Events

What's a Beer and Cheese Walk?

What's a Beer and Cheese Walk?
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Nancy Charbonneau, Manager of the Cancer Connection Thrift Store and her fiancee, Mike Case (who happens to be my brother) enjoy a cheese plate at The Foundry in Northampton, MA

From what I can tell, a “beer & cheese walk” is a sedate version of a “beer & cheese crawl.” You walk around town from one participating pub to another, where they have prepared small plates of cheese and accompaniments paired with craft beers. Sometimes you pay for a ticket to travel from bar to bar, but, at the one we attended last weekend, each place had it’s own menu and pricing.

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Hilltown Blue from Grace Hill Farm served with pickled fiddleheads, blood orange marmalade and crostini at The Sierra Grille. It was paired with The I.P.A. from Building 8 Brewing in Baystate Village, MA. Price- $9 including 4oz beer

The recent Northampton Beer & Cheese Walk was given a surname- “Fromage A Trois,” which according to their Facebook page is “an arrangement in which local beer, regional cheese and house prepared provisions having romantic gustatory relations with each other occupy a same shared delicious downtown landscape. It is a form of ‘omnigourmand’.” (I don’t know for sure what that is, but it translates from French to “greedy omni (omniscient or omni-competent).” I think that means it’s for foodies who know all about beer, cheese, and little sides.

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The Foundry in downtown Northampton, MA at left

This all sounds a little pretentious, but I can assure you, it’s not. It’s great fun in at least 3 ways:

  1. It’s a chance to enjoy the bar experience even if you don’t drink (or used to drink and surrendered your privileges),
  2. It’s an opportunity to hang out in a pub you, perhaps, normally can’t afford,
  3. It’s a great excuse to talk about cheese and/or beer and sound like you know something.
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Scene at The Foundry

The one we attended this weekend took place from 3-5pm on a Sunday afternoon in Northampton, MA. There were 4 participating bars and each one was packed with rowdy crowds (although it was hard to tell how much of the rowdiness was from the cheese or the beer, but I suppose we can guess!). Who knew that so many people would want to drink beer and eat cheese on a sunny Sunday afternoon?!

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Eating cheese at the bar of the Sierra Grille

There were 4 restaurants participating- The Foundry, Northampton Brewery, The Sierra Grille & The Dirty Truth.

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The impressive line-up of beer taps at The Dirty Truth

Three out of four of the pubs featured one cheese with one beer, but The Dirty Truth offered a wide selection of local cheeses:

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It was a fun way to spend 2 hours in what happens to be one of the best college towns in the world (in my opinion) – the home of Smith College. But, it would be fun in any area where the people like craft beer and artisan cheese. We have Beer & Cheese Crawls and Beer & Cheese Walks- how about a Beer & Cheese Run where teams compete to see who can hit the most bars in one hour where they drink 4oz beers and eat 2 ounces of cheese at each one? OK, well, I’ll keep working on that one …

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