He Said Beer, She Said Wine: Impassioned Food Pairings to Debate and Enjoy -- From Burgers to Brie and Beyond

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 256 pages
• Published by: DK Publishing March 17, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0756633591
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0756633592
• Book Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.9 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 2 pounds

Book Description
He Said Beer, She Said Wine is the first fully illustrated book on the market to give in-depth instruction on how to successfully pair both beer and wine with a wide variety of foods. Co-authored by Marnie Old, an esteemed sommelier, and Sam Calagione, a successful brewmaster, He Said Beer, She Said Wine teaches you everything you need to know to get the best out of your beverages, with food or without. Each author divulges the secrets of their respective trades, using clear, easy-to-understand language and, of course, a little good-natured banter to keep things lively. The book is full of fantastic tips and tricks, specific beer and wine recommendations, and interactive elements to help you identify your preferences along the way. So, from cheese to dessert, you'll always know what drinks to serve for sublime flavor combinations.

Conversation with Sam Calagione & Marnie Old
Authors of He Said Beer, She Said Wine

In your book, it seems like this beer vs. wine battle has been going on between you for quite some time. How did it all begin?

MARNIE: Sam and I first met when we were doing trade tastings. We got to talking and found we didnt quite see eye-to-eye about which beverage was the best choice to partner with great food. We started playing around with arguing about which was better, and at a certain point decided we needed to take it to the public to settle the question. We began a series of dinners where our guests would enjoy a wine and a beer with the same course and cast a ballot to decide which partnered better. We called these dinners "Beer is from Mars, Wine is from Venus," and they were awesomely popular.

SAM: I think its indicative of how close the worlds of beer and wine really are in the context of food, because every single night the winner was decided by a single course. And in every situation we had beer people voting for wine, and wine people voting for beer. Were passionate about championing our respective beverage of choice, but one of our main goals is to make beer people more comfortable choosing wines, and wine people more comfortable understanding beer. And, to get both sides more comfortable understanding the breadth of choices within the two worlds.

In He Said Beer, She Said Wine, you give great tips for making beer and wine choices to go with everything from pizza to crème brulee. Can you offer some foolproof advice for choosing a bottle at our next meal?

MARNIE: The first tip is that if youre enjoying it, its good. Theres a lot of discomfort, especially with wine, about ordering the "right" thing. Thats really not so important. Its about doing what you enjoy. I couldnt tell you whether you prefer key lime pie over chocolate cake, and yet people think that theres a right choice and a wrong choice with wine. Its more about whats happening that day. Whats your mood? Is it summer or winter? Is it a special occasion, or is it a relaxed barbeque in the back yard? Its better to think about wine as sauce on the side. Wed never put the same sauce on everything we eat, everyday. The same is true with beverages.

Sam, you mentioned that at the outset you were surprised to discover how much beer and wine actually have in common. How does beer compare to wine?

SAM: The major difference, of course, is that beer is better than wine. But, the simplest comparison would be to say that lagers are more like white wines, in that theyre more mellow and refined, and ales are more like red wines, in that theyre more robust and intense.

Does the rule of drinking white wine with seafood and red wine with red meat still apply?

MARNIE: Something we all have awesomely good instincts for is the idea of putting lighter, more delicate and more subtly flavored beverages with lighter, more delicate food. Its also the first decision that any sommelier makes in pairing for a particular dinner. To say that as a hard and fast rule white wine should be paired with white meat and red wine with red meats is something that I think requirements to be revisited. Its a sound guideline, based in science and experience; however, it is possible to drink very well pairing white wines with red meats and red wines with fish. That said, there is a fundamental difference in the fermentation process that leads this pattern to be more or less true most of the time. Tannin, a property found in red wine, is something we feel on the palate as a tacky, drying sensation. That can lead to a bit of a challenge when pairing with low-fat dishes and seafood.

What makes cheese such a great beverage partner?

MARNIE: Most wines arent designed to impress you on the first sip. Theyre designed to be food partners, to have their acidity softened by salt, and to have their intensity and tannin softened by fat. Cheese is dominated flavor-wise by fat and salt, the exact two properties that are needed to balance out wine.

