:D

This weekend I decided to take up on some recommendations to match certain beer with certain food, so I headed home to see my family and started cooking.

These are the beers I mentioned in a previous post and the associated food item:

• White Rabbit Dark Ale - Cherry Ripe
• Coopers Dark Ale - Lamb Roast with Gravy
• Murray's Dark Knight - Brownies

The lamb was superb, but I think it's the first time i've ever had chocolate or desert with a beer before, it went really well with the Cherry Ripe and the brownies.

Then I finally finished everything off with the second hand brewed dark ale I got a little while ago mentioned here.

Until a few weeks ago I really didn't much drink beer every week, let alone planning it to be with food, so it was a fun experience. My appreciation of beer has really grown as of late, more!

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Update - 25th October 2010

I didn't put enough of my own thoughts into this original post of what I thought about each beer so I thought I would post an update a week later.

• White Rabbit with Cherry Ripes: Had a lighter, different taste than the other two, it just made me want to consume more and more Cherry Ripes to be honest.
• Coopers with Roast Lamb & Gravy: It brought the whole meal together, it was literally one of the best roasts i've had in a long time, the beer was probably a contributing factor to this.
• Dark Knight with Brownies: This beer had a nice dark chocolatey flavour to it, I really enjoyed it, I would 100% have this beer again with a sweet desert like this.

At this stage my favourites would probably be the White Rabbit and the Dark Knight.

The hand made dark ale that I had after the 3 above felt like it had a lot more body and complex flavours to it, interestingly I thought it was different to the first time I tasted it a couple of weeks ago. It didn't have so much of a chocolate/caramel flavour and tasted more earthy.

That well could have been because I had already had so much food & beer beforehand. However I made a commitment to myself I had to have all 4 that night. I kind of regret drinking it so soon after the Dark Knight, the others before it were a lot more spaced out, lesson learned. Either way it really doesn't compare to these other ones (in a good way).

Finally, a couple of days ago I had the last hand made cider that was featured here, I am in love with it, it tasted sweeter than last time... and even had a subtle taste of a dry white wine.