Spencers Belgian Beerfest Dinner Recap

It’s no secret that I am into beer and food pairings. We’ve hosted a number of pairings on our own already and we’ve been to a few as well. I was very excited when my wife told me about the Belgian Beerfest Dinner being held at Spencers in the San Jose Double Tree. I immediately made our reservations. With a camera in one hand and a notepad in the other, we attended the event. Here are my tasting notes:

Reception

Blanche de Namur, 4.5% ABV – This beer was originally listed on the menu to go with the first course but was bumped and served as our reception beer. As the name would suggest, this is a witbier. This beer has a great nose full of cloves, slight honey notes, coriander and slight citrus tang. It is a cloudy, pale straw color with no head. Sweet wheat flavors dominate supported by a light acidic tartness with virtually no hop flavor or bitterness. Surprisingly, this medium bodied beer was still: no noticeable carbonation. Normally for this style, a fairly high carbonation level that is effervescent and sometimes prickly is expected. The result was a beer that felt a little heavier on the palette than other witbiers. I’m not sure if this was just the bottle I was poured or if this beer is really like this. Despite a lack of carbonation, this is a good smelling and tasting beer that was perfect for a hot Friday afternoon.

First Course:

Beer: La Fin du Monde by Uniboue, 9% ABV
Food: Quiche with maple bacon and gruyere cheese

Tasting Notes: Arguably one of the finer brewers of Belgian-style ales outside of Belgium, Unibroue hails from Quebec, Canada. Readily available in most BevMos, the Unibroue line of beer is easily spotted with their dramatic, romantically gothic labels. Surprisingly, this beer was not originally on the menu but was a last minute substitution to be paired with the quiche.

This beer has a strong, spicy, clovey phenolic character to the aroma. I can also smell a slight sourness and sweet malt aromas in the background. At 9% ABV, the alcohol notes are also noticeable. This beer is a cloudy gold with white head. Just like the aroma, spicy phenolics are the dominant flavor supported by subtle fruit flavors such pears and banana. I could also notice the sweet malt flavors with very low hop flavor and bitterness. This medium bodied, medium-high carbonated beer was effervescent on the palette and the alcohol notes produced a warming sensation but nothing harsh.

I love eggs. They’re the most versatile and nutritious food on the planet. So I was really excited to see quiche on the menu. The quiche itself was very tasty. Light and creamy, the egg flavors were enhanced by the bits of bacon cooked into the quiche. Served with cross-cut potatoes and a full strip of maple bacon topping the quiche. I felt the flavor of the maple bacon was very dominant. If you had the bacon by itself and then had the beer, I think the bacon flavors overwhelmed the beer a bit. Even at 9% and well carbonated, the maple flavors and the rich, fatty bacon goodness was a bit too much for even La Fin du Monde. BUT, if you ate a little bit of the bacon, then the quiche and then sipped on the beer, everything worked out well. The quiche served to temper the intensity of the maple bacon strip as well as matching the beer’s texture. In hindsight, this dish would’ve completely overrun the Blanche de Namur and I’m thinking that’s why they changed the pairing at the last minute.

Second Course:

Beer: La Chouffe Houblon Chouffe Doubelen IPA Tripel, 9% ABV
Food: Asturian Bean Stew with Spicy Sausage

Tasting Notes: From what I was told, Le Chouffe brewery is making some waves in the Belgian Beer community by breaking with the Belgian Brewing traditions. This strikes me as odd as the Belgians have done many different things with beer. They’ve soured beers, added fruit and added sugars to name a few. As negative an association the word “adjuncts” carries with respect to beer, the Belgians are all about adjuncts. Their Houblon Chouffe Doubelen IPA Tripel is a perfect example of how La Chouffe is shaking things up.

This beer has slight white pepper and clove phenolics on the nose with an earthy and citrus hop aroma. Subtle fruit and with sweet, floral and perfumey notes round out the aroma profile. This beer is cloudy, pale gold with a lasting white head. I also noticed some particulate matter suspended in the beer. This could be yeast or hops. Now this is where this beer gets interesting. Unlike many other Belgian tripels, this beer is brewed with American hop varietals Tomahawk and Amarillo as well as European Saaz (ooo… the controversy!). This beer has a very noticeable hop bite that is earthy, yet citrus. Spicy clove notes persist into the finish. The beer is medium bodied with high carbonation. It is slightly dry with a warming sensation due to the high ABV.

Whenever we’ve paired hoppy beers with food, we’ve either paired a dish with a spice level that matched the intensity of the hop bitterness of the beer. Or we’ve contrasted in which we’ve paired something of matching sweet intensity. Despite the “IPA” designation, this beer was probably on the low end of the acceptable hop bitterness for the style. That being said, it matched the spice level of the sausage. I did feel the soup was a bit too salty. According to Sammy, the soup actually enhanced the bitterness level of the beer. While a good dish, I felt this was the weakest pairing of the night.

