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Pivolada beer spread-Interview with Chef Dejan Maksimović Max.

Pivolada photo

Pivolada is a unique all natural beer spread made in collaboration with chef Max from the Norwegian Embassy. It is an amazing taste of beer mixed with various spices, great to be paired with cheese, pancakes or meat, enjoy!
1. If you were a Kabinet beer, which one would you be?
Definitely You Happy Me Happy, firstly because of the name, then because of many specific details that make this beer unique.

2. Which one is your favorite style of beer?
American IPA, perhaps because it is the first craft beer style I have tried.

3. How was idea for the Pivolada born?
It all started by „thinking out of the box“, figuring out the ways to break the stereotypes that beer can only be used in savoury meals. We experimented for a whole year with textures, flavours and ingredients, before we got the product we wanted.

4. Which one of the Pivolada s is your favorite?
BrrKaaa – possibly the simplest one when it comes to flavour combination, but that simple match between the orange peel and the America pale ale aromas is just perfect in my opinion.

5. How would you serve Pivolada?
I believe Pivolada should be that „mystical“ part of a course that is supposed to bind all the other components on a plate in a perfect harmony.

6. How much is brewing similar to cooking?
First of all, in ancient times, beer was considered to be food, only to be developed as a drink later on. Today we are facing its modern age, both brewers and cooks are pushing the boundaries and manipulating ingredients and aromas in similar ways.

7. How often do you experiment with beer (or the beer building elements) in your kitchen and in which meals it works most successfully?
Historically speaking, beer was mostly used as a marinade in which the meat was aged and soaked, usually for stocks and soups. Coolinary experiments with the side products of beer brewing (beer yeast extracts – Vegemite and Marmite) have started quite recently, in the past 100 years. Furthermore beer
malts residues are often used to make bread dough. I personally prefer making variety of liquid beer gels.

8. To which extend is a beer & food pairing a matter of personal taste and how much it relates to some predefined rules and guidelines?
It is much like wine & food pairing, it succumbs to certain guidelines (I wouldn’t say strictly rules), but basically it is a matter of personal taste and not everyone will appreciate all of the pairing modes.

9. Does observing a bloom of the craft beer culture here make you happy? Why exactly?
The recent development of the craft brewing in Serbia and abroad has a strong influence on the restaurant scene. Many of them started beer & food pairings, local beer serving and it has a great effect
on the gastronomical identity of the region. The bigger and more versatile beer offer is – the more ideas there are to set a new menu.

10. Are you planning another delicious beer composition?
Piviolada was the starting point, the core from which some other ideas of beer usage branched. With every experiment, new ways of applications are born, so now we mostly try to get to know all the elements better in order to find some new roles for them.

Pivolada photo 2