured my creation as the star of the show.
Photo by Sarah Gualtieri on Unsplash
It was late fall, and we were making a stew. While we had all the ingredients and a recipe in front of us and the preparation time would take us an afternoon, it had taken months to get together. Assembled after a nail-biting journey of brewing and tasting.
A very hoppy chocolate malt would turn out to be the star of the show. Although I already was brewing for some time, most of my creations were hoppy ales. Most of the beers I brewed I would class as an IPA, steam beer, or red ale. One day in late winter, I opted to make a chocolate malt ale. I loved chocolate malt (used with extreme moderation in my red ales until that time), I also loved hops and in my wisdom, I combined two of my favorite profiles in this one beer. Getting the best of two worlds. What could go wrong?
War in a bottle.
There must have been a major conflict between the hoppy bitterness and the malty chocolate notes in all 40 bottles of beer. While the beer smelled fantastic with its fruity notes, supported by a robust malty cast, taking a sip felt like inviting two warring factions for peace negotiations over dinner, hacking each other to pieces in the hallway, thrashing your house. The first days of this young beer were cataclysmic, its taste a calamity.
I long debated what to do. Act the responsible parent and negotiate peace? Or throw the fighting kids out of the house and drain the beer through the sink? Undecided, the beer sat untouched for months. Replaced by more conventional brews (IPAs, Wheat beers), fit for a glorious spring and summer.
As fall was in full swing, my wife decided she should make a nice beef stew. There was a bottle of red wine we nearly finished (not that good), beef that needed finishing, and some vegetables. My wife asked for a beer, I glanced over to my supply and without giving it much further thought, given her the hoppy chocolaty malt. As I opened the bottle, the smell instantly reminded me of how promising this beer was when first opened, and how flavor dashed my hopes soon after.
On this day, however, it turned out to be different. Tasting this aging beer revealed how the bitterness had given some ground to the chocolate malt. The malt, in turn, had become less domineering, opting to only impose a light and pleasant touch. This beer was fantastic.
The meal would be even better. The stewed beef had soaked in the intricate flavor profile of this amazing beer and borrowed a kick from this tiny splash of red wine. This chocolate malt, seeing the light after what seemed to be calamitous brewing blunder, had morphed into this full-bodied, accomplished beer. Probably the best beer I have ever made.
Ever since then, I have enjoyed making beer, conditioning it in bottles, and taste it over time, seeing its flavor profiles work together to travel from sensory cacophony to perfect harmony.