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Pairing beer and noodle bowls

A warm bowl of Asian noodles fills the soul even more with a full pint on the side.
Beer Food Pairs
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Photo by Ed Rudolph | Styling by Elizabeth Normoyle

Photo by Ed Rudolph | Styling by Elizabeth Normoyle

Pork Udon & Brown Ale
This bowl’s earthy, mushroom-flavored broth seamlessly integrates the brown ale’s nutty and toasted notes. Softness pervades throughout: The warm, full soup and the beer’s creamy body mesh beautifully.

Lo Mein & Strong Bitter
Soy sauce and sesame are to credit for this bowl’s salty, buttery goodness. Seek an ESB with a kindred buttery wisp; the sip’s nutty tones will underscore the bite, and its firm bitterness quickly cleanses the palate.

Pad Thai & IPA
Peanuts, lime juice and egg give this dish its signature taste. A classic IPA boosts the remaining flavors with resinous pine drawing out the vegetables and grapefruit pith that plays off the dish’s tang. The beer’s crisp bitterness deftly sweeps up the rich bite.

Chicken Vegetable Pho & California Common
The fragrant Vietnamese dish’s lime and mint highlight the rich, salty soup. A California common’s woody and minty hops effortlessly weave through the spice, while its soft, sweet malts marry with the broth for a simple, well-balanced pairing.

Spicy Beef Ramen & Chile Beer
Whether it’s out of a box or from your favorite noodle haunt, this bowl is all about the heat. Seek out a chile beer with enough malt to play up the noodles, but a snap of peppery fire that mingles with the spice for an augmented taste experience.

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@relicbrewing’s Leafstorm is aptly named: Green, leafy hops swirl across the palate in a tempest of grass, pine resin, shallots and underripe tangelo. While you'd expect to be tossed about by the bitterness of such a hoppy stormfront, the finish is surprisingly mild; peach fuzz, wheat straw and sourdough biscuits linger after the gale subsides.
People freaked when Massachusetts-based @slumbrew launched this Belgian tripel with Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries in March, and it’s easy to see why: The Saturday morning nostalgia is real. Crunch Berries pop in the aroma, lending a sugar-dusted fruitiness that floats above the base bouquet of dried banana, pear, circus peanuts and corn flakes in a bowl of almond milk. Sips are slightly more fruit-forward, with rich pear and regular old Cap’n up top; alcoholic warmth enhances the toasted almond notes at the swallow. And it doesn't even scratch the roof of your mouth.
@thebruery said they’d never make an IPA … but they didn’t say anything about starting up a side project to make them. That venture, @offshootbeerco, is all about the hops—and we’re all about their first two aptly named offerings. Fashionably Late, an IPA, has a crazy-good aroma that combines Walla Walla onions, cantaloupe, fresh green grass and pastry dough; Better Late Than Never, a double IPA, tastes like a mango/tangerine/peach smoothie blended with vanilla yogurt.
“One day, friendly dino turtles were caught in a volcanic eruption—a dangerous time to be slow and steady. Fortunately, the vigilant Pterodactyl Rescue Squad noticed just in time! The dactyls swooped down with a thunderous “CAW!” and hitched the turtles to their rescue vests. Hot lava covered the earth but the turtle dudes were safe and sound.” That’s how the story on this beer’s label goes, anyway. Following in the footsteps (or wing flaps) of @birdsongbrewing’s Squirrels on Geese and Puppies on Penguins, Turtles on Pterodactyls is a version of the brewery’s coffee- and cinnamon-spiked MexiCali Stout aged 11 months in bourbon barrels, blended with a fresh batch, and infused with additional cinnamon and cacao nibs. Tangy prunes, toasty dark chocolate, boysenberry maple syrup and unglazed cinnamon rolls erupt on the palate with each sip, while the whiskey is mild, lending a bit of brown sugar and booze to round out the cocoa-and-cinnamon finish.
Have you met Michele yet? She's a sour farmhouse ale refermented with cherries, from the coming-soon Miami brewery @unseencreaturesbrew. The nose eases you in with rich balsamic, cherry skin and oak before a sip delivers tart cherry juice, fruit pit, a green strawberry-seed note and nearly cabernetlike tannins at the swallow. The ABV is just where we like our springtime farmhouse beers: a maneagable 5.25% ... not that this is a bottle you'll want to finish quickly.
The DRAFT staff has a fever, and the only prescription is more Cowbell. There's a very clear oat contribution in the aroma of @voodoobrewery's imperial milk stout brewed with chocolate and maple syrup—it smells like a bowl of brown sugar-dusted oatmeal. Dusty cocoa nibs and milky latte notes show up when the beer is still; swirls draw out figs with just a hint of charcoal smoke. A sip spreads grape jelly spread across bars of milk chocolate, while the finish focuses on soft toastiness with lingering nudges of hazelnut latte. And there's not even a peep—or a moo, rather—from the 8.5% ABV.
Magick is Purple is the first beer to emerge from @halfacrebeer's Wyld Cove, the room that once housed the brewery’s canning line and was retrofitted for wild fermentation after the opening of Half Acre’s second brewing facility in 2015. It began its fermentational journey in stainless steel tanks in February 2016, then was moved into oak red wine barrels and spiked with wild critters, blended in November, transferred into bottles for final conditioning in February, and was finally released at the end of April. It was worth the wait. Above the wild ale’s rusty orange hue and huge, creamy, oatmeal-colored head, aromas of oaky custard, underripe strawberries and plums swirl. We love the amount of malt here; there are notes of toast, caramel, bread crust and toffee you rarely find in beers of this style. The acidity is puckering, but not over-the-top tart—more like lemon Sour Patch Kids than actual lemon—and the swallow brings out the soft toffee, caramel and toasted biscuits of the malt. It seems to us a really good amber ale that’s become a really good sour, and it has us excited for whatever magick emerges from the Wyld Cove next.
Great Green is more like it. Heaps of verdant Amarillo, Simcoe and Citra hops give this 6.2% IPA from @highlandparkbrewery an aroma like a smoothie shop, replete with fresh strawberries, peach, mango and wheat grass. The character of the malts is also lovely: a squishy, sweet angel food cake. Fresh berries come through in the front of the sip alongside mango skin and orange pulp, while bags of grass clippings spill onto the tongue at the swallow.

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