A couple of weeks ago I won some delicious goodies from Olives Et Al on Twitter, as I won them using my Beer Reviews account I thought I’d try and pair what they sent me with beer so here are the results and a little bit of info about Olives Et Al.
Olives Et Al have been selling olives and yummy snacks since 1993 after they were inspired by what sounds like an epic bike trip through loads of exciting places. They source all of the basic ingredients for them selves and
Great branding, great snacks!
The pairing bit was easy…all the snacks are really delicious and to be honesty I’d eat them with just about any beer but if i had to choose a couple of beers for each these would be my recommendations.
Sunshine Olives – The sunshine olives are huge whole green and black olives marinated in olive oil, garlic, rosemary and sun dried tomato. They are lovely and juicy and have a fantastic flavour, just watch out for the stones in the olives, The marinade was so delicious I used it when making pasta to add a little extra flavour, Beer suggestions would be a nice crisp Pilsner, sour beer such as Gueuze, a well made bitter or a big Imperial stout.
Harissa covered Almonds – Delicious crunchy almonds covered in a spicy yet sweet harissa seasoning, they were extremely moreish and really didn’t last long at all. Beer Suggestions would be a nice light belgian blonde or Weiss beer, nothing to fruity or sweet, A good IPA with plenty of hops and bitterness or a smokey, peaty porter would be great too.
Chilli Puffs – The Chilli Puffs were fiery little bites of crunchy puffed up rice coated in a medium chilli powder, these were even more addictive than the Harissa covered Almonds, the heat built up the more you ate and they had a really long lasting spicy and slightly sweet aftertastes, great stuff. Beer Suggestions would be a cold IPA, crisp dry Pilsner, Well made lager or maybe even a barley wine but nothing too complex as after a while your taste-buds get blitzed by the chilli.
I’d be very happy to see these as bar snacks, especially the chilli puffs.
You can buy all of the goodies mentioned above on the Olives Et Al Website, which by the way is pretty cool and I’ve spent way too much time browsing it and checking out the recipes.
Also if you live in or near Saltburn, North Yorkshire, I spotted some Olives Eta Al goodies in there last week.
Love their products. We stocked them for a couple of years, but in the end sales didn’t quite make the grade. Which is a great shame. Need to get in the superiors ear’s again I think. I miss the chilli puffs! Never tried the Olives, they sound delicious.
shame bri, id eat a stack of the puffs….could murder some right now