flavor and the menu beer

8/14/2019 Flavor and the Menu Beer

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Beer-and-food pairings have come a longway from burgers and wings. Diners now

can enjoy beer dinners with a different

brew for every course.

DESCHUTES

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If you have any doubt about how far beer has traveled as

a fine-dining beverage in the last few years, drop by

New Yorks venerable Gramercy Tavern and take a peek

at the beverage list. In addition to the 30 or so regular beers,

customers can choose from about two-dozen aged brews,

such as two vintages of Brooklyn Brewerys Black

Chocolate Stout, a 10-year-old from Oregons Rogue Ales

Brewery and an English ale aged in sherry casks.

Not convinced? Perhaps the next time you visit one of

Thomas Kellers restaurants, like The French Laundry in

Yountville, Calif., or Per Se in New York City, youll find a

dish paired with Blue Apron, a bottle-fermented, Belgian,

double-style ale custom made by Brooklyn Brewery. Beverage

lists at Kellers and other high-end restaurants reveal a serious

effort to establish beers place of significance at the table.

Or should that be reestablish?

THE FIRST FOOD-FRIENDLY BEVERAGE

Beer is probably the original food-friendly alcoholic

beverage, and with advocates like Brooklyn Brewery

Brewmaster Garrett Oliver, author of The Brewmasters

Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real

Food, preaching the gospel, more restaurants are

introducing quality beers, offering food-and-beer pairings

and hosting brewmaster dinners.

Oliver is one of the most prominent of the many

enthusiasts who have insisted for years that brewers wares

have been exiled wrongly to the burger-and-pizza corner of

American cuisine. We often forget, as the craft-beer

segment expands, that what we have is a slow return to

normality, says Oliver. When you look at the U.S.

historically, the period of the huge dominance of one kind

of mass-market beer is relatively small.

Major brewers also have increased their attention to

brewing a range of beer styles and even have focused on

beer with food; the 304-page Great Food, Great Beer:

The Anheuser-Busch Cookbook is only part of that mega-

brewers attention to more flavorful brews.

MORE STYLES, LESS FIZZ

George Reisch, an Anheuser-Busch brewmaster who works

on the craft-oriented Michelob line, believes the golden

age of brewing is upon us.

In the U.S. now, he notes, we have more beer styles for

sale than anywhere in the world. We are living in beer nirvana

now. He credits the microbrew boom for resuscitating now-

popular beer styles like imperial pale ale (IPA).

Beer fits well with food, since thats what it was designed

for, Reisch says. It was never meant to be an egocentric

beverage that gets in the way of food, and the flavor profiles

of all the various styles of beer were developed to go with

the local foods.

It was once normal for Americans to drink a range of

locally made beers porters, stouts, ales, lagers, pilsners and

BEVERAGE TRENDS

BEERHits the

BIG TIMEBY JACK ROBERTIELLO

Craft-made and European-inspired

brews elevate beer to fine-dining statusand show great food-pairing potential


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the like in different styles for different

occasions and cuisines. And the flood of yellow,

fizzy brews doesnt adequately represent the

incredible range of beer flavors.

Beers reputation as an unsuitable food

partner emerged as mass-market beers became

single-note beverages, Oliver points out. Even

after American brewing returned to its roots

and expanded in the 1990s, the industry did a

poor job of promoting how well beer pairs with

food, says Mark Edelson, director of brewing for

the seven-unit Iron Hill Brewery and

Restaurant, based in Lancaster, Pa.

The wine industry has done such an

incredible job over the last 25 to 30 years

pushing the wine and food connection, and we

as an industry have got to get better in making

the case of food with beer.

BREWPUB REDUX

The brew-pub craze of the late 1990s didnt

help, with its abundance of batter-fried fish and

chips. And a shakeout among the craft brewers,

who made good beer but bad business decisions,

slowed things down.

In the early 90s, it was no longer good

enough to be the local brewery, even if you

offered a consistent and desirable product,

which many did not, says Dave Alexander

who, with his wife and partner, Diane, runs

BEVERAGE TRENDS

BEER at the TableBeers wide range of flavors allows for sophisticated food pairings,

but first you need to know your brews

AT HOME WITH THE RANGE: Beer has a much wider range offlavor than wine does, says Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster Garrett

Oliver. Brewers, unlike winemakers, can introduce other ingredients,

such as more highly roasted malt, smoked grains or fruits, to create

distinct flavor profiles.

SEEK HARMONY: Beer can harmonize with flavors that wine can only

contrast with, Oliver says, citing hearty red wines served with a charred

steak. What youre not doing [with wine] in any way is harmonizing

with the meat, which is about caramelization. Grabbing on to that

caramelization is unique to beer.

BEYOND COLOR CODING: Just serving a lighter brew with the first

course, an amber with the main and then a dark with dessert is a little

pass, says Charlie Devereux, secretary of the Oregon Brewers Guild

and co-owner of Double Mountain Brewery & Taproom, who sees the

bar being raised by beer dinners. When people come to a beer dinner,

theyre looking for something they might not find at every corner, he

asserts. A recent dinner at the Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River,

Ore., included such dishes as house-made carpaccio, antelope stew and

rabbit with wild mushrooms. These probably worked better with beer

than they would have with wines, Devereux observes.

SMOOTH THE TRANSITION: When Greg Engert of Rustico in

Alexandria, Va., confronts skeptical wine lovers, he opts for what he calls

transitional beers, or beers that are more acidic, perhaps produced in

ways similar to winemaking, via aging or exposure to more

natural yeast.

