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GREAT BEER PAIRINGS:

COLD BEERS & CHEESEBURGERS

Alison Bailin Batz » The Entertainer!

BEER

Brewery: Four Peaks (Tempe/Scottsdale) Style: Kölsch Ale Name: Four Peaks Sunbru The Kölsch style—as one might guess from the name—originates in Cologne, a great beer-drinking city in Western Germany. Sunbru Kölsch-Style Ale goes down easy and has a soft, dry finish with a low-but-balanced bitterness and a light to medium body with a very delicate flavor. It’s reminiscent of a Northern German pilsner, with a less hoppy, smoother flavor and aroma. Sunbru has a clean, malty, chardonnay-like aroma and dry, refreshing finish.

DISH

“Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers is not one’s basic burger place, as our menu features only fresh ingredients with all items made in house daily. Our award-winning burgers are all hand formed from fresh, never frozen, ground chuck to create a tasty selection of mouthwatering half-pound burgers. Add to that our five types of award-winning mac-n-cheese, classic sandwiches such as our slow-roasted prime dip, club and a staff favorite, the buffalo chicken featuring our housemade buffalo sauce. We also feature hand-crafted salads, charbroiled hot dogs and a tasty selection of appetizers such as grilled drummettes, sliders, hellfire chips and much more. You will quickly see that, although we specialize in them, we offer much more than burgers. Let’s get to the good part, the beer. Our beer menu consists of over 150 beer choices on draught, bottled or canned. The beer menu will be ever-rotating to make sure that we keep up to date as new products hit the market. Taste the tap. Don’t forget to check out our Beer of the Month, which is usually a seasonal beer priced at only $4 pints/$5 mug all month long.” —Will Prichard, beverage director/regional manager of Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers

Dish: Steakhouse Truffle Burger The Steakhouse Truffle Burger, like all Cold Beers’ burgers, are made with 80/20 ground chuck, which is extremely flavorful but when grilled with their special seasoning and eaten alongside a beer it only offers additional layers of flavor. This burger is topped with garlic aioli, gruyere cheese, bacon, white truffle oil, thyme roasted tomatoes, herb butter, baby greens and caramelized onions. The Four Peaks Sunbru is a great light bodied crisp session beer that highlights the subtle delicate flavors of the Steakhouse Truffle Burger without overpowering any of the individual elements that make it so special. The pairing goes especially well with the combination of truffle oil and the herb butter, in fact, which brings out the crisp notes of the beer in a most refreshing way.

Cold Beer & Cheeseburgers seven Valley locations, coldbeers.com.

HOPS—THE SPICE OF BEER

Dave Clark » The Entertainer! ne man’s bitterness is another man’s paradise. India Pale Ale, IPA for short, is the most popular sub-style of craft beer and is meant to showcase one of the four main beer ingredients, the hops. Hops are flower-like plants that grows on vines called “bines.” These flowers, known as strobiles, contain two very important components to beer: alpha acids and essential oils. Though these two components make up only a small part of the flower and a minute portion of the overall plant, they contribute greatly to the finished product of the beer. Alpha acids impart bitterness to the beer. A chemical reaction known as isomerization takes place when hops are boiled during a brew. The hops need to be at least in the 180sF, but preferentially at boiling temperatures, to release and convert these bittering acids. Besides bitterness, alpha acids also provide the resiny quality in the mouthfeel of highly hopped beers. The essential hop oils provide the flavor and aroma that is the showcase of WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

a hop-forward beer such as an IPA. Being very volatile, it’s important for brewers to add these hops very late in the boiling process so they don’t burn off. To get maximum hop aroma, they are often added after the beer is chilled, a process known as dry hopping. This contributes a lot of aroma and some flavor, without increasing the bitterness. Hops come in several different formats for brewers. Whole hop cones, pellets and extract are the most popular, with pellets being the most common form used by professional brewers. Terroir is a huge factor in how the hop will taste and smell. Though most of the world’s hops are grown near the northern and southern 48th parallels, the country of origin makes a very big difference. In America, hops grown in the Pacific Northwest (mainly Washington and Oregon) contain a big citrus, pine and/or grapefruit essence. Cascade and Centennial are two well-known American hops. Bell’s Two Hearted Ale is a great example of a beer using American hops. In Germany, the world’s largest hop producer, the hops are much more floral and spicy.

In fact, the best German hops are considered “noble” and are prized by brewers. Noble hops are often showcased in lighter beer styles such as pilsner, helles, Kölsch and marzen. In the United Kingdom, hops are much earthier, with subdued aromatics. East Kent Goldings and Fuggles are signature hops from this region and Bass Ale is a beer that showcases these. In the southern hemisphere, the hops are somewhat fruity, somewhat citrusy. Nelson Sauvin is a prized hop sourced from New Zealand and these hops are featured in Alpine Brewing’’ Nelson IPA. Besides providing the aromatics and bitterness to the beer, hops also provide the beer with antibacterial properties. This helps to preserve the beer. Hops also provide head retention to the beer’s foam, which is why your IPA usually has a thick white foamy head which persists and clings to your glass as you enjoy your beer. Dave Clark is a Certified Cicerone, nationally ranked BJCP Judge and former professional brewer who lives in Gilbert.