fall green salad with honeycrisps, blue cheese and tarragon with Lagunitas IPA

So this exquisite salad I found in a book called Mixt that had various fancy pants salads split into seasons. This fall salad had butter lettuce topped with thin sliced fennel bulb, sweet honeycrisp apples, Asian pear, blue cheese (Oregonzola), seasoned Hazelnuts (cayenne, coriander, cumin), pom seeds, and fresh tarragon. It was dressed with simple shallot vinegarette.

I got all the ingredients sans the dressing from the Pike Place Market, where I work and shop. I love this place, there are many great vendors, some coming in from local farms and cooperatives to sell incredibly fresh local, sometimes organic produce. It is really easy to keep a grasp on seasonality by walking the market and see what is in new, what is going down in price, what is on its way out. Great to meet producers and they hook you up once they know you.

This salad was served with a Lagunitas IPA which is a solid brew of this saturated and played out style. IPA were my favorite not to long ago but my taste has evolved and now I prefer the balance of a pale ale or a brown/red with there candy sweetness. Sometimes i still crave intense hops and go for an IPA and I still feel any strong blue cheese demands it, or a barleywine/belgian strong ale.

The anise character coming from the fennel and tarragon went alongside the bitter floral hops in a pleasing way, so did the sour character of the Pom seeds. I thought the Hazelnuts where maybe a little to spicy and could have been taken out altogether because you alredy got crunchy apple and salty cheese.

This is an amazing salad, but would have been better paired with a belgian. could you make a vinegerette out of beer? I love when you can make different little combos out of a meal, not just everything together in a homogenous goo. A piece of asian pear with blue cheese, tarragon and pom seeds is amazing.