Beer in the Nordic Kitchen, part III

Being taken seriously is not always easy. To be heard, can sometimes be difficult. MOUTH-FULL asked the 40 nominated restaurants for "Nordic Prize in 2010, two responded.


A quick summary
MOUTH-FULLcongratulated Noma  on the title as world champion, and asked very rhetorical, the restaurant where the beer had gone in all this striving towards the sublime.
Surprise was to feel, when the post resulted in a serious reply from Noma, who wanted to justify their choices in the field. They work on Noma with "small taste";
 - "subtle and sophisticated impression"
that calls for wine. Thanks Noma, for you joining my thoughts.

Encouraged by this, was MOUTH-FULL became ambitious and took the discussion to the 40 restaurants in the north, which is nominated for the Nordic Prize 2010
 - "for their work with food on top and their ambition to bring Nordic cuisine, not necessarily The New Nordic Kitchen, up to an even higher level".
We drew up a number of issues reviewed websites and personal testimonies from owners, chefs and Somalis and the result is now up, five weeks later.

2 replies
They cam from AOC (Copenhagen) and Ravintola Savoy (Helsinki). Savoy base their beverage choices in food and tradition, AOC has Jacobsen, Gourmet Brewery (Harboe) and Herslev in their range, but rates are not big on beer. So, was that it?.
Perhaps a failure, but there´s something going on here.
MOUTH-FULL is convinced of beers excellence served with all kinds of food. Also on plates, where the price is half a month's salary. From ramson to koldskål and sushi, beer can match them all. And in many cases by up to several major variants, where the wine is struggling just to make a single candidate.

Beer and wine are different as water and oil granted.

Wine is "terroir" in the true sense. The wine has fruit, yeast, maturation and tradition on its side. One is tempted almost to call it a divine drink, because the harvest varies from year to year, well beyond human reach. Oh, what a delight to hover with the gods and taste their nectar only to initiates. But the industry, the human, has gradually made its big imprint on winemaking. An expensive bottle of wine is not necessarily a good bottle, it can often just profit from good old rumors and today's penchant for extravagance. A vinkenderven advised us off to never buy a bottle of wine for over 500 dollars, "the rest is lir" .500 danish kroner(some 110 dollars) is also a kind of money and that kind of amount is not always at the top of shopping list for most.

Enter beer.

Beer is  a every man beverage, beer is the people and the beer is 100% man-made. While we MOUTH-FULL has not yet proven ability in the art of home brewing, we know a bit of the craftsmanship. To c r a f t it. From start to finish, is a beer conceived and executed by the human hand. This gives a huge advantage when it comes to shaping the taste right there where the brewer wants it. Anything goes, not even the storage of beer at winevats stands in the way of todays brewers.

We would  like to make a few examples of beers sovereignty when it comes to balance with food. At the risk of falling foul of the author, the examples from the wine side, come from Søren Frank's book "The wine with dinner" published in 2004.

At that time, the danish beerrevolution had, maybe 6-7 years in it´s going and drinkers had already enjoyed national pearl brew as" Little Korkney "and" North Bridge Extreme " from Nørrebro Bryggeri, the origina l" "Ølfabrikken" brewery was still in a North Zealand holiday quarter, Bøgedal was on going and there had in years up to 2004, has been a huge focus on Belgian beer culture. The evidence on top-dollar beer was running for the position, although there was still much to way überhopped IPA, Imperial Porter, Danish produced Kriek and wine casking of various kinds.


In "The wine with dinner" is a careful examination of raw materials and what wines to match. It seems to be a battle more than a pleasure, when we approach other than brassieret beef and fruit cake.

Citrus shades are "some of the hardest when it comes to wine."
Pork "represent some of the biggest challenges".
All nuts have a port and so on.

This is not a correlation-based, this is the exemplification of an experienced writers own knowledge. Continuous becomes outer branches as Champagne, muscat and port used correctly much of Frank's book.

Beer can draw on all additives to achieve a flavor. It´s as simple as that.
While wine has a hard time with virtually all food,  not being in a form of smoothing of individual taste, beer can match beer with all the excess weight is thrown after it.
All of the sensory image of a meal is taste, but also mouth feeling, smell, temperature, sound, the trigimale elements, all factors that can be balanced with the beverages. The gourmet kitchen will be working with small tastes; a small jump this road here or there. In the run up to the molecular cuisine and now the New Nordic, gourmet was more about looks than taste. With the introduction of baconicecream and wild garlic, the taste is again brought into focus with the leading chefs, and thus all of us in a moment.


Therefore, Mouth-FULL tried to get the food champions to talk about whether beer is not a better companion for a well conducted meal.


This is the third of three blogs, read the first and the second