What goes great with turkey? Beer, of course.

Everyone travel safe, and have a beer when you make it there!

http://www.beertown.org/beer_turkey/index.html

I wrote this a couple of years back, and should have added French Bieres de Garde to the list of good matches.

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I favor the full-flavored approach, one that resembles the Pinot Noir strategy of the wine lover. There are obvious Belgian parallels with the “cherry, cranberry and spice notes,” as is the case with McChouffe, Chimay Premiere (red) and Gouden Carolus Noel, to name just three.

From the German perspective, a fat mug of Doppelbock would hit the mark, especially if such a normally clean beer could be juiced with fruitiness – but wait, such a heavenly beer really does exist: Aventinus Wheat Doppelbock.

The hoppy American microbrews I love on an everyday basis just don’t strike me as good matches for the traditional dishes served at our stereotypical Beaver Cleaver Thanksgiving, but I’m betting that a Belgian-style Saison (Dupont, Glazen Toren, Hennepin) would be very compatible, with lightly hoppy dryness and peppery hints for accent.

For dessert? Perhaps an oversized Imperial Stout, designed to take the place of coffee, cream and pie (but not the after dinner cigar). At this moment in time, I’m enamored of Great Divide’s Oak-Aged Yeti and its creamy, vanilla-laced complexity.