Return of the Christmas Beers (Beth)

We finally drank the beers we got each other for Christmas...we actually planned meals around them.

Last night was Kasteel Rouge, paired with bleu-cheese dried-cherry turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and salad (spring greens, tomatoes, onions, dried cherries, and a white wine vinaigrette).
The first time I tried Kasteel Rouge was at Beer Advocate's Belgian Beer Fest in 2007. I remember how impressed I was to find a dark beer with cherries. Yeah, well, apparently my tastes have matured since then! I've been to Belgium again, another Belgian beer festival, and tried a lot more cherry-based beers...this is not a star, to me, anymore. It tasted...well...like cherry cough syrup. Overly sweet and syrupy in texture. Just not my thing anymore.

The food, actually, wasn't cherry enough to hold up to the hit of cherries. The meatloaf, done in the crockpot, was super dry...my fault as I started it cooking about 12 hours before we ate it. I have a biiiiig crockpot, and apparently there was just not enough food for being in there so long (I usually cook huge beef or pork roasts in my crockpot on days I work, not a pound of ground turkey). Next time I'd do the covered dish within the crockpot trick. Anyway, the meatloaf was dry, and did not have any bleu cheese flavor in it, despite using a particularly pungent one. It was so dry that I had to make emergency gravy. Life is tough.
Kasteel Rouge C+
Meatloaf B-
Overall satisfaction: Eh.


Tonight we drank Mikkeller's Santa's Little Helper (2009). To pair with the Christmas beer we did a holiday meal...roast turkey breast, Ben's famous stuffing, and bacon-onion green beans, and gravy (I couldn't find any frozen cranberries to make sauce!). Oh my. This meal was good. The beer might have been even better. Hints of cola, cocoa, strong hop presence, excellent maltiness. Great beer. Delicate. The Bruery's 2 Turtle Doves, while excellent, is a wee bit...overpowering. It's in-your-face. This is just a much more subtle and nuanced beer. (Full disclosure: since my last post I've had more Two Turtle Doves on New Year's Eve and we bought another bottle as our first cellaring beer...maybe it'll mellow a bit with age).
Dinner was great, I might add. Ben's stuffing never disappoints, and the butter-sage-shallot rub I used gave the meat so much flavor. Can't wait for leftovers!
Santa's Little Helper A-
Turkey A-
Overall satisfaction: nom nom nom with a side of tryptophan