FREE Beer & Cheese

Wendy Buckley owns and operates Screwtop —a wine bar, café, and shop— in the Clarendon district of Arlington, Virginia.

Wendy also sells —and likes— cheese and beer. Wednesday, 2 February, 2011, she'll pair those two in a demonstration she calls a Super Bowl Beer & Easy Cheesy Appetizers Class.

Participants will taste five beers with five cheese-based appetizers. Prepare-at-home recipe cards will be available. Here's the lineup:

• Prairie Breeze Cheddar.
  Served with Stoudt's Winter Ale.
  Hoppy red ale. 6.2% alcohol-by-volume (abv). Pennsylvania.
  
• Red Dragon Mustard Seed Cheese.
  Served with The Raven Special Lager.
  Amber lager. 5.5% abv. Baltimore, Maryland.
  
• Morbier Cheese, Spicy Chorizo Salami, and Beer Mustard.
  Served with Allagash Dubbel.
  'Belgian abbey-style' ale. 7% abv. Maine.
  
• Buttermilk Blue Cheese/Roqufort Dip on Endive.
  Served with Heavy Seas Siren Noire Imperial Chocolate Stout.
  Strong stout, brewed with chocolate nibs. 8% abv. Baltimore, Maryland.
  
• Fondue prepared with Gruyere and Comte Cheese, and Beer.
  Served with Brooklyn Brewing Local 1.
  Strong 'Belgian-style' pale ale. 9% abv. Brooklyn, New York.

I'll be on hand to assist Wendy, to talk a bit about the beers, and to offer some enthusiastic suggestions on pairing beer with cheese.

So, how much would you pay for all of this? $40? ... $30 .... $20? Well, how about zero, nada, nothing!

Wendy is offering all of this sipping and nibbling for free, but with one proviso. For that $0 price, you have to be a member of Screwtop's wine club. Otherwise, the cost is five dollars.

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• Easy Cheesey Recipe cards: here.
  
• More on beer with cheese: here.
  
• Caveat lector: As a representative of Select Wines, Inc. —a northern Virginia wholesaler of beer and wine— I sell all of the beers in this event.