Pumpkin Ravioli and Fresh Hop Beers

So I’m been way behind in blogging and in the interim, we’ve gone from summer to fall here almost overnight. Normally we get a gradual change into fall but the change this year was pretty sudden from mild sunny days to cooler, overcast, drizzly ones. So I’ve been thinking more about some seasonal fall foods and vowed to make one of my favorites, pumpkin hazelnut ravioli, this weekend.

The ravioli themselves aren’t that unusual. The stuffing is pumpkin, chopped, toasted hazelnuts, and a little parmesan cheese. But for a sauce I normally do a savory pear and apple sauce, which consists of chunks of sautéed pear and apples in a sage scented apple cider “broth.” I also decided to add some bits of smoked homemade bacon to richen the sauce and add a subtle smoky note. To make the sauce, brown some bacon and then drain it and remove most of the oil from the pan. Then add several chopped, seeded and skinned pears and apples. I normally add the pears in a two to one ration to the apples. When they soften and give up some juice, add some sage and then apple cider, or better yet, apple and pear cider. Let it reduce and add a splash of sherry vinegar to help balance the sweetness. The sauce should be fairly thin but should have noticeable chunks of fruit. The whole dish is filled with flavors that the archetypal flavors of fall.

Fall is also the time for fresh hopped beers here in the Northwest, where almost all domestic hops are grown. Most beers are made with dried hops but fresh hop beers have become a specialty in many breweries in this area because they can get hops that were literally picked a few hours earlier. Because the hops are wet and fresh, this can require a huge amount of hops, generally about 8 to 10 times more by weight, but the results are unlike anything else. Let the French keep their Nouveau Beaujolais as the special libation of autumn. In the NW we’ll stick to our fresh and wet hop beers.

There was a festival in Hood River to celebrate these beers this weekend, and although I didn’t attend, I was able to buy several fresh hop beers. Sierra Nevada makes one and less than 30 cases where shipped to the Portland area, but I managed to grab a few bottles. Deschutes and Bridgeport also make versions. These are not beers for keeping, but for quick consumption to capture the fresh hop quality of the beers. Frankly, most of them are better on draft since that tends to be fresher and hit the market faster. In any event these are beers to enjoy now for their incredibly complex hop character.

None of the beers are incredibly bitter. Instead all of the brewers chose to showcase the complex and intense aromas of the fresh hops. I liked all three but the Deschutes was my favorite with the food. The Sierra Nevada was typical of the brewery’s style: hop intensive and assertive with a good malt backbone to make for an excellently balanced beer. The Bridgeport seemed to be the biggest of the bunch and clocked in at 7% alcohol. Its nose had a little more grapefruit and citrus but also had some wonderful tropical fruit notes than tied in nicely with the fruit notes of the food. I think the Bridgeport was my favorite on its own. But with food the Deschutes somehow nailed it. The spicy hop aroma seemed to be the perfect foil for the sweet intense fruitiness of the sauce and the slightly earthy notes in the ravioli fillings. It also had enough malt and body to stand up to the richness of the dish. It had cutting power from the hop bitterness but also had malt to marry with the fruit sweetness of the sauce. I would have been happy with any of the three beers, but at that time and place, the Deschutes seemed to be the best.

Although I hadn’t thought of fresh hop beer for the ravioli to start, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea, because it fed into the seasonality of the entire meal. I had initially thought about a great bottle of wine, but the fresh hopped beers proved better than any wine I had served in the past with this same dish. Further proof that you can’t beat seasonal foods from the same region.