NCHF was a blast. It’s just your regular beer festival, without the massive crowds, drunken idiots, or lines.  Instead you have a community of homebrewers that come together to share stories and beers, and celebrate the craft together. The weekend if perfectly kicked on Friday night off with a massive Homebrew Chef German inspired dinner.  Beyond just being a delicious meal paired with great beers, it is also creates a true sense of community, as 200 homebrewers gather around picnic tables to break bread and barley together.  The bond is sealed with hop ice cream and lager, and maintains till the long drive home Sunday morning.

As usual, you can view the full 59 photo set here.

First up: Friday’s Dinner.

First Course: Roasted Beet Salad served with mixed beets, roasted and tossed in a Dogfish Head Festina Pêche vinaigrette infused with caraway, pickled red onions and herb salad.  Served with Czeck Pils from Moonlight Brewery.

Second Course – A Tribute to German Street Food:  Currywurst with House made Staten Oktoberfest sausages served with a homemade curry dunkel ketchup and Frites.  Served with Wild Mushroom Strudelmade with Portobello, Porcini soaked in Spaten Optimator and Oyster mushrooms mixed with herbs, goat cheese and crispy shallots folded into a dough and baked.   Paired with a Dunkel from Spaten.

Third Course – ‘The David Hasselhoff’: Pretzel crumb coated pork cutlets Schnitzel style, warm German potato salad and a schwarzbier onion gravy.  Paired with a Schwarzbier from Sacramento Brewing Co. (My favorite course of the night!)

Fourth Course –  Bratwurst: Smoked Homemade Sonoma Springs Brewing Co. Roggenbier Bratwurst Sausages served with a house fermented cabbage and a mustard seed Aventinus Bier Sauce and EKU caramelized onion mustard.

Veggie Option: Smoked Heirloom Tomatoes filled with capers, caraway, shallots, Franziskaner Hefe-weisse and German style bread.  Paired with Oaktoberfest from Firestone Walker Brewing Co.

Fifth Course – Sauerbraten: beef marinated in malt vinegar, spices and herbs, cooked a medium with sous vide and served with a pumpernickel and barley spätzle. A sauce made from the vinegar and thickened with ginger schwarzbier cookies will top the dish. Paired with Munich Helles from Sudwerks.

Sixth Course – Apple Strudel: Celebrator Doppelbock soaked raisins with Jonathan organic apples tossed in a German Apple Schnapps, baked in a strudel dough served with a German Hallertau & Perle Hop Infused Ice Cream and a Weizen Eisbock Sabayon.  Paired with a 15th Anniversary Bock from Valley Brewing.

Plus, there is the actual festival:

Tags: homebrew, homebrew chef, nchf

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Flickr. 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.