The answer is none of the above. Standing in the back of the store were City Paper, Di Bruno's employees Zeke Ferguson and Hunter Fike, and Carol Stoudt, the founder of Stoudt's, Pennsylvania's first microbrewery. By the looks of the counter strewn with cheese scraps and empty beer bottles, you'd think we had been binge drinking in a dormitory kitchen. In actuality, we were gathered to select the numerous cheese-and-beer pairings that would surprise and satiate curious palettes at Di Bruno's First Friday tasting, held upstairs at the store's Rittenhouse location.

GREASE THE WHEELS: First Friday pairings at Di Bruno's make tantalizing bedmates out of mold and hops. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Beer and cheese, you say?

"Don't get me wrong — I love wine," says Stoudt. "But beer is definitely better. Wine confuses the palette."

When we point out that most folks pair beer and cheese with pizza, she admits, "Beer is becoming gentrified, but it still doesn't have that elegant reputation [of] wine."

Having overheard bits of the beer-versus-wine argument, the Di Bruno boys weighed in.

"Red wines can be heavier, making it harder to pair them," says Ferguson. "With beer, you're still tasting this huge range of flavors, but it's easier to figure out."

Adds Fike: "The reason wine and cheese work well together is because wine is tannic and cheese is lactic, so they balance one another out."

In case you're wondering, tannic acid is a polyphenol chemical used to stain wood and tan leather. Traces of it are also found in wine. It's this type of cocktail conversation that has made Di Bruno's beer-and-cheese tastings so unique since the first installment last April.

At each tasting, a microbrewery representative and either Ferguson or Fike introduce the pairings, explaining intricacies like hops, malts, IPAs, raw milk, biodynamic cheese and bacterial plate counts — without losing you midswig. In just two hours at the store, we learn a number of Quizzo-busting facts: unpasteurized cheese is illegal if aged less than 60 days (even though it tastes best at 30); cheese wheels can last six months once you cut into them; and "controlled" cheeses can only be made with a specific kind of milk and processing. Produce it any other way and you just might have it confiscated.

Beginners with stupid questions should rest assured that the Di Bruno team fields queries in a free-for-all manner. In other words, leave the snobbery and the vintage Monastrells at home.

"I haven't met anyone that's stuck up yet, so that says a lot," says Ferguson. "Dean [Browne] from Yards was one of the most memorable reps. I tried to explain Carles Roquefort without cursing — which is hard 'cause that shit's incredible — and about 30 seconds into my description Dean yelled out, 'That's fucking good!' which was understood and accepted by all attending."

That's the other thing about this casual counterpoint to traditional wine-and-cheese tastings — by the third or fourth beer, the night gets a little Cheesemongers Gone Wild. Let's just say attendants happily refill empty glasses, and the complementary antipasto plates (dried fruit, olives, nuts, etc.) aren't stacked high enough to soak up two straight hours of constant sipping.

"The last one [featuring Victory] was the rowdiest," says Ferguson. "It was very interactive."

Watching Stoudt, Ferguson and Fike obsess over which cheeses work best with which beer — dry or moist, sharp or mild, nutty or citric, sheep's milk or goat's milk — it's easy to see why the final pairings taste like matches made in foodie heaven. Early favorites for Friday's event include Fat Dog Oatmeal Stout with Shropshire blue cheese ("It was meant to be," says Ferguson); American Pale Ale and La Serena ("The cheese is bitter, but it finishes sweetly with the pale ale — almost effervescent"); and Pils, a German-style pilsner, with Harbourne Blue ("It's unlike any blue — real clean and citrus-y, which works well as an intermezzo").

All this food-and-suds talk leaves us wondering how much longer the tastings can go on, given that the most popular regional brews (Victory, Dogfish, Stoudt's) have already been covered.

"We don't really see an end, as we live in a hot spot for microbrews," says Ferguson. "In the near future, we're already looking at maybe Rogue or Magic Hat. Either way, as long as there is brewing and drinking and cheese, we'll be here."

(a_parks@citypaper.net)