The first Saturday of August has been designated by the American Homebrewers Association as Mead Day. It is a day set aside to help draw attention to mead and mead-makers. To help celebrate the day, we at BetterBeerBlog put together “A Mid-Summer’s Day Beer and Food Event” the Sunday afterwards. It was a 5-course pairing event of food and beer with the last course being a mead and food pairing. You can view the event page here.
By all accounts, this was a successful event. Judging by the feedback we received, the food was delicious, as always, and most of the pairings were successful. Here’s a course-by-course breakdown:
Course 1
Beer: Alaskan Brewing Company Summer Ale
Culinary Pairing: Belgian Endives stuffed with shrimp, capers, and dill aioli
This was the course I was worried about. The Summer Ale, an excellent example of a kolsch-style beer, is light, full-flavored yet subtle and refreshing. I was worried about the contrasts between the creamy shrimp, capers and dill aioli stuffing but the empty plates told me we did right by this one.
Course 2
Beer: Hoegaarden Witbier
Culinary Pairing: Bulgar wheat salad with bell pepper, dried cranberry, parsely, green and red onions with a citrus vinaigrette
Out of all the pairings, this was the least favorite. Some people just don’t like hoegaarden, other people didn’t like the salad. I thought this was a good pairing as your putting together wheat-on-wheat and mirroring the tartness of the cranberries with the slight tartness of the beer. In the end, I don’t think people were used to the idea that you could use grain for a salad instead of just fruits and vegetables.
Course 3
Beer: Samuel Adams Black Lager
Culinary Pairing: Thinly sliced beef with caramelized onions with plantains
This course, if I remember correctly, received the most “favorite” votes. The simply seasoned and grilled beef flavors mixed well with the roasty notes of the beer while the sweetness of both the caramelized onions and plantains worked as a counterpoint to the beer.
Course 4
Beer: Speakeasy Untouchable Pale Ale
Culinary Pairing: Vienna Lager steamed turkey and shiitake dumplings with homebrewed pale ale sweet and sour dipping sauce
We modified this recipe from the book The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing & Cooking with Craft Beer by Lucy Sanders. This was a great recipe and I was excited that we used some of my newly tapped Summer Pale Ale in preparing this dish. These didn’t last very long either.
Course 5
Mead: Rabbit’s Foot Meadery Sweet Mead
Culinary Pairing: Oven-roasted pear with marscarpone drizzled with wildflower honey
This last dish was inspired by my trip to Flavor Bistro in Santa Rosa. I was impressed with the way they poached their fruits in wine so I suggested this dish to be paired with the sweet mead from Rabbit’s Foot. We oven roasted our pears with brown sugar and drizzled the finished product with honey. In addition to the Rabbit’s Foot mead, I brought out a couple of bottles of my own mead to compare with. A lot of the ladies really enjoyed the Rabbit’s Foot mead but a lot of the guys enjoyed my mead more because it wasn’t as sweet. Time goes by quickly as the mead I made has been aging for about 1.5 years.
At the very beginning of the event, I even did a small mead making demo. Making mead is pretty simple and I wanted to show our guests that they too can be mead makers. I will post up the mead recipe I used soon. I invited everyone back in a year so to crack open the mead I made at this event.
In addition to my Summer Pale Ale, I also brewed up a Honey Hefeweizen. I’ll post up the recipe I used to make this beer in a couple of days or so. It took me a week to brew this beer up and, yes, I did incorporate honey into this beer. It’s an interesting method that I’ll get into later.
In any event, I’d like to thank the two girls, Judy and Joanna for all the hard work they put into making this event happen. Their food keeps getting better and better every time. I’d like to thank our guests for coming. We had guests representing El Cerrito, San Francisco, Fremont, and Hayward. I’m sure there’s a variety of things they could’ve done on such a pleasant and warm Sunday afternoon but they chose to spend it with us and I am grateful.
Our next beer and food event is slated happen on Sunday, August 24th. We’re definitely going to be breaking new ground with this next event and we hope it’ll be as big a hit as our past events have been. I’ll post more as things solidify.
Lastly, if you’re interested in attending one of our Beer and Food events, please let me know by leaving a comment to this post and I will gladly add you to our invite list. These events have limited space and are by invite only.
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