Beverage training manager Rohan Jelkie took Iknoor Kaur on a Brews Cruise, during which he revealed some interesting facts about beers and their food pairings
Everyone who blamed beer all this while, for their round, protruding and horrendous looking, so called “beer bellies”, may just be a little disappointed to know that the carbonated alcoholic beverage is actually the “least fattening” of the rest in the cabinet. SurprisedIJ Even we were when Rohan Jelkie from tulleeho! revealed this to us while he was taking us on a Brews Cruise at the Beer Cafe in Vasant Kunj recently.
He stated that beer contains only four to eight per cent of alcohol, depending on the strength of it, while hard liquor like whiskey, rum and vodka have up to 40 per cent of alcohol content, each. “The fat resides in the alcohol, thus making each of the drinks equally fattening when had in their usual mixtures — beer being consumed the way it is and whiskey being mixed with water or soda,” he said. The reason he cited for the excessive fattening due to beer was, “When we drink whiskey, vodka and rum on a normal occasion, we only have two to three drinks. However, beer consumption can go all the way up to eight bottles at a go because of its lightness. This leaves you consuming more alcohol apart from the fact that you munch along as you sip too, making you fat, eventually.”
We have all heard of, and some of us have even attended exotic wine tasting sessions or sophisticated single and double malt salons, but something like beer tasting is not very common. Maybe that is why most of us who entered the Café for the beer tour had one question on mind, “What exactly are we going to doIJ” The Brews Cruise was a beer trail that took us through a variety of beers and educated us on what food to pair with each variety of beer.
First up were the lagers. Known as the most popular of them all, lagers are actually a fairly new entrant in the brew sector. Rohan explained, “lager is basically stored beer made from barley which goes through ‘bottom fermentation.’ This is a process where the yeast settles down at the bottom and due to the lack of availability of oxygen, ferments slowly.” The first beer to taste in this category was Estrella from Barcelona. It was an authentic pilsner with a sweet smell to it. The flavours were very light and the beer was clean, crisp and refreshing. Slight bitterness could be felt at the back of the tongue. The next in line was the famous Heineken which was more bitter than Estrella, but was the typical form of beer drunk by 90 per cent of Indians. The third in the series was Brooklyn lager. This was a dark lager which had a sweet smell with a bitter taste. In this case the barley is roasted to produce a grain called chocolate malt.
The next category was wheat. Unlike lagers which are prepared with barley, this section had beers prepared with wheat. The first in this section was the newly-made-popular on-the-tap beer, Hoegarden from Belgium.
This beer was served with a slice of orange which helped enhance the flavour of the beer and looked cloudy. “It is a myth that cloudy beers are spoilt, but when it comes to wheat beers, they are all supposed to be cloudy because of the wheat,” said Rohan.
The lager beers were served without food so that the palate remained fresh. This round of drinks was served with fish fingers and nachos. According to Rohan, wheat beers go with spicy food. Next in wheat beers were Erdinger from Germany, which was clear as compared to Hoegarden and Weihenstephaner, also known as the traditional dunkel beer. Dunkel is a dark wheat beer which has more character in terms of texture compared to the others in the category.
Ale followed that and sub-sectioned into stout. Ale is known to be the oldest form of beer, made from barley and is also top fermented with natural yeast. This section was paired with some fish tikkas and chicken wings.
The first one was Marstons Pedigree of England. Very bitter and dark as all ales are, this one was a wee bit softer on the palate. After this was a comparison between Duvel from Belgium and Murphy’s Irish from Ireland. While Duvel is known as the champagne of beers, Murphy’s was a typical Irish Stout.
last was the fruit beer, liefmans. Rohan said that this beer is served only in three ways, chilled, on-the-rocks or as a cocktail. Thus, the session came to an end with all of us making ourselves a cocktail with pineapples, pineapple juice, cardamom, fruit beer and lots of ice.
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