Pairing sour beer with cigars was a breakthrough moment for me, especially since I could never bloody find anything that worked particularly well with cigars. There is an old rule (or I like to say, an old myth) that you pair (colour) light with light and dark with dark, but in my opinion, this couldn’t be more wrong! Necking a thick, syrupy stout while smoking a Maduro cigar is like washing milk chocolate down with dark chocolate; it simply doesn’t work (although all rules have exceptions). In this scenario, at best, you can occasionally find that opposites attract. Using a viscous, thick bodied stout to calm the bitter spice of a Connecticut leaf cigar, such as a Drew Estate Undercrown Shade Robsuto, or a fruity lager to refresh the palette from a rich, acrid and smoky Maduro e.g. Partagas Maduro No. 1, can often be the best-case scenario, but in truth I rarely find any of these combos to blow my mind. So why was I drinking beer that altered the taste of the cigar and more often than not, changed the cigar for the worse.
Enter sour beer!
Okay, you may be wondering, what the hell is sour beer? No, it isn’t off beer, it is beer that has been aged with specific yeast to produce a sweet/dry and sour ale. There are a number of variants on the ‘sour’ style requiring different brewing methods, but the main styles are Lambics, Gueuze and Flanders Reds. Without going into great detail on how these styles are brewed, here is a very basic rundown: Unlike standard brewing which is entirely sterile (at the conditioning stage), sours require that wild yeast strains, fruit or bacteria are intentionally added to the brew during the ageing process to turn the beer sour. Aged brews can then (but not always) be blended with fresh brews to produce the flavour the brewer requires. This is a very basic description of the brewing process but gives you an insight to the differences between none sour and sour beer. For all you bakers out there, think of sourdough and you’ll better understand.
The flavour of sour beer varies wildly but for the purposes of this blog I will focus on the above styles: think balsamic and sherry wine vinegar but incredibly sweet and fruity. If you’re a basic beer drinker then I suppose the character and flavour has more in common with traditional Cider, than beer.
Examples of sour beer breweries include: Rodenbach, Cantillon, Brouwerij Verhaeghe, Lindemans, The Lost Abbey and Rocket Brewing, all which you will find at CASC Bar in Aberdeen.
Why does it work?
For me, I cannot smoke a cigar without some form of beverage, preferably alcoholic of course! The cigar on its own over a period of 30 minutes or more is very intense on the palette, you are after all taking copious amounts of smoke into your gob and doing so can decrease your ability to carry on enjoying the cigar; for me a drink is pretty much an integral part of the overall experience. So why not make the pairing synergistic instead of offensive? The sour element acts as a palette cleanser (think pickled ginger with sushi), refreshing it after every sip, and the sweet element works to counteract the bitter flavours of the smoke and to genuinely enhance the flavour of the cigar.
It may sound odd to the uninitiated and may even take some getting used to, but do me a favour and give it a whirl; it will change your life!
The purpose of Sours & Stogies is for me to yap on about everything cigars but with a sour beer twist. So, if you are a cigar smoker looking for another (and wildly different) take on the matter, subscribe and enjoy!
Sláinte
Sours & Stogies 