A long time ago, Eli mentioned to me “oh, my friend Brian is moving to San Francisco.  You’ll really like him. He’s writing a book about beer.”  Since then Brian has brewed with me on occasion, and is a reliable to always have quality taste in beers, and great stories about the brewmasters who are making them. 

 

  

 

In the run up to his book being released, he’s been hosting a series of beer dinners.  Eli and I were invited to bring a homebrew for a special locavore inspired menu and an appetizer to pair with it.  On Saturday, we went to a birthday party for my cousin Theo, and taste tasted a bottle of bottle conditioned Belgium Triple with Vanilla Bean, and deemed it the winner. The harsher esters of a few months ago had mellowed to a malty, slightly sweet brew with more nuanced esters. (I really should bottle condition more beers longer, but I get impatient.)  We had a winner. 

 

 

We stopped on the way home at my new favorite butcher, and picked up lentils and lamb shanks. Eli mastermind a plan for the pairing: we’d play off the sweet malty base of the beer, and counter the richness with a spicy appetizer: North African Spiced Empanadas with a mango chutney. Eli made two fillings and put the spice grinder to work making ras al hanut for the fillings. She braised the lamb in red wine with carrots and spices, as well as made a lentil and leek filling.  Finally, we doused both heavily in spices so the little packages of joy would pack an appropriate punch to stand up to the beer and chutney. The chutney was supremely easy – add everything to a small pot and simmer.

After an hour of perfecting my crimping skills, we grabbed our beer, empanadas, and camera, and headed off to Brian’s for dinner.

When we got there, we placed the empanadas in a hot over, sprinkled the lentil filled ones with sesame seeds so we could tell them apart, and joined the party.  In twenty minutes, they were ready.

 

   

 

Meanwhile Brian proudly displayed his local-beer filled fridge… 

 

 

… and poured me one to get the party started. 

It was an impressive feast.  As he put it “High-minded pairing be damned, I just filled the fridge with offerings from throughout Northern California, and one tipple only those present can smack their lips and reminisce fondly.”

 

   

  

 

Our Belgium triple and Moroccan empanadas pairing turned out great.  The sweet malt of the triple paired with the empanada similarly to the chutney: sweet and slightly spicy from the belgium esters. The lentils were good, but were no match for the lamb – the gelatin from the braise melted inside, and was rich enough to shine through the crunchy crust.  

 

 

My favorite pairing that Brian presented us with was a chocolate bread pudding made with Pyramid Apricot Ale, served with Bison’s Chocolate Stout – both of which are brewed in Berkeley.  I’m a sucker for dessert beer pairings, and this was killer combo.  The chocolate of the beer melted into the luscious bread pudding, and the raspberries provided a tart counterpoint.

 

 

 

Dessert eaten, our bellies were full.  We checked our watches and made it outside just in time to catch the Muni back across town. 

 

 

Tags: Beer Dinners, Beer Odyssey, Belgium Triple, Lamb

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 4:29 am and is filed under Flickr, Pairings, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.