I’ve mentioned my friend Brian Yaeger, and his book, Red, White and Brew a few times in the past.  Besides being a recent interviewee on NPR’s Marketplace, he also makes an excellent drinking buddy. 

Brian’s most recent stop on his country-wide book tour was at the new Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol, about an hour north of San Francisco, in wine country. Hopmonk is the project of Dean Biersch, of Gordon Biersch Brewery.  Hopmonk serves a variety of homemade ales and lagers, as well as other fine craft brews, and also features a great restaurant.  

To celebrate the season as well as promote Brian’s book, Dean hosted a Dungeness Crab dinner, paired with a collection of select brews.  In a twist of dramatic irony, not lost on beer author Brian, Dean failed to check if Brian is allergic to shellfish.  Rather than have his head swell up like a balloon, Brian opted to eat of the regular menu (which he assured me was really good.)  The rest of us got to feast on fresh steamed crab legs.   

 

 

About twenty of us were seated around a large table in a private hall. Dean played host for the evening, and introduced each beer, and prompted Brian to speak with a new topic to go with the beer.  The result was a delightful pattern that emerged during the evening: the waitresses would pour a new beer, Dean would introduce it, then hand the floor over to Brian to discuss his book and travels.  While Brian talked we would greedily crack open thick crab legs and dip them in melted butter.  The result was an ongoing dialog of beer, shellfish and travel.

 

 

 

We started out with Hopmonk’s own unfiltered German-style Pilsner.  It was served with a potato gratin with fennel.  The gratin was rich, and the crisp lager cut though it, providing a nice contrast.  Dean stood up and explained the differences between ales and lagers, and told a little bit about how not filtering affects a beer. I really enjoyed the way Dean talks about beer: he manages to take somewhat complicated concepts and distill them into accessible ideas, and then back them up with examples of the beer in front of us.  With the unfiltered pilsner, he explained how not filtering leaves intact some of the subtler flavors of the beer, but also makes it more perishable - not a problem if you’re brewing onsite. 

 

 

 

Dean also had an infectious enthusiasm for beer.  When he talked about Anchor Steam’s Liberty Ale, our next beer, and pictured at the top of this post, he exclaimed his love of modern extreme beers (I spied him later drinking a Pliny.)  But he also took the opportunity to contrast it against more classically balanced pale ale’s, like Anchor’s Liberty Ale.  With that intro, he handed the floor back to Brian to talk about his experiences interviewing Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing Company, and the early days of the craft brewing revolution. 

 

 

Meanwhile, the Hopmonk staff unveiled our buffet dinner for the night.  It was overflowing with crab, artichokes, sweet potato puree, and corn. I assembled a plate and dug in. 

 

 

 

Our next beer was New Belgium Brewing’s Mothership Wit.  It’s a crisp belgium wit beer, spiced with orange peel and coriander. The citrusy brew played great with the delicate crab and butter – I was using a lot of butter.  Also note that the wit was poured in a goblet – making it easy to get your nose in the glass and examine the aromas. 

 

 

Meanwhile, the crowd enjoyed the crab legs. It took a surprising amount of strength and focus, as Dean demonstrates.  Luckily, ample melted butter was supplied, and we persevered. 

 

  

 

Our final course of the night was dessert: a citrus custard, served with a slice of cake, topped with a vertical piece of white chocolate.  It was a surprising complex and sophisticated dessert for a brewpub, and speaks to the ambitions of the place – compliments to the chef, Billy Reid.  Poured alongside of it was one of my favorites: Rodenbach, a belgium style Flander’s Red.  It’s dark, woody, slightly sweet, with a great belgium funk of sour yeast. It’s a great introduction into the world of sour beers.

 

 

The pairing was killer – as I discovered as GABF, sour beers and white chocolate are natural partners, as the sour tartness contrasts against the rich white chocolate.  Combined with the citrus undertones in the rest of the dish, I was a happy camper, albeit a very full one. 

With the last dishes cleared, dinner was over.   The staff quickly removed the remaining crab and cleared plates, making room for Hopmonk’s open mic night.  As we left, local singers began to croon at the mic, as full pints of local craft beer were poured all around. 

Tags: brian yaeger, crab, hopmonk

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2008 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Pairings, Reviews, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.