Vancouver blogger Kevin Wood talks craft beer and great sandwiches

Interview by Megan Cole

Some things go together in perfect harmony: peanut butter and jelly, music and food, and craft beer and sandwiches. When you think of a delicious craft beer with a sandwich, it seems like destiny. Who wants to eat a perfect porchetta sandwich with a plain, old glass of water? Certainly not Kevin Wood, creator of food blog This Sandwich, That Beer. Wood spends his time pairing together the best beers with great sandwiches for his blog, which now serves as a guide for some of Vancouver’s best sandwiches and beers. But what goes into making a great sandwich? And, are there keys to a good pairing? We caught up with Wood to talk about all things beer and sandwiches.

When did you start doing This Sandwich, That Beer?
I started it three years ago during Vancouver Craft Beer Week. That’s when I first came up with the concept and I started pitching it around to people during Craft Beer Week. Everyone pretty much said I had a good idea, and I carried on from there.

Before you started the blog, were you already playing with beer and sandwich pairings? I guess they are a pretty natural combination.
For as long as I can remember, the sandwich thing has been a joke among friends. I was the sandwich guy. Any opportunity or anytime we went out, I always ordered a sandwich, and obviously a good sandwich goes great with a good beer. That match seemed predetermined.

Did you grow up in Vancouver?
I’ve been in Vancouver since I was 14, so I would say my formative years were spent in Vancouver.

What have you noticed about the food scene in Vancouver since you were 14, and especially over the time you’ve been doing the blog?
I grew up in more of suburban Vancouver, but I grew up working in restaurants, so food was always on my radar. I was always interest in what was going on where I was working and also what was going on in the city. I started to pay more attention when I moved into the city on my on, and was more aware of what was going on, and more aware of the culinary world in general. Mostly, over the past five to six years, I was living in Gastown, right as that area was really beginning to change. I was starting to see a lot of really good restaurants come into the city. That really opened my eyes to see what different places were doing, especially when it came to sandwiches. You didn’t normally see nicer, highly regarded restaurants offering up some kind of sandwich on their menu, but that has changed.

It seems like Vancouver is really starting to carve out a name for itself as a food city, when maybe before it didn’t have that reputation. Are you noticing that as well?
For sure. We’ve started to see certain restaurants in Vancouver getting noticed outside of the city, as far as being considered a top restaurant in Canada. I think it was Wildebeest and L’Abattoir in Gastown, they have been recognized across the country, and that says a lot about what’s going on in Vancouver. You’re also seeing international chefs coming to the city more often, along with different food-related events that are definitely putting the city more on the radar as an internationally regarded culinary city.

You’ve obviously eaten a lot of sandwiches over the past three years, what would you say is the key to making a great sandwich?
Everyone always talks about sandwiches being what’s inside of it, but I say the key to a good sandwich, in my books, is often the bread. You can put the best things in it; you could have the best pulled pork or double-smoked bacon, but if you have that in between two crappy pieces of bread, it won’t really matter what’s inside. I always like the places that do their own bread, or have a baker on staff that focuses on really nice artisan-style breads with a nice crust, and are really nice and moist on the inside. That goes a long way to making a really good sandwich, and then obviously having quality ingredients on the inside as well. When places are highly regarded for what they do outside of making a sandwich, you know you are going to get a good sandwich, because they will be putting the same quality and time spent into creating a sandwich.

What do you look for when you’re pairing a beer with a sandwich? Does it depend a bit on the ingredients in the sandwich?
Often the pairings are related to the main ingredient. I’ve done things in the past, like maybe for a sandwich with a smokey bacon I will look for a smokier beer, like a smoked porter or even a dark German rauch beer; a smoked German lager. It’s similar to all sorts of food pairing I find. Often you’re looking for food and drink pairings that are going to compliment each other. You want to try and match up two similar flavours, but at the same time there are times you want to take two flavours that contrast each other as well. If you have a sandwich that’s using a sweet element, you may want to stay away from a very malty, darker beer, such as a brown ale, because those two sweet things may battle with each other and be too much. Instead, in that case, you may want to go to with something lighter or more bitter, whether it be an IPA with a bold flavour that will cut through that sweetness, or even a lighter beer, like a pilsner or a German helles lager, that will really just clean the palate of any of that sweeter or more stronger flavours in the sandwich.

Do you have any favourite sandwiches after eating so many?
That’s always a tough question. I find it’s the same answer as when someone asks me what my favourite beer is; the answer varies on the day, the weather and can depend on so many different things. Over the years, I think I’ve established my favourite type of sandwich, the Cubano or Cuban sandwich. I had my first at a place in Portland called Bunk Sandwiches, and their version is a pork belly Cubano with cured pork belly, ham, pickles, mustard and cheese, and it’s just amazing. It makes sense because it hits all the elements of the perfect sandwich. You want something fatty, salty, acidic and some texture as well, and to me the Cubano has all those things I’m looking for when I want to bite into something delicious. In Vancouver, a place I like is Big Lou’s Butcher Shop, which is in Gastown. As far as their lineup of sandwiches, everything is delicious, but my personal favourite is the roast beef. It’s a butcher shop, so you can expect the roast beef is going to be good, and it’s really good. I also like to find places around the city that are doing things that are a bit different. There’s a place called El Camino’s in Mount Pleasant. They are a Latin-style restaurant, and they offer up what is called a bocadillo, which is basically a Latin-style sub sandwich, which has really great flavours. You might get something there with flavour combinations you may not have had before on a sandwich.

The other important part of your blog is beer, and Vancouver is exploding when it comes to craft beer. What are some of your favourite breweries right now?
With such a boom, you’re always going to see some that rise to the top very quickly, you’ll see some that take a little time to hit their stride, and then I think inevitably you’ll see some that will taper off. As far as local favourite breweries go, I was waiting for so long for Brassneck to open their doors. Nigel Springthorpe, who co-owns the Alibi Room, which is basically Vancouver’s best and most solid craft beer bar, co-owns Brassneck, so you knew when they opened their doors they would be doing something pretty special, and I don’t think they disappointed. I couldn’t even tell you the amount of styles they’ve come out with. It seems like they come out with something new almost weekly. They’re really interested in trying different styles, whether it be experimenting with sour beers, or different ingredients like lactic acid to create really interesting, different combinations. Four Winds Brewing, which is based out of Delta, came out on to the scene quietly, but it didn’t take long for people to quickly realize they were doing some outstanding beer. One of the newest guys on the scene are Main Street Brewing, and they opened up around the corner from Brassneck. They took a while to get the doors open, but now that they do they are knocking out some pretty solid, consistent styles, nothing with too many bells and whistles right now. I know they have four different cask engines in the tasting room, which is kind of unheard of to have four casks going at all time. I know they are utilizing those to experiment with different things, and putting them on cask to see what people think. That will lead to adding more beers to their overall catalog in the long run. There are definitely a bunch that are doing a lot of great things. It doesn’t seem like it’s slowing down anytime soon, I think there are at least another five or six breweries on the horizon, with who knows how many more to come.

To find great sandwich and beer pairings, visit Kevin Wood’s blog This Sandwich, That Beer.