We had a beer dinner last night, and it turned out to be a ridiculous amount of food and a lot of fun. I always enjoy trying to come up with new recipes that incorporate beer and then pairing the foods with various beers. As a rule of thumb, it’s always good to pair the food with the beer that you incorporated into the recipe.
Menu items ran the gammit and we tried to do small bites of foods and small tastes of beers. Sarah made a pretzel bread panini with mustard seed gouda and salami. It was delicious with Dogfish Head‘s 60 Minute IPA. She also made a “pub cheese” that had some sharp cheddar cheese, cream cheese, and Speakeasy’s Untouchable pale ale in it. Needless to say, it pairs nicely with a hoppier beer as well. Then we had some jalepenos stuffed with spicy Italian sausage, mascarpone, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. This worked with either the 60 Minute IPA or Ayinger‘s Celebrator doppelbock. I always feel like hoppier beers pair best with heavier/richer foods, but the malt characteristics of the Celebrator were surprisingly good with these stuffed jalepenos. The high level of carbonation and relatively light body of this doppelbock probably also contribute to this.
The smoker was working double-time in preparation for this dinner and we were able to put out smoked pork ribs that were prepped with a dry rub and mopped with a beer-baste throughout the cooking process. The ribs were served with homemade Beer-B-Q sauce, which was a tangy sauce made with Spaten‘s Optimator. The meat was falling off the bones and super-flavorful. The ribs paired well with the same beer that was used in both the baste and the sauce – Optimator. Ayinger’s Celebrator brought out the smokiness of the meats and the sauce, although the flavor of the beer seemed to get lost a bit in the mix. Likewise, these beers were good with smoked brisket and Asian slaw served on a Hawaiian bun as mini sandwiches. Yum!
To finish off the evening, we had some grilled peaches with a dollop of Grand Marnier and orange zest infused mascarpone cheese and a drizzle of a Lindemans Framboise reduction. This dessert was fantastic with Cascade Brewing‘s Cascade Cuvee du Jongleur. We also had some caramelized goat cheese that was coated with dark chocolate, which was a very interesting savory treat. The flavor combination of St. Peter’s Cream Stout and the chocolate-covered goat cheese was a pleasant surprise because the sweetness of the beer balanced the saltiness of the chocolate-coated cheese. There was also a smokey Rogue River blue cheese that paired well with Dogfish Head’s Palo Santo Marron as the rich maltiness of this 12% abv beer could round out the sharpness of the cheese.
This beer dinner was a lot of fun, and a bit more free-form than the standard beer pairings as we all transitioned back and forth between the beers mentioned above, and several others as well, to see which beers paired best with each food. It was much more interactive and was a great learning experience. I’ll definitely be doing this more often!
