After weeks of planning, hours of tasting, and an unknowable number of phone calls to brewers confirming their beer would be there, the “Mostly Barrel Aged Beer Dinner” went off without a hitch.  As usual, Scala’s Bistro and The Sir Francis Drake pulled of this huge feat without breaking a sweat.
“Enough preamble, get to the [...]

You’ve really got to give it to Chef Cosentino – he doesn’t do anything halfway.  When he says “I’m going to serve offal and make it delicious” he really means it, and when he says “I’m going to cook with beer,” he jumps in to the deep end of the pool. At the Incanto & [...]

 
Looking for a beer dinner to attend this Wednesday, April 22nd?  Bison Brewing is teaming up with Venus Restaurant in Berkeley for an Earth Day Dinner.   Venus is preparing a four course springtime menu that highlights Bison’s organic beers. The dish I’m most excited about: seared buffalo, in a Bison Chocolate Stout sauce.  The barleywine carmel for desert is [...]

So you know that beer dinner I keep mentioning?  The one for SF Beer Week? We’ve been hard at work on a menu – one that takes great beer and showcases it alongside creative food.  After a few iterations, and a lot of beer tasting, Chef Jen has put together a menu that I think [...]

Drake’s Brewing has a whole bunch of barrels, with a whole bunch of wild bugs running wild inside. Josh, the brewmaster, showed me around their brewing facilities in San Leandro, before leading me to the barrels to taste a few samples and work on putting together a blend for the Beer & Nosh Dinner. 
A note [...]

Oh Sean, you sneaky, sneaky bastard.
I’ve heard you go on a few times about the value of putting beer into food, and how when used as an ingredient, it can equal or even surpass wine when integrated into a recipe.  You’ll get a beer into your head, and I’ll hear at length how the ingredient form of the beer, [...]