SAM: As Marnie said, many wines werent designed to taste good on their first sip. On the other hand, beer is meant to taste great on the first sip, the second sip and the third pint. But, that doesnt mean that its any less food-friendly. And, cheese is a great place to start. The carbonation in beer acts as an exfoliant. It clears the palate between bites, whereas wine without carbonation tends to bounce off the cheese and go down your throat without intermingling. The overlap in the world of cheese and beer is also really obvious. Wonderful beer producers like Chimay in Belgium make their own in-house cheese, and Maytag blue cheese is made by the Maytag family, who own the pioneering microbrewery Anchor in San Francisco.

Are there any foods that are notoriously difficult to pair with beverages?

MARNIE: Artichokes are challenging vegetables for the sommelier to work with. Theyre also the darling of every chef from here to Hawaii. Theres a compound in artichokes that confuses taste buds into perceiving all flavor sensations as sweet. After you eat them, everything else tastes saccharine. Theres no question that wines dont taste true to their real flavors when dealing with artichokes in high quantities. Certain wine styles can handle this better than others, though. Light-bodied, un-oaked white wines like Grüner Veltliner from Austria work particularly well.

SAM: I think its ironic that wine has all these Achilles heels, like artichokes and asparagus. Theres really no problem with these foods when it comes to beer. Id pair artichokes with a dark, malt beer like a milk stout or porter. While artichokes dont tend to work very well with the vegetal components of hoppy beers like pilsners or I.P.A.s, those beers would work well with asparagus.

From Publishers Weekly
This cute exploration of food pairings screams that it wants to be a cable TV series. There are numerous photographs of the authors gesticulating, and the writing itself is often bogged down with cooking show banter and platitudes (poultry comes in all flavors and textures). The saving grace is that these two really know what they are talking about. Calagione is the founder of Dogfish Head, one of this country's finest microbreweries, and Old is a respected sommelier and wine educator. After an opening chapter in which the authors are introduced by first names as they opine over why their chosen potable is the greater contribution to humanity, the book is broken into numerous thematic sections. Wine is defined and the major reds and whites get their names in lights. Beer is then similarly dwelt upon. The heart of the book comes in a gambit entitled the Food Debate. Here various vinos and ales are matched with all types of edibles. For example, sandwich suggestions include either a Sauvignon Blanc or a Bitter Golden Ale to go with Tuna Salad. Pizza, shellfish, fruit desserts and seven other foodstuffs are additional fodder for point-counterpoint debates over which drink pairs the best. The final section provides tips and recipes for hosting a beer versus wine tasting dinner party and asks the age-old question: stout or Port with a Chocolate Pecan Upside-down Cake? (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reader Reviews
It makes me sad to give this book a two-star review. The concept is great, the authors are, well, authoritative, and the subject matter is compelling and potentially very useful. I've enjoyed previous titles by Sam Calagione ("Extreme Brewing" and "Brewing Up a Business") and I am a big fan of this innovative brewer and skillful writer. But unfortunately for readers of this book, the folks at DK must have hired out the design of "He Said Beer, She Said Wine" to amateurs because I have not in recent memory seen a book with such staggeringly bad typography and design. This book has the aesthetic of a church newsletter designed in PrintShop, circa 1985. The first thing you'll notice is the extensive use of sans serif type (which is inherently hard to read), even in the body text. That's a no-no. The designer then makes it worse by picking seemingly random typesizes and weights to distract (not draw) the eye. It's the equivalent of a MySpace page as designed by a preteen. The sidebars are a mess. This information should enhance the main text, but not distract. However, within a single sidebar might be 5-6 different types/weights, along with various loud, oversized visual elements, cluttering up useful info behind a garish design which screams for unneeded attention. The effect is chaos, not clarity. Finally (and most disappointingly for a DK book), the photos are clumsily selected, sized, and laid out. Every cheesy gimmick in the amateur designer's photo arsenal were used on this title. The bottom line is that the overall tone of this book is jarring and all the pleasure of reading it is lost thanks to a bad design effort. That's really a shock since this title is published by DK. After all, one of the hallmarks of DK books is their design elegance. True, DK typically packs a lot of information on every page, but that fact only serves to make you appreciate how good their book designers are (or were). This title was either given to an unexperienced intern, or worse, hired out to the low bidder. I cannot imagine that it meets the usual high DK standards in any way and it is a grave disservice to the authors who obviously put a lot of work into the concept and text. What a shame for them and for potential readers. Comment | | (Report this)