La Sirene’s Good Beer Week event Uptown Funk was a funky beer tour of La Sirene ales artfully paired with L’Artisan cheese, including cheeses washed in La Sirene’s own saisons and sours. To top it off, hosts Boilermaker House paired nips of single malt whisky to complement the beer and cheese combos. Funky flavour heaven, bacteria and tannin style.
La Sirene, purveyors of funk-filled farmhouse beers and hobby microbiologists, want people to get into bacteria. The untamed, airborne ones that create weird and wonderful flavours in their beers that prance on the palate and surprise the senses. When you pair unique beer with luscious cheeses and refined whisky, it’s a seamless threeway I’d line up for. Tucked inside one of Boilermaker House’s cosy nooks, the funk degustation was a culinary campaign to assault the senses.
The conversations sprouting from the intricate flavour marriages of beer, cheese, and whisky were part stoichiometry, part beer appreciation, and part whisky profiling. Hobby brewers, whisky flirters, and cheese trotters were united to impress each other with their respective knowledge and learn a thing or two about how creative beer brewing can elevate your sensory spectrum to unknown, flavour microcosms.
Co-owners Will and Costa from La Sirene were among us candidly discussing artistic direction and learning curves. Six cheeses paired with six ales with six whiskies, including a boozy Craft and Co 40% Red Rye IPA. If it’s intricate flavour balance and gastronomic sensory flights you want, experimental craft beer, full-bodied cheese, and smooth whisky is the epicurean prescription. Made me want to foray into the weird and wonderful universe of microorganisms with my own brewing to experiment with funky flavour profiles.
Three of the cheeses were even washed in their respective beer partners. Pairing L’Artisan Mountain Man washed in La Sirene 6.5% Paradoxe farmhouse ale with a sampling of the Paradoxe together with a Bunnahabhain 46.3% 12yo is a sexy threeway. Standout had to be the L’Artisan triple cream brie with La Sirene 8% Wild Tripel ale and Glendronach 12 yo single malt. Creamy, boozy, and velvety.
Ate: Beer-washed cheeses
Drank: Saisons, tripels, imperials, and whisky, whisky, whisky
– Matt M.
Matt is a mad scientist by day and beer connoisseur by night. When he’s not devouring a new set of craft beers you will find him in a dankly lit room plotting his approach at the next alcohol-related festival.
Check out La Sirene’s events on the GBW schedule and look out for Will and Costa at GABS this weekend.
For more Good Beer Week events, check out our guide.
