The AmeriCAN Beer Dinner at the Addison Flying Saucer

Last night we went to a truly unique beer dinner.  No particular brewery was featured.  No particular style of beer was on tap.  It was all about the cans. 

More and more breweries are reverting to shipping their beer in cans.  And I am sooo for that!  It keeps light out, it helps the beer keep longer, it costs less for the brewery to ship - so you don't get as much pass through costs added to your purchase price - and, with the upgrades and refinements in aluminum, no funky metallic taste is added to the beer.  Add to that cans are much, much cheaper to recycle!  It's a win win all the way around. 

So what did we have? 

We started off with a PBR.  Pabst Blue Ribbon was a pioneer in the craft brewing industry...really.  Starting off in small batches, its popularity grew, and by 1977 Pabst was brewing 18 million barrels a year.  If you haven't tasted it in a while, try a cold one.  (editor's note - don't let it get too warm...or maybe that's just me.)

Our first pairing was Avery White Rascal and a tomato, watermelon, and tarragon salad.  White Rascal is a Belgian Wit, and a mighty tasty one, at that.  The sweetness of the watermelon and the savory of the tarragon really brought out the tang of the Rascal. 

Next came Santa Fe Happy Camper, paired with loaded potato fritters, fried okra and jalapeno cream gravy.  Now, y'all know that I am NOT a hop head.  I take one sniff of a hoppy beer and out comes my ACK face!  Let me tell you something.  The smokiness of the bacon, the creamy potatoes and the spice of the jalapeno mellowed that hop right out and totally made it a drinkable beer for me.  A really nice surprise!  I'll have to try this again.

Next came a duo of beers: Stevens Point 2012 Black Ale and New Belgium Shift.  We were served a grilled honey glazed pork chop that was fabulous with the black ale - the sweetness of the honey glaze melded perfectly with the malty, nutty backbone of the ale.  YUM!  Alongside the chop was a serving of collard greens (frankly, I passed) and a heaping mound of mac n' cheese, made with costwold cheese - a perfect compliment to the cranky/tangy/hoppy Shift.  Actually, I liked the mac n' cheese with the black ale, too.  To be totally honest, I'd eat the mac n' cheese with a PBR.  Or day-old milk.  Or mud.  Yeah.  it was just that good!

Finally, it was time for dessert.  A masterpiece in my book.  Southern Star Buried Hatchet (one of my favorites, anyway) paired with a bourbon banana pudding served in a mason jar.  I believe the words we're looking for here are, "God Damn!!"

And, yes, that's a PBR photobombing the picture.

It was a great dinner.  The food was downhome and yummy.  The beers surprising.  And the Saucer staff, as always...the best!!

Dogfish Head Beer Dinner

Tracy, Joe, Judy and I met at The Lake Flying Saucer in Garland (overlooking Lake Ray Hubbard) for the Dogfish Head Beer Dinner tonight.  It was a six course dinner.  The "social" beer was Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. 60 Minute is brewed with a slew of great Northwest hops. A powerful but balanced East Coast IPA with a lot of citrusy hop character, it's the session beer for hardcore enthusiasts! You would expect this to be a terribly bitter beer since it is hopped for 60 minutes during brewing.  But, surprisingly, it is not.

The second course was Midas Touch.  This sweet yet dry beer is made with ingredients found in 2,700-year-old drinking vessels from the tomb of King Midas. Somewhere between wine and mead, Midas will please the chardonnay and beer drinker alike.  It was served with champagne brie soup with sourdough rounds.  We heard through the grapevine that there was 4 pounds of brie in the soup.  I can only imagine as it was just a very nice cheesy, yet light soup that went well with the Midas Touch.

The third beer was Red & White.  Red & White is a big, Belgian-style witbier brewed with coriander and orange peel and fermented with pinot noir juice. After fermentation, a fraction of the batch is aged in one of  10,000-gallon oak tanks.  I accidentally caught some as I was breathing and had a mild coughing fit.  The upside was how I got a great sense of the pinot noir juice.  This was served with a cherry tomato and basil tart with gruyere crust.  The tart was so fantastic.  Tracy noted that while it was a nice pairing with the tart, it would also go well with something dark.  I broke off some of the edge crust of the tart and tried it with the beer and you know what?  Tracy was right! (don't let her know or it will go to her head)

The fourth beer was Indian Brown.  This is a hybrid style.  It is a cross between a Scotch Ale, an India Pale Ale and an American Brown, Indian Brown Ale is well-hopped and malty at the same time.  Seriously, each beer was better than the first and we started out on a HIGH plane!  The paring was a beef and vegetable pot pie with cheddar biscuit topping.  This complex beer went well with the beef and veggies and cheese crust.

The fifth beer was Immort Ale.  This beer is brewed with maple syrup, juniper berries and vanilla. Immort is fermented with a blend of English and Belgian yeasts, then aged in the big oak tanks at the brewery.  The food pairing was brown sugared pork spheres. Judy said they were pork balls.  Rebecca Keiffer said in her house they were called Ham Balls, but she didn't want to call it balls on the menu.  No matter what you call them, they were pretty danged tasty and then served on a little bed of mashed potatoes.

The sixth and final beer was Palo Santo. An unfiltered, unfettered, unprecedented brown ale aged in handmade wooden brewing vessels. The caramel and vanilla complexity unique to this beer comes from the exotic Paraguayan Palo Santo wood from which these tanks were crafted. Palo Santo means "holy tree," and its wood has been used in South American wine-making communities.  A very unique beer that is fantastic and it was paired with bourbon pecan tart with bourbon whipped cream.  This was your mamma's pecan pie just taken up to a new level.  If you have ever had the commercial whipped cream with alcohol that almost burns your mouth from the alcohol, then you have NO idea how good this whipped cream was.  She added some very nice smooth bourbon to a homemade whipped cream and it was AWESOME.

The manager at The Lake, Daniel, did the presentation of the beers at dinner.  He was a reluctant, but excellent narrator for the dinner. The original Dogfish Head rep who was scheduled to come had turned in his resignation and was absent.  Perhaps we would have had more insight into Dogfish Head with a rep, but Daniel did a fine job on his own.

And let me throw out another great shout out and huge kudos to Rebecca.  She is one of the managers, a chef and cicerone who does a fantastic job on these dinners.  I know she worries about the pairings, but seriously girl, just keep up the good work.  You make it look easy, but I know agonize over it.