The eighth annual New Belgium beer dinner at Duff's Restaurant in the CWE was super delicious. I got to sit with my lovely wife and four of our friends, all of us current or former Duff's employees. Everything was excellent, including appropriate glassware for each style and meat-free versions of each dish for the veggies in our crew. That last bit means that those who were willing to try both basically got two dishes per pairing.
Opening the meal was the surprisingly sessionable Mothership Wit paired with a hearty curried lamb samosa in a powerful coriander mint chutney. The chutney was so spicy I had to order a bottle of Third Coast Beer to cool off so I wouldn't inhale the witbier. But soon, spice balanced spice, phyllo married malt, and we were off. Even got seconds. Can't remember what was in the veg samosa.
Le Fleur Misseur, the draught-only, limited release, Orval-inspired, 'Lips of Faith' thing, was next up, paired with a pear/bleu/walnut/cran viniagrette salad. I'm sure the salad was nice but all I cared about was the beer: Brettanomyces, Hallertau, you expected a mess and you got a delicate, balanced symphony.
On to the Blue Paddle with a shellfish chowder. The chowder was just creamy rich enough, not too much. When you took a sip of the beer, it washed the tongue clean with a malty flush, and got you eager for another spoonful. The veg version had mushrooms and whatnot but still had boatloads of flavor.
The national dish of Brazil is apparently Pork Feijoada, this incarnation consisting of rice, yummy black beans, and amazingly flavorful pork sausage. Accompanying it was the Abbey Ale, and once again I was more into the beer than the food. Don't get me wrong, great counterpoint and all, with the rustic meeting the refined and the deep flavors all settling in together. But this dubbel is just so damn big and boozy, you can't help but get contemplative, planning out the rest of your night around this one, glorious draught until you realize oh right two more courses. I'll just set you aside, little snifter, and you can command more of my respect later. Again, the veg version wasn't committed to memory.
1554 with beef tournedos, roasted root veg and a freakin killer beet-horseradish sauce. Now, I've had beets'n'horseradish, or at least I thought I had--this stuff was blood red, almost purple, and thank god there was a lot of it because I made sure it went on everything. The 1554 smelled like milk chocolate and, because of the lager least, went down easy with the spice and the fat and the love. The veggies got a rather tasty big meatball made of Match, I believe, in place of the beef.
Lastly, Giddy Up! and a perfect little mousse-like house-made chocolate tiramisu. This was killer. Just killer. Short and sweet and gone. The light-bodied, sweetish, espresso-accented ale, which I'd had before and liked, was perfect with the delicate dessert--a nice change, as someone pointed out, from the usual too-big-too-late pairings of fruit lambics/imperial stouts/barleywines and oversized choco-cliches. This last beer of the night--except of course for that Abbey I'd been saving--finished with hints of toffee, lemons, and wood, and a strange stinky unidentifiable aroma that just served to make the evening that much more interesting.
Here's to hoping we all can make it to the next affair: the Mangia Italiano Beer Dinner, featuring Schlafly beers, on Thursday, November 20th at 7pm.
http://aleuminati.ning.com/events/1501346:Event:21762
No comments:
Post a Comment