Thanks to the proliferation of microbreweries across the country in the past decade, beer is coming in from the ballpark to take a place next to the wine bottle at dinner tables.
Microbreweries and their larger specialty-brew brethren, nowadays collectively called “craft breweries,” have contributed to the creation of beer connoisseurs–people who sip and critically consider their drink, as opposed to chugging a mugful. At the same time, progressive brewpubs are taking their menus beyond bar and grill staples.
Beer is being paired with such items as confit of duck strudel with lingonberry sauce (a winner at last year’s edition of the Chicago Brewpub and Microbrewery Shootout), phyllo-wrapped lamb with blue cheese and toasted hazelnuts (served at the National Craft Brewers Conference Grand Banquet last April in Portland, Ore.), and duck breast pastrami with roasted pears, bitter greens and beer vinaigrette (to be served at tonight’s sold-out Real Ale Feast, the opening event for the weekend’s Real Ale Festival).
With choices ranging from golden pilsners to heavy imperial stouts, beer encompasses a wide variety of spice, herb and fruit flavors.
“I haven’t come across a food yet that doesn’t match with one beer or another,” said Greg Hall, vice president of brewery operations at Chicago’s Goose Island.
Fifteen years ago you’d have been hard pressed to find a pale ale or porter at a nice restaurant. Today, with serious beers being created in each of the 50 states, many local restaurants are happy to serve their neighborhood brews. Fine dining establishments on both coasts offer beer menus to rival their wine lists.
Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery and an expert on food and beer pairing, has hosted beer dinners at many New York restaurants. And in Oregon, the capital of the craft beer craze, “Any fine dining restaurant worth its salt will serve good microbrewed draft or bottled beers,” said Jon Graber, brewmaster at Mt. Hood Brewery. “They still take a back seat to wine, but good beer has caught on as an accompaniment to good food.”
Fine restaurants in the Chicago area are not as enthusiastic, according to Hall, but that’s changing. For instance, he said, Goose Island beers are served at Charlie Trotters, MK and Nine. Brasserie Jo, fittingly for a style of restaurant that takes its name from the French for “brewery,” serves a yeasty house beer, Hopla.
No highbrow history
The cause of beer’s inferiority complex can be traced to the Norman Conquest in 1066, according to Oliver. When the Normans took England, he said, all things French became sophisticated, whereas anything Anglo-Saxon fell to lower-class status. Wine, the beverage of the French, became the aristocratic drink, while the Anglo-Saxons’ beer remained the peasants’ potable.
But the Belgians, for example, have retained a centuries-old respect for beer and cuisine. In the U.S. “we have a lot of hurdles to overcome,” said Andrew Burns, co-owner of Emmett’s Tavern and Brewery in West Dundee.
Many brewpubs, which started out serving typical pub fare like burger baskets and fish and chips, have altered their menus to include classier selections. Newer breweries like Emmett’s bypassed the “pub grub” phase by offering more elaborate food from the get-go, and by staging beer dinners.
Serving beer with fine food makes perfect sense, according to Mark Facklam, executive chef at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago. He planned his first beer dinner this month when he joined Ray Daniels, founder of the Real Ale Fest, and local brewing writer Randy Mosher in designing the Real Ale Feast.
“It’s a good way to take a flavor that’s discernable to the common person and to bring it into perspective with food,” he said.
Making the match
The Feast, at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute’s restaurant, will feature such courses as grilled scallopini of salmon with malted tomatillo sauce and veal roast with a sauce perfumed with beer and fresh thyme. All will be matched with ales produced by American microbreweries across the country.
But the beauty of pairing food and beer is that there is room for error, Oliver said. “If it’s not a good pairing, you’ve spent $3 on a beer as opposed to $40 or more for a bottle of wine,” he said. Oliver is working on a book about food and beer pairing, “The Brewmaster’s Table,” to be published next year by HarperCollins.
When it comes to pairing their beverage with food, beer drinkers are different than wine drinkers, according to Mt. Hood’s Graber. At most restaurants, he said, customers will order an entree and the waiter will suggest a complementary wine. Since most brewpub customers come in knowing what type beer they like, he said, the servers at Mt. Hood are instructed to recommend entrees that will match the customer’s beer of choice.
The guidelines start out basic and can get as complex as you like.
“You don’t want a big beer to overwhelm a delicate dish,” Oliver said. So delicate dishes might go best with light lagers, golden ales and wheat beers; heavier foods have a better chance with full-bodied pale ales, porters and stouts. Graber likes porters with cheese dishes and game.
Several strongly flavored beers, like smoky ales and high-alcohol barley wines, can stand alone as dessert drinks. Barley wine is also excellent with Stilton cheese, Oliver said.
The cooking method also helps steer you to a promising choice. Grilling or roasting brings out a caramel flavor that can pair well with the malted flavors of a brown ale or porter, according to Oliver. Graber recommends amber ales and lagers with buttery dishes, breads, sandwiches and other lightly seasoned “comfort foods.”
Pale ales, strong in hop flavor and aroma, can stand up to spicy Asian and Mexican dishes, as well as oily fish entrees like mackerel and salmon.
The bitter hops and the carbonation help lift strong flavors off the palate “like scrubbing bubbles,” Oliver said, making it fresh for the next bite. This cleansing act of carbonation is what makes any beer an ideal accompaniment to food, he added, just as with bubbly, acidic sparkling wines.
Lessons from the wine side
Mark Dorber, manager of the White Horse, a pub and restaurant in London, suggested via e-mail that the tenets of matchmaking during a meal are much the same for wines and beers. Dorber will be providing the commentary at the CHIC dinner. Seek balance and alternation between acidity or bitterness and sweetness, and between light-bodied brews and heavier ones.
“Malt sweetness is analogous to fruit sweetness in wine, tannin in red wine to bitterness in beer,” he wrote. “These are the primary flavors. Then the fermentation flavors and aromas (of wine and beer) are directly comparable, and maturation qualities of balance, length, harmony, etc. can be discussed in exactly the same way.
“Beer is if anything harder to taste than wine, but just as rewarding.”
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Real Ale, really soon
The Real Ale Festival, which promotes the of cask-conditioned beer, will take place Friday and Saturday at Goose Island Wrigleyville, 3535 N. Clark St. Available tasting sessions are 5-11 p.m. Friday and 6:30-11 p.m. Saturday. Cost is $12.50 per person in advance through Thursday, or $15 at the door. For details, visit www.realalefestival.com or call the Craft Beer Institute at 773-665-1300.
— Joy Wind