Third Course:

Beer: De Glazen Toren Saison d’Erpe Mere, 7.5% ABV
Food: Steamed Clams & Prawns in a Ginger Beer Broth

Tasting Notes: I’ve never heard of this beer before. It’s from a small Belgian Brewery and I doubt that I’d be able to find this beer at any of the local BevMo. The Saison d’Erpe Mere smells of white pepper and has slight perfumey, floral characteristics. It is cloudy, golden with a white head. The white peppery spiciness continues into the flavor of the beer and is counterbalanced by pils and wheat malt sweetness. Surprisingly, the hop flavor and bitterness is noticeable, especially coming after the IPA. This is a medium bodied beer with high carbonation and a slight dryness and astrigency.

I love seafood. That being said, I think this may have been the most successful pairing of the evening. The saison paired well with the ginger broth and the hop level was enough to act as a counterpoint to the distinct clam flavors. This was a fairly simple dish that paired very well with a simple, yet complex farmhouse beer.

Fourth Course:

Beer: Chimay Grande Reserve (Blue label), 9% ABV
Food: Kobe Burger Sliders Glazed with a Fig Reduction & Bleu Cheese

Tasting Notes: Out of all the Trappist breweries, Chimay is the most commercial. But don’t let that fool you as they make excellent beers. In fact, the Chimay Grande Reserve is the beer that got me started into Belgian beers to begin with so it has a warm spot in my heart. An example of the Belgian Strong Dark Ale style, this beer has a very sweet, aroma reminiscent of toffee and dark fruits (dates, dried plums, figs). There is a slight spice to the beer and very low hop aroma. The beer is dark brown with a beige head. The flavors are initially sweet and malty, with dark fruit notes playing in the background and a low hop finish. Medium bodied with high carbonation, the alcohol characteristics provide a balance to the sweet malt flavors and smooth warming sensation.

This was another excellent pairing. The kobe beef was almost beyond description. It was flavorful without being greasy or fatty. The greens were crisp and the bleu cheese pungent and sharp. The fig reduction added another level of flavor and sweetness that seemed to tie in to the beer masterfully. Personally, I am still not completely sold with bleu cheese. I can appreciate it but it’s a powerful cheese and within the context of this pairing, serves as a counterpoint to the sweet maltiness of the beer. A little goes a long way though and too much may overpower the other flavors. My sister is particularly averse to bleu cheese and had a love/hate relationship with this pairing. The beer battered onion rings were a pleasant surprise as they were sweeter than other I’ve had in the past (I love onion rings as well and am always looking for great examples) and I suspect they may have used some of the Chimay in making them.

Fifth Course:

Beer: St. Louis Framboise, 4.5% ABV
Food: French Vanilla Dark Chocolate & Raspberry Sorbet

Tasting Notes: A complimentary pairing if I’ve ever heard of one! In fact, we use a similar pairing but we’ve used fudge brownies instead. The principle is the same but the level of decadence is much bigger. The St. Louise Framboise is predominantly raspberry in aroma with lactic sour characteristics and no hop aroma. It pours out a beautiful reddish-purple hue with ruby highlights. It is clear and the head is a light pinkish-purple. Raspberries dominate the flavor but the lactic sourness rules the finish providing a mouthwatering puckering sensation. This is a medium/medium-lo bodied beer with high carbonation. The tartness is wet, very slight astrigency and moderately puckering.

The French Vanilla Dark Chocolate pieces were rich and thick with moderate sweetness. The raspberry sorbet was slightly tart, brimming with raspberry flavor and was a nice counterpoint to the chocolate. You would have to have the beer and sorbet together to match the intensity of the chocolate. It’s that thick. I am not a dessert person by any means and I had trouble finishing the chocolate. I did kill the sorbet and the beer though.

In conclusion…

Chef Al Lopez is a beer fan. He is always doing wine and food pairing dinners and decided he wanted to put together a beer and food dinner of which I am grateful. Patrick is Spencer’s Wine Manager and helped with the logistics while Brooke is a sales rep for Wine Warehouse who supplied all of the beers we had that night.

Spencers is a restaurant that’s more on the formal side of dining but they wanted to lighten things up for this event. With about 25 guests, the dinner was held in different area separated from the main dining area. This allowed for a more intimate event.

Unlike us, Chef Lopez and Brooke basically went over the entire menu and pairing at the start of the dinner. I prefer to talk about each pairing as they come out. I find that if you blow your wad right up front, it really doesn’t stick in people’s minds for very long. Patrick and Chef Lopez projected very well but I found Brooke to be soft-spoken like me. This is an issue with my public speaking that I am aware of and continually work on improving. To Brooke’s credit, she did revisit the flavor profile of each beer as each course came out. I wish Chef would’ve come out each time to explain what was going on in his mind as he came up with each pairing.

Overall, I think this was a very successful event. The cuisine was flavorful and well prepared and the pairings were mostly successful. The staff at Spencers were very professional, yet warm and friendly. The only downside is that we didn’t really have the opportunity to interact with any of the surrounding tables. Brooke was at the table next to us so we were able to chat up with her some but most parties just kept to themselves.

I am very glad that Chef Lopez put this together and I hope it was worth their while as I’d love to go to another pairing event. It’s not to often that these things happen in San Jose and I think it’s important go to and support the people doing these events. That being said, you all should totally go to my next beer and food pairing event, shameless, I know but if I don’t speak up for myself, who will? To view the entire event gallery, please click here.