From Malaga, yeah? That’s a region I don’t know too much about, other than Jerez (sherry).
I love Spanish wines. Once you move out of Rioja, there is so much variety. Don’t get me wrong, tempranillo is one of my favorite varietals, but Galician whites are stellar, and I discovered Bierzo when I walked the camino and I really want to taste more things from there.
Also, my favorite dry white in the world is txacoli, which is incredibly hard to find in the US but worth it if you want to try something completely unique
Thanks. I’ll check if my state liquor store has any. They have thousands of wines so they might. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait until the weather cools in the fall because I won’t take any deliveries while temps are over about 55-60 degrees. (Gets too warm sitting in those delivery trucks.)
lol the entire language is like that. So fucking crazy looking.
Aizpurua is fine, it’s a newer place. That might be the rose, which is mostly made for us stupid uncultured Yanks, but it’s still pretty good.
Euskara munduko hizkuntza / eskualde / herri interesgarrienetako bat da. Donostiara bisitatzeko aukera baduzu, ez ezazu gainditu, batez ere janari eta ardo pertsona bazara. Munduko janari onenetariko batzuen etxean hartzen da.
Basque is one of the most interesting languages/regions/peoples in the world. If you ever get a chance to visit San Sebastian, don’t pass it up, especially if you’re a food and wine person. It’s considered home to some of the best food in the world.
I’ll piggyback on that for a second - do you guys have any thoughts on beer pairing with food? I find my IPA’s clash with a lot of my meals and have yet to find a really good formula.
try it with heavier or spicier foods. In the rare moments when I try an IPA, it just doesn’t go well with lighter salads or seafood, which is what I usually eat. Hmm, maybe that’s why I don’t like it as much, LOL
I worked for a company in Isle of Man for a while. That language looks fucked up (no one actually speaks Manx, but they write every public sign in both languages). Welsh is even weirder.
I don’t really know any beer pairing rules but if I think about what I would like to drink with that hummus plate, first thing that pops in my mind is a nice hefewiezen. Second choice would be a crisp American wheat ale. Those could be wrong but that’s where I would start for something like that.
I don’t drink a lot of modern IPAs, but they seem to go fine with bar food like burgers and fries.
lol, I don’t actually eat that on a daily basis. I do eat a lot of salads and it def a problem with my beer preferences, as skydiver mentioned.
Uninteresting anecdote, a surprising number of regulars in my favorite Hummus place back home would drink a non-alcoholic Malt Beer with their dish. I don’t think I’ve seen this drink in the US. It doesn’t taste anything like Root beer.
I read somewhere that basque’s closest related language is ancient sanskrit, but that’s tenuous at best, and a lot of scholars now think it just arose indigenously in the cave cultures that existed in stone age Iberia…which is fucking fascinating. The origins of the basque language and people is one of europe’s last great anthropological mysteries, if you’re into that sort of thing.
As for beer pairing, it’s a lot like wine pairing. There are two ways to do it, similar taste patterns and opposite. I think IPA is definitely better paired with opposite-tasting foods because it is so strong, especially the west coast types you like. As an example of the other way, Stouts and porters are often served with heavy desserts, going the similar taste pattern route.
IPAs don’t really go with food. You need very punchy food, they are just too overbearing for most things. Food like Indian curries, burgers, BBQ. With a slightly lighter one you could get away with trying to accentuate things in the food - like a mango-ish IPA with a mango salad, something like that - but for full on West Coast IPAs, they will just bulldoze anything subtle.
I think a good rule of thumb would be that it goes with IPA if it can’t go with wine. Like the answer to “what wine should I pair with a vindaloo” is “lol good luck”, that’s just not a thing. Pairing wine with something like smoked brisket is also criminal.
I can never find txacoli either. I get it once a year in NYC at a good Spanish restaurant but it would cost me something like $Can 50 per bottle to order it here and I’d have to order a dozen.
