Music from the Beer Lands!?

In my open letter to the record execs at Putumayo World Music, I take these beverage-and-music lovers to task for compiling music from the Wine, Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate lands, but neglecting the vast Beer lands! Who's afraid of a little oom pa pa?

Collaboration Fermentation: Sierra Fishhead

Hopping on the collaborative beers brewwagon, I've started a series on my Examiner blog about such beers. I contemplated calling it Brewing in Tandem, but in the end, Collaboration Fermentation won out. First one up for scrutiny is one that's not even out yet, nor in the mash tanks. The grand poobah Ken Grossman at Sierra Nevada (1980) and the grand wizard Sam Calagione at Dogfish Head (1995), together, in the same bottle? Usually I discuss brewers as pouring their blood, sweat, tears, and souls into their beers, but in this case, it's their Life & Limb (10% strong ale) as well as Limb & Life (5% session beer). Read more here.

Session #30: Beer Desserts

This month, David Jensen at Beer 47 asks us beer bloggers to blog-tificate on Beer Desserts, that is, dessert that features beer as an ingredient. You'd think by my last post that I'd already known this was the upcoming topic, but you'd think incorrectly.

Here's the snippet from my previous post dealing with this very subject that starts with two beers I chose to pair with the beer dessert I'd prepared:

O'Hanlon's Original Ruby Stout and Ale Asylum Mercy Grand Cru: I found this bottle of port barrel-aged stout at Beverage Warehouse in LA, and...I knew I had to try it. The Grand Cru...is of an ultra limited release from this Madison, Wisc. brewery and came into my possession c/o Tom Griffin, the Barrel Guy, which is an entirely different story altogether! I have many fine dessert beers in my possession, but for dolce, the mere appearance of port and the mere mention of Grand Cru made them custom-fit for a wine-themed beer dinner...These unique brews helped wash down the vanilla bean Tripel pot de creme, found on the Homebrew Chef, Sean Paxton's dessert recipe page. I've made creme brulee before, but this was my first (and certainly not last) pot de creme. It required reducing 12 ounces of the aforementioned Affligem Tripel into mere tablespoons, but it was worth it.

Now, just in case there's a story in The New York Times on beer desserts the way there was one on beer cocktails (cheers to Joe Ruvel), I posted a pre-scoop update on David's topic at SF Beer Examiner. Writing there about other area beer desserts, many of which are in ice cream form (stout flavors, stout reduction sauces, and one I've gotta try--21A Watermelon Wheat ice cream), I'm always puzzled when I see bitter beers suggested as dessert pairings. I love sweet beers (Gimme a bourbon-barrel-aged Imperial Stout over a DIPA any day), it's no surprise I think beer is the perfect dessert accompaniment, and "spice" as it were. I still wake up in a cocoa sweat when I dream about the Hazelnut Chocolate Mousse Sean made for the National Homebrewers Conference dinner--decadent mousse with two kinds of chocolate and Hazelnut Brown Ale, topped with malted barley and paired with a flabberghastingly great Chocolate Stout (both Rogue ales).

That's it. This is killing me. I know I've got some chocolate hazelnut gelato in the freezer. The only question is, am I going to float it in a chocolate stout, a coffee stout, or one of the chocolate coffee stouts I've got?

Beer dinner IV: Beer is the new wine

Half Pint and I had fallen off the beer-dinner horse we started riding back before we even shacked up together, but got back on in fine fashion. Since it's been a while, a recap is in order. We invite four other people over (since our table seats six), devise a theme (Stoutstanding, Locavores, Bob's Yer Uncle, among other similar ones), plan a menu replete with beer pairings, and clear some space in the Beeradise.

The guest list called for Colleen & Hunter (Half Pint used to work for Colleen, and they've had us to their new house a few times) and Esther & Emmett (I forgot how Half Pint and Esther met, but I now play ultimate frisbee with Emmett).* Let's just say that C&H live in Marin and have an impressive wine stash; Esther was born in France. As we were dealing with oenophiles over beer enthusiasts, the chosen theme for our beer dinner was wine. A little proselytizing on my part, if you will. (*At the last minute, Emmett was called away on assignment by the New York Post, and Tanya graciously accepted our 11th hour invite.)

I first selected beers already in my Beeradise, and I'll explain how they fit the theme:

People say the perfect accompaniment to wine is cheese & crackers. I say it's homebrew. So as an antipasti, I poured my latest homebrewed creation, my Single Minded (single-hop: Centennial) American Pale Ale. It went over quite well, including the part where I explained to Esther that yes, this beer was made by me in my kitchen. 

Telegraph Reserve Wheat and Dogfish Head Festina Peche: These Berliner Weise-style sour beers, 5% and 4.5% ABV respectively, are akin to the Sauvignon Blancs of the wine world. Just as you'd start a meal with this wine, why not pair the insalate with these beers. And what kind of salad to serve? The peach juice in the Festina Peche made me think: stone fruit and prosciutto salad. I grilled up organic peaches, white nectarines, apricots, and plums and tossed them in some sort of a dijon balsamic vinaigrette I whipped up. Plated on a bed of prosciutto with freshly-shaved parmesan and a chilled slice of green pluot. I ain't gonna lie, it was a tad weird, but I thought it was tasty and I'd make it all over again and pair it with the exact same beers.

Brooklyn Blue Apron and Napa Smith Lost Dog Red Ale:  Here was my primary thought for these beers to pair with secondi. The only Brooklyn Brewery beer commercially available in San Francisco is this brown ale designed specifically for the menu at Thomas Keller's French Laundry. Any beer not just fit for, but requested, for what has been dubbed the very best restaurant in the country--in the heart of wine country--HAD to be uncorked at such a dinner. As for the Napa Smith beer, hello?, it has Napa in the title. Both are 7.2%, surprisingly malty, and both beckoned for a hearty meat dish. With some expert advice from Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef, I marinated pork in Affligem Tripel along with cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, orange peel, and sea salt. The fact that I had all these on hand leads me to believe I'm more of a half-assed gourmet than I suspected. A day after the homemade marinade set in, the pork met our awesome grill built into the range, while some butternut squash that was in the same marinade (but swapping olive oil for beer) roasted to perfection. (Esther's tasty green beans also found their way onto the plates.) To my surprise, while I love brown beers and might opt for a pint of Blue Apron straight, the Red drew more praise in this round of pairings.

O'Hanlon's Original Ruby Stout and Ale Asylum Mercy Grand Cru: I think I found this bottle of port barrel-aged stout at Beverage Warehouse in LA, and wherever I picked it up, I knew I had to try it. The Grand Cru (which astonished French-raised Esther, who pronounced it tres bien) is of an ultra limited release from this Madison, Wisc. brewery and came into my possession c/o Tom Griffin, the Barrel Guy, which is an entirely different story altogether! I have many fine dessert beers in my possession, but for dolce, the mere appearance of port and the mere mention of Grand Cru made them custom-fit for a wine-themed beer dinner. Now it all makes sense, yes? These unique brews helped wash down the vanilla bean Tripel pot de creme, found on Sean's dessert recipe page. I've made creme brulee before, but this was my first (and certainly not last) pot de creme. It required reducing 12 ounces of the aforementioned Affligem Tripel into mere tablespoons, but it was worth it. Rich dessert, two rich beers, made for six rich tummies.

I fear I raised the bar for future beer dinners on this one. But ultimately, it's just about good friends and good conversation sharing a nice meal, and if I converted any winos into beeros in the process, so be it.