Beer and Food Pairings with Daryl Hoedtke of Goose Island Beer Co.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Goose Island Beer’s (Chicago based Craft Beer) visit to Philadelphia, what they called Migration Week. Here’s the post in case you missed it Goose Island Beer Migration Week in Philly RECAP

During the visit I also got to ask a few questions of their resident brewer/ food and beer pairing expert Daryl Hoedtke. The beer brewing questions are courtesy of Melissa my homebrewing friend. Here’s the post that introduced Melissa Bosak in case you missed it – Home Brewing with Melissa you can follow Melissa’s brewing hits and misses @MelBos3. – Le Anne Lindsay, Editor

MB: What is the most unique ingredient you’ve used?

DH: The most unique ingredient I work with at Goose Island Beer Co. is red pepper corns. We use it in Gillian and it gives a great pepper bite, but also a bit of a fruity characteristic that goes great with the strawberries and honey that’s also added.

MB: How do you select a yeast strain?

DH: We have a great versatile house yeast strain that is British in origin we use for many of our beers. However, we can use pretty much any yeast we can imagine and will choose one based on what we want in the beer – basically we have endless options when it comes to yeast.

MB: How often do you design a recipe that fails?

DH: As far as making a beer that fails, I’d say it isn’t that frequent. We are always learning from our innovation beers even when they aren’t exactly what our original vision was. We’ll often make minor adjustments to get exactly what we want, but I’d say we normally are pretty close and only need minor changes most of the time.

T&T: Is there a beer to compliment spaghetti which rivals pairing it with a good Chianti?

DH: Spaghetti pairing – depending on the sauce if it’s sweeter you could go with a 312 Pale to balance with the hops. If it is spicier you could go with a Matilda to balance with the spice in the beer.

T&T: Favorite pairing for early autumn?

DH: One of my new favorites is our third Limited Release beer called Rambler IPA. It is available nationally and features herbal, woody, and citrus aromas. It’s spicy, with sweet hop flavor from Amarillo hops to balance the aroma and bitterness of the Mt. Hood hops. It finishes with rich malt flavors for exceptional taste. (Sounds like a great September beer to me!)

T&T: A popular sushi roll in Philadelphia is called the Philly Roll (fresh salmon and cream cheese), other than a Chinese beer like Tsingtao or Japanese like Sapporo, what do you recommend?