So, having gathered our ample harvest of tomatillos and chillies and prepared our fiesta Mexicana, RMTTB sits down to ponder the serious business of the day: what Irish beers would go best with this spice?  It’s a tough one.  Usually when eating hot food, our preference is for a cool, unobtrusive brew.  But very few micro or nano brewers are going to invest their time and effort into making a bland beer.  At least not on purpose.  So our challenge remains:  what will complement but not challenge our food?

To the blackboard!

First off: Mexican food without tortilla chips?  Not going to happen at the RMTTB table.  And as it happens, our local Supervalu was doing plain tortilla chips at €1 for a large pack.  Sorted.  A couple of tubs of sour cream and a bunch of coriander from the garden and dip 1 is sorted.  Dip 2 is tomatillo salsa.  A fantastic was to use up those stubbornly green tomatoes that cling for dear life to the late Irish autumn.  Dip 3 is a classic guacamole with a tequila twist and behold, our starter platter (recipes here):

The food was good, the beers we had selected for testing were tasty enough, but it was difficult to find a pairing that made both beer and food taste better.  After much slurping and swilling (and even some swallowing) a couple of contenders emerged.  We couldn’t find one brew that really zinged with all 3 starters but each dip had found a partner.

Tortilla chips are moreish.  Dipped in sour cream they’re even more moreish.  Washed down by N17’s Rye Ale, they’re addictive. That light caramel, sweet but subtle malty rye with its light bitter finish was a prefect counterpoint to our exquisitely presented chips.

Black’s of Kinsale’s Session beer was a revelation with the guacamole.  It’s summery: light, low alcohol, fruity.  And the tequila kick in the dip left an aftertaste that was carried on by the grapefruit finish of the beer.  Douze points!

Delicious and all as they were, by the time the main course was presented we were pretty stuffed.  Thankfully the pork was spicy enough and coleslaw crunchy enough that it felt like a light snack, rather than a heavy meal.  We served the meat & slaw with tortilla wraps and chopped chillies and used the tomatillo salsa as a wrap spread.  RMTTB takes its job seriously and, however daunting the prospect of tasting another three beers with the main course might have been, we cast caution to the wind and cracked on.  The beers were not unpleasant but one in particular stood out.  St Mel’s Pale Ale was bloody gorgeous.  It hit the right notes with both the spicy meat and fresh slaw and washed down the food in a way that enhanced and supplemented the many flavours at play.

And even more wondrous than the discovery of this hot, tasty match, was the learning of the fact that St Mel is the patron saint of single people, whose feast day occurs a week before St Valentine’s Day.  Apparently on this day, a woman has to find a Longford man to kiss or else she will have bad luck for the rest of the year.  Hot tasty matches abound!  Olé!