My father-in-law Jerome is, in many ways, a marvellous human being, but he does have one serious flaw. He serves wine with cheese. It’s often really nice wine, too, good red Bordeaux, which clashes horribly with pretty much any cheese you might choose to mention.
For Jerome, the notion of wine and cheese is an idée fixe – but he’s half-French, so at least he has an excuse. Most British people don’t, and have inherited the notion of drinking wine with cheese as part of an instinctive cultural cringe, the same impulse that still occasionally causes fancy restaurants to write ingredients in French (‘Ooo, pâté de tête! I wonder what that means? Très fancy’).
I remember as a tot briefly attending a cheese-and-wine party on a family campsite holiday. A large crowd of Brits had assembled to imbibe deeply from the well of French sophistication. The fact that we were in Brittany, a region with no tradition of winemaking (and not exactly a cheese powerhouse, either) didn’t seem to strike anyone as odd or out of place.
Not everyone is so insecure. Others have deeper cultural grounding – none deeper, I would hazard to assert, than monks. When it comes to cultural grounding, those lads have pretty much written the book.
My favourite monks are the Trappists, and not just because I appreciate a bit of peace and quiet. They’re famous for the beer produced within the walls of their monasteries, which includes classics such as Orval, Westmalle and Chimay.
They also make cheese (or, at least, oversee the production of it). On a recent trip to Belgium, I managed to try some of Chimay’s most basic cheese, a semi-hard effort whose mild creaminess (like Port Salut, but more flavoursome) was a perfect accompaniment to the spritzy, spicy acidity of Chimay’s Gold ale.
They’ve been making both cheese and beer at Scourmont Abbey, Chimay’s home, since the 19th century, but there’s more variety now than ever before. In terms of cheese, both Chimay à la Bière, which – as the name suggests – is made using beer, and Poteaupré, a softer, more intense option, are well worth seeking out.
It’s not just about the monks, though. If I might briefly generalise, one of Belgian beer’s most appealing characteristics is its complexity – a result of fermentation, certainly, but also related to the use of varied ingredients and a willingness to embrace acidity, richness, sweetness and the bitter edge offered by hops.
It’s these flavours – and particularly, I think, beer’s deep, mellow malt sweetness – that make it such a great partner for cheese. This can go for British beer and cheese as much as Belgian, particularly stronger beers like Fuller’s Vintage Ale, or stouts, which can work wonders with blue cheese.
My favourite combination is Franco-Belgian: Saison Dupont, with its grapefruit acidity, clove character and fresh bitterness, is a natural partner to Sainte-Maure de Touraine, a French goat’s cheese with a complementary acidic, tangy flavour.
It’s a delicious but very simple match, one grounded in high-quality natural ingredients – a notion, I’m sure, that would find favour with the monks at Chimay. This year, the Abbey is celebrating 175 years of existence with a party to which its suppliers – from hop growers to local dairy farmers – are all invited. Plenty of cheese and beer will be enjoyed, no doubt.
Outsiders are not invited, alas, but we can have our own celebrations. Next time we visit my parents-in-law, I’m going to take Jerome a bottle of Chimay, or maybe Saison Dupont. I fully expect him to accept the bottle gracefully – and then serve Pauillac with the brie.
