Posted By: Theresa Carpine
My sister Lisa suggested that we get together with our mom to bake and decorate Christmas cookies this weekend. Her timing couldn’t have been better, as I had recently received a delivery from South Durham Confection Company with samples of their cookies to pair with craft beer. So while we waited for our own sugar cookies to cool, we enjoyed baked treats from North Carolina with a variety of craft beers from across the nation.
South Durham Confection Company is a new venture of Alison Collins and Jimmy VerVaecke that combines their love of food and craft beer. Alison is a lifelong cook and began pursuing the culinary arts full-time in 2009. Jimmy describes himself as “an IT cubicle drone by day,” as well as an award-winning homebrewer and ranked BJCP beer judge.
“Together we seek to create savory snacks to pair with our favorite craft beers,” Jimmy explained in an email. “We’re starting our journey with a line of cookies infused with a variety of herbs, spices, fruit, and nuts. We wanted to get away from the traditional styles, like chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and peanut butter.
“Not only do savory cookies make a tasty snack, we believe that this is an excellent way to introduce people to many of the flavors they would find in craft beer,” Jimmy added, noting that a freshly baked cookie served with beer is a friendly option for an unadventurous beer drinker.
Four types of cookie–Blue Cheese and Rosemary, Madras and Chili Powder, Cornmeal and Thyme, and Toasted Sesame–are currently listed on SDCC’s website, but it’s the just the beginning. Alison and Jimmy have plans to develop seasonal and collaboration cookies using ingredients that are fresh, local, or “just plain interesting.”
“Much like great beer, our cookies start with just a few basic ingredients. We can alter the ratios – as a brewer might with malt and hops – and the process to create several basic types of cookie,” Jimmy said. In keeping with the spirit of homebrewing, SDCC cookies are handmade in a kitchen, not a factory, and do not contain preservatives. That also means you should eat them soon, which isn’t a difficult task.
For the pairing, Alison and Jimmy sent two batches of cookies. Toasted Sesame is described as “the classic peanut butter cookie–minus the peanut butter,” with sesame seeds, tahini, and sesame oil giving these buttery cookies their nutty character. Blue Cheese and Rosemary infuses a classic shortbread cookie with tangy blue cheese, tart dried cranberries, and piney rosemary leaves.
At the pairing party, which my brother-in-law John also attended, I took the suggested pairings for the cookies into consideration and looked for nationally-available beers while paying tribute to SDCC’s home in North Carolina and my roots in the Northwest. I managed to get some great deals on a wide selection of craft beer at Rosauers Supermarket, a Northwest grocery chain, and Bottles, my local beer and wine shop.
We started with Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale (Bend, Oregon), a Gold Medal winner at 2010 Great American Beer Festival. Mirror Pond is a reliable beer that goes well with almost any kind of food, but John found that Toasted Sesame was a bit too sweet with this dry-hopped pale ale. We all agreed that the elements of Blue Cheese and Rosemary cookies, like tartness of the dried cranberries, suited its pairing with Mirror Pond.
Next in the line-up, we tried Flying Dog Dogtoberfest (Frederick, Maryland). I was very excited to find this style of beer (a suggested pairing for Toasted Sesame) in mid-December, as most märzens are fall seasonals. Following the Mirror Pond, Dogtoberfest offered a more balanced flavor of malt and hops, which went well with both types of cookies. My mother Joyce noted that Dogtoberfest really brought out the peanut flavor of Toasted Sesame.
We moved on to Victory HopDevil (Downingtown, Pennsylvania) and, although the piney, resiny hops of an India Pale Ale were suggested to highlight the herbal character of the Blue Cheese and Rosemary cookie, I was leery to serve it since none of my pairing partners are big fans of IPAs. Lisa didn’t really like either cookie with the HopDevil, but she surprised me by saying that the IPA was good on its own! Jimmy was right; serve beer with a cookie and your guests might enjoy a beer they wouldn’t have tried otherwise.
Our next beer was Abita Turbodog (Abita Springs, Louisiana), which was another exciting discovery at my local bottle shop. I asked the proprietor if he carried any Southeastern beers, as I wanted to serve at least one beer that might be more readily available for the Durham, NC market that SDCC serves, and he pointed me toward Turbodog. The nutty characteristics of this Brown Ale were well-matched for the Toasted Sesame. John also suggested trying this beer with a plain serving of blue cheese, rather than the shortbread cookie itself.
For our last beer, I wanted to serve something from Washington, so we enjoyed a 22 oz. of Pike XXXXX Stout (Seattle, Washington). I noted a smoky, bacon-like aroma right off the bat, and I wasn’t sure how well those flavors would suit either cookie. Lisa and John liked this dark extra stout with Toasted Sesame, and my mom thought the pairing mimicked chocolate and peanut butter, which are two flavors that always go well together. I, on the other hand, thought that richness of the stout brought out the creaminess of the blue cheese in the shortbread cookies.
After all was said and done (or drunk), our very unscientific findings (my notes towards the end of the tasting became slightly incoherent) were as follows:
- Lisa thought Toasted Sesame matched up better overall to the various styles of beer.
- Joyce thought the presentation of Blue Cheese and Rosemary was the prettiest, and perfect for the Christmas season too.
- If he was going to enjoy a cookie on its own, John would choose Toasted Sesame.
- John’s favorite pairings were Turbodog with Toasted Sesame and HopDevil with Blue Cheese and Rosemary.
- Favorite beers of the night: Lisa and I liked Dogtoberfest, John liked Turbodog, and Joyce liked Mirror Pond.
Visit South Durham Confection Company for more information and follow @durhamcookies for updates. Cheers!
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Originally posted 2010-12-15 09:05:05.
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