Beer also claims its space these festive days. A gastronomic beer like Damm's Christmas Beer can become the perfect pairing to accompany the characterful dishes we enjoy these days, which are the result of using the highest quality ingredients, long cooking times, and, especially, the love with which they are prepared.
"A characteristic of Christmas gastronomy is that it is for sharing and, normally, these are more elaborate dishes with slower cooking times to achieve more complex aromas with more character," explains Damm's master brewer, Karen Peiró. According to the expert, the suitability of Christmas Beer is justified by the fact that it is "a beer with more body and a higher alcohol content that will help lighten our dishes, cleansing the palate with each sip, which will make us enjoy every bite as if it were the first."
Damm's Christmas Beer has an alcohol content of 6.5%, above the 5.4 degrees of an Estrella Damm but below the 7.2 degrees of a Woll-Damm. Although it is made with the same base ingredients as an Estrella Damm (water, barley malt, rice, and hops), Christmas Beer undergoes a longer maturation period in the tanks, so its production extends for more than a month, double the usual for an Estrella. According to Peiró, this longer maturation allows the beer to be "rounded" and gives it more body in the mouth, creaminess, and a consistent foam.
We have selected two ideal dishes for these holidays that pair perfectly with Damm's Christmas Beer.
Scorpionfish cake with pink sauce
Scorpionfish has a strong taste of the sea. It is a firm, white, and juicy meat that needs a full-bodied beer. "Christmas Beer will go very well to enhance the sea flavor of the scorpionfish, as well as to cleanse the palate of the richness of the pink sauce," highlights Karen Peiró.
Stuffed turkey with truffled potato parmentier
Another typical dish is stuffed turkey. According to the master brewer, "the slightly toasted cereal notes of Christmas Beer pair very well with roasted turkey, with which it will share notes of toast and caramelization. The fruity notes of the beer also combine very well with the dried fruits that are usually put in the stuffings, such as dried apricots, thus enhancing the ripe peach notes characteristic of the beer.
It is a beer with more body and a higher alcohol content that will help lighten our dishes, cleansing the palate with each sipDamm launched the Christmas Beer nine years ago, with the idea of to recover a custom from the 50s, a time when, for Christmas, thebrewmasters brewed a batch of a special beer with a higher alcohol content to give to their collaborators, family, and friends. Although production is still limited, Damm has been increasing the volume of Christmas Beer and it can now be purchased in restaurants, supermarkets, and the company's online store. Each 66 cl bottle has a recommended price of 2.10 euros.
"To elaborate this beer, we make a very unique selection of malt and hop batches, trying to ensure that each year the recipe offers us a beer with a similar profile and premium quality within the lager beer family," highlights Peiró. When tasting it, we can observe an oak color with orange reflections, with a dense and bright appearance and a compact foam. It presents lively, fine, and fast bubbles, with an aroma of great intensity and complexity. The first olfactory notes are fruity, like ripe peach and apple; also orange notes that give the nose freshness. It enjoys a clean nose where the sensation of toasted bread persists at the end. The recommended consumption temperature is between 5º and 7ºC.
The Christmas Beer is not Damm's only gastronomic beer, but it is the one conceived to accompany hearty dishes that require a full-bodied and powerful-flavored beer, with a characterful, voluminous, and creamy entry in the mouth, and with a bitterness that gives the diner an intense refreshing sensation.
Other Damm beers to accompany the best gastronomy are Inedit, Malquerida, or Equilater, in addition to Duet, presented last October. In the case of Inedit, it is a beer with a much lower alcohol content and spicy touches that allow its pairing with a type of gastronomy different from Christmas. For its part, Malquerida is an ideal beer for Latin American and spicy gastronomy. Equilater is an Imperial Stout type beer resulting from the technique of molecular harmonies, with four different aromatic profiles. Finally, Duet is a sour ale (sour beer) elaborated jointly with the Roca brothers from the three-Michelin-starred restaurant El Celler de Can Roca in Girona.