[Photographs: Maggie Hoffman] Last week, we recommended eight great beers to serve with your Thanksgiving feast. But the beer pairing doesn't have to end when you bring out dessert. Beer is actually great with pie, and pie is even better with a well-chosen beer. Some beers mirror the cinnamon and nutmeg in your dessert, while others bring out the caramel and nut flavors. Some are richer than espresso and cream, some are buttery, and others are refreshing enough to make dessert feel light. Look for styles that aren't very hoppy, and serve in a wide-mouthed wine glass. Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to open a bottle of something special. Look for styles that aren't very hoppy, and serve in...
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"Malty beer resonates with the caramelized skin of a turkey and brings out the herbal flavors in stuffing." [Photograph: Maggie Hoffman] If you want to eat like the Pilgrims this Thanksgiving, you should probably get busy hunting for deer and wild ducks. But if you want to drink Pilgrim-style, you just need to get yourself some beer! The colonists believed that beer was usually safer to drink than water and worried about drinking their barrels dry. After dithering too long over where to locate their settlement, the passengers of the Mayflower finally chose Plymouth just before a harsh winter began. William Bradford wrote, "We could not now take much time for further search [for an ideal destination,] our victuals being...
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Deb Harkness suggests some food and wallet-friendly Spanish wines to go along with whatever you're grilling this weekend....
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On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. This week, great wine books for your library or that of your grapehead friend or family member. If you are an avid cook, you can probably rattle off the titles of the five cookbooks that you absolutely, positively could not live without. They are the books with the crusty pages, the singed covers, and the broken spines that you turn to again and again when looking for culinary inspiration. So what are the five wine books that I can't live without? My list includes a reference book, a tasting guide, an annual report, a catalogue of grape varieties, and an indispensable guide to food and wine...
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Last week I wrote about cooking with beer, so today it seems only fair to point to Josh Rubin of the Toronto Star on pairing food with beer with Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver, who "enjoys going toe-to-toe with sommeliers when it comes to food pairings. Cheese is a favourite tool for his battles, but he has also used stews, cassoulet, seafood and dessert."I've had some Iron Chef-style events where I'll be matching foods with beer, and the sommelier will be matching the same foods with wine," says Oliver. "But beer against wine is like fighting someone with one hand tied behind their back. I haven't lost yet, and the people in the audience doing the judging are usually...
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