Beer and BBQ – what could be better? This week on Beer Sessions Radio™, host Jimmy Carbone is talking two of our favorite July things: July Good Beer Month and barbeque! He’s joined by his “Summer Sidekick” Ben Keene, editor of Beer Advocate, who is hanging out in the studio this summer. Together they’re talking with Kelly Taylor of KelSo Beer and Joe Carroll, the man behind Fette Sau BBQ, St. Anselm, Spuyten Duyvil and author of the new book Feeding the Fire.
Kelly and Joe are talking about their collaborations and which beers go best with summer barbecued meats. Ben explains some of the nuances of pairing beer with food (complementary v. contrasting flavors); he likes to look for surprising or unexpected experiences in food pairings in their Table Mates column of the magazine (he recently paired Jimmy’s No. 43 Adobo Chicken Wings with two different sour beers and Other Half IPA for three very distinct flavors). Joe chimes in that “beer and food go together extremely well and it almost doesn’t matter the food or the beer… you almost never find yourself in a situation with beer and food that you have a clash in flavors.” However, he does try to do low-alcohol beers with a hoppy bite and crispness that pairs well with barbeque; rich or high-ABV beers do tend to get in the way of the richness of grilled meats.
In Feeding the Fire, Joe gives readers his top 20 lessons and more than 75 recipes to make incredible fire-cooked foods at home, proving that you don’t need to have fancy equipment or long-held regional traditions to make succulent barbecue and grilled meats. It took Joe four years to write the book (“quite an undertaking”). He framed the book loosely on the key strengths of each of his three establishments (spirits from St. Anselm, beer from Spuyten Duyvil and, of course, meat/grilling from Fette Sau).
Kelly is also getting ready to launch his taproom at the brewery in Fort Greene Brooklyn, where he’ll be offering six taps in a section of the brewery “barreled” off from the production area. He’s comparing his more sessionable beers with the Tripel (tripell?) they are drinking in the studio. A couple of listeners from Sweden are in the studio on an American craft beer tour. They’ve brought in an American-style double India Pale Ale infused with mangoes!
Grab a beer and listen to the full episode here.