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07/07/10 - Stilton cheese - bottoms up!

IT doesn't have to be Port. The tipple that's inexorably yoked to Stilton. It doesn't have to be wine. An ale that was developed to compete with claret back in the 18th century (when we were at war with the French) probably hits the spot better than most in accommodating the creamy yet spicy challenges of the world's best blue cheese.

Barley wine deserves to be lauded more than it is, but its reputation is stuck firmly in a time warp.

A drinking partner recalls old blokes in pubs sticking a bottle of Gold Label as a nightcap into their pints of Whitbread Trophy (‘the pint that thinks it's a quart"', remember the Seventies ad?). And at 10 per cent it was a lethal test of a young lad's manhood (I failed).

Such memories came flooding back the other day when I set up a Stilton and barley wine matching session with a craft brewer, who makes four different versions. It went so well I missed the first half hour of England's clash with Germany, which in retrospect wasn't a bad thing.

 

Trevor Cook from Bare Arts concentrates on producing a range of bottle conditioned beers from golden ales brimming with Cascade hops to dark, brooding, coffeeish porter and (another one for nostalgia buffs) a milk stout.

The best place to try them is in his own Good Beer Guide listed Barearts bar/gallery in the Yorkshire/Lancashire border town of Todmorden. It's an odd little set-up, painted entirely pink, matching the feminine-centric art on display from Trevor's wife, Kathy.

You even sit on pink barrels as you sup your beer from small jugs (bottle-conditioned ales throw a sediment and need decanting).

Among the bar snacks there's always well-kept Quenby Hall Stilton. I took along some Colston Bassett and aged Tuxford and Tebbutt to accompany some immensely characterful beers. What a match! And I don't mean the woeful football.

 

The three Stiltons, one young and fresh, one complex and balanced, one pungently challenging were all too much for the young, still quite bitter, golden barley wine we kicked off with.

Our second barley wine was much darker, brewed in September 2009, slightly medicinal but with the intense dried fruit flavours of a good port. A mouthful of cheese and this elixir, brewed with British Maris Otter and Dark Crystal Barley malts and hopped with Kent Goldings hops, was meltingly perfect.

Especially with the aged Stilton specimen, where there was a rush of grassiness, then a comforting alcoholic warmth in the mouth. It was 9.6 ABV after all, almost wine strength.

Finally we opened a dark barley wine with another year's bottle age on it, mellowing beautifully to a slight nuttiness. The Colston Bassett, in particular, was enhanced by its presence.

At a separate sampling session we tasted a beautifully silky Cropwell Bishop alongside an equally silky, amber-hued Marble Special barley wine from the famous Manchester Marble Arch boutique brewery. Ten months old it boasts a 2009 vintage on the bottle. Even direct from the brewery costs a whopping £12.50 for a 75cl bottle. You are paying for 10.7 alcohol and a great complexity, the equal in it own way of great cheese.

In Belgium, they treasure such brews and celebrate beer with food. Stilton has maintained it pre-eminent position by fighting its corner. It would be good to see Barley Wine achieving a similarly high profile. Preferably in smaller bottles.