It’s Pretty Easy Being Cheesy.

A night of indulgence and education at the Leslieville Cheese Market.

Courtesy of mushypony.com

The Cowgirls learned a lot last night at the Beer and Cheese class held inside the Leslieville Cheese Market. Our hosts, Julia Rogers and Sam Corbeil, put together some winter-themed samples for us to try all while explaining the various flavours and histories of each product. We’ll take you through what we learned, as well as our recommendations for your next trip to the grocery or LCBO.

First, we tried a Bonterra Chardonnay (2008) alongside a triple-cream cow milk cheese called Délice de Bourgogne. This cheese was our favourite of the night. It looked a little like brie but was much creamier and velvety – even the rind was delicious. It was so good we bought some at the end of the class to take home, and ended up eating some of it in the car. With the wine, we’ve always followed our ABC’s (anything but Chardonnay) but this particular bottle was smooth and decent… for Chardonnay.

Next, Sam introduced us to a Schneider & Sons Hopfenweiss Ale – the strongest wheat beer we’ve had in a long time. It had banana and clove undertones combined with a bitter finish (which may have been due to the 8.2% alcohol content but that was fine by us). This particular Schneider Weiss isn’t available at the LCBO, but we recommend their other beers over your generic Hoegaarden.

Heading back to wine, we then tried the Cathedral Cellar Merlot (from South Africa) alongside a semi-firm, aged sheep milk cheese called Corsu Vecciu. After never being a fan of sheep’s cheese, we must say, this stuff was good. So good we bought it as well. It had caramel undertones with a subtle herb-like aftertaste, which went really well with a smooth, rustic red.

The beer we tried after this was from a familiar territory: the Mill St. Brewery! But this one was inside an odd, jug-like bottle. The Barley Wine, a beer that’s called a wine, is full bodied and extravagantly rich – it’s also sitting at 11% alcohol so perhaps don’t chug the jug. At this point, the Cowgirls grabbed a few crackers to cleanse our palettes and get ready for the beer we’d been looking forward to all evening: the chocolate beer!

Courtesy of mushypony.com

The Brooklyn Brewing Black Chocolate Stout was unfortunately, not made of melted chocolate. But it was far better than Guinness as far as stouts go, and as Sam explained, Imperial Stouts are the “stoutest of stouts”. Thick, and so dense it’s barely a liquid anymore – but pleasantly filling.

Finally, we finished our tasting with the Taylor Fladgate Late Bottled Vintage Port. Any port with a 5-word name has GOT to be awesome. And it was. With aromas of mulberry, dried fruit, spice and brandy this drink did not disappoint. We tried this with an English Stilton cheese, which was pleasantly creamy, but a taste you’d have to get adjusted to. If we could have bought the port, we most definitely would have. It was the favourite drink of the evening; perfect for winter and warming up by the fireplace.

For more cheese-related information, check out Cheese Culture.ca, or to book a class with Julia or Sam, head to their site here.

XoXo
– The Cowgirls