BE GENTLE: Exploring the world of beer does not involve

the kick of a steel-toed boot. It is a series of gentle nudges,

says Dave Alexander of Washington, D.C.s, Brickskeller and

RFD Beer. You don't create a fan of specialty beers by getting

a Bud drinker to try a Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine, henotes. This dense, fruity and malty brew might be too

intense a flavor leap for those used to the pale stuff. You

learn what the customer likes and introduce the next step

in the flavor profile along his guidelines, suggests

Alexander, pointing to craft-brewed American lager or

German Pilsner as better bets.

ENJOY THE JOURNEY: In any case, when the

customer discovers a new taste, he is not going to stop

liking that taste, says Alexander. As the world of beer

moves into the kitchen, it brings those fans along with it.

Breweries like Iron Hill prove theres a beerstyle for every taste, from hop-heavy IPA to

cask-aged brews with bourbon notes.

IRONHILLBREWERY

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along with ice creams made with stout and

Belgian raspberry and fruity peach beers

inspired the Alexanders, as did the Belgian

cuisine de bire tradition.

Top chefs in Belgium had been cooking

with beer for years, observes Dave Anderson.

It was only natural that American chefs would

sooner or later be drawn in.

The food connection saved many of the

beer-centric restaurants in the late 1990s.

If youre in the brewery-restaurant

business, you have to operate as a restaurant

first, says Edelson. Its what drives people in

and puts them in front of us so we can teach

them about beer.

Craft brewers have stretched their recipes to

include more highly roasted malts as well as

fruits and spices. Some brewers add ingredients

like cocoa nibs to boost the chocolaty quality of

their stouts. In fact, the sky is the limit when it

comes to flavor inspiration. Portland, Maine-

based Peak Organic Brewing Co. produces ales

with far-flung ingredients like coriander, organic

pomegranate and acai and also uses local,

seasonal additions like Maine-grown organic

oats from GrandyOats in Brownfield, Maine,

and organic maple syrup from Vermont.

Brewers also have been emulating Belgian

producers, long cherished for the breadth and

depth of their styles, from frothy and aromatic

wheat beers to intense and challenging lambics,

and elegant, Champagne-like gueuze.

The Brickskeller Dining House & Down Home

Saloon and RFD (Regional Food and Drink)

Washington in Washington, D.C.

The segment went through a heavy

weeding out. The smartest business people

survived, and the guys that had that great India

pale ale recipe were gone. The craft-beer

industry became more savvy.

Craft beer is stronger than ever: In 2007,

craft brewers increased the volume of beer they

sold by 12 percent. There are now 1,420 craft

brewers in the United States, including regional

breweries, microbreweries and brew pubs,

according to the Brewers Association in

Boulder, Colo. As fine-dining restaurants take

on more craft beers, the focus has grown on

pairing food and beer.

At Rustico Restaurant and Bar in

Alexandria, Va., the list of 300-plus beers is

built around the food menu, says Beer Director

Greg Engert.

Dishes with spicy and herbal elements

require hop-assertive beers; hearty game or meat

dishes call for roasty, dark stouts and porters.

But thats only the beginning. Engert looks for

brews tweaked to match each dishs specific

flavor profile; carrying a few Belgian-farmhouse

saison-style beers, for instance, allows him to be

more specific in his recommendations,

depending on a dishs spiciness.

ACQUIRING TASTES

As consumers mature in matters of taste, they

welcome the chance to try more assertive

flavors, says Charlie Devereux, secretary of the

Oregon Brewers Guild and co-owner of Double

Mountain Brewery & Taproom in Hood River,

Ore. It took a little time for people to develop

their palates, he says, but we in Oregon, for

instance, are used to drinking very hoppy beers;

our typical recipes use twice as many hops.

Americans love hops, and America is

known worldwide for hoppy brews, says Iron

Hill Brewerys Edelson. Bitter double IPAs

have become the standard American version.

INGREDIENTS ON TAP

As brewers toyed with more intense flavors,

restaurants like RFD maintained that beer was

being ignored as an ingredient in food.

Whipping up dishes at home like chicken with

artichoke hearts and figs in Anchor Steam Beer,

BEVERAGE TRENDS

Executive Chef PietVanden Hogen ofPelican Pub & Brewery

in Pacific City, Ore.,prepares clams in

Pelicans Kiwanda Creamale for a beer dinner.

PELICAN

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AGING AND ADDING

More craft brewers are starting to age their beers

in new or used barrels, echoing the creativity of

Scotch whisky makers who use casks from

cognac and bourbon distillers and wineries to

finish their spirits.

Aging of beer using bourbon barrels is very

specialized, tough to do and a labor of love, but

theres lots of customer demand, says Edelson.

In February 2009, all Iron Hill locations served

barrel-aged beers on tap, many with bourbon

notes from the aging casks. (Iron Hill serves

only beers it makes.)

The other frontier for todays adventurous

brewers is yeast, as they tinker with wild

varieties that can add phenolic notes like clove

or fruit esters during fermentation.

As breweries develop a market for barrel-aged

and higher-alcohol-content beers, they become

even more experimental. Roots Organic Brewing

Co. in Portland, Ore., offers Epic Ale, which

comes in at 14 percent alcohol and is made with

malt smoked over cherrywood soaked in Scotch

whisky, cognac and cherries. Obviously, with

beers like this, the range of flavors widens, and

potential food matches increase.

With brewers innovating and chefs

responding to new pairing opportunities, one

trend seems to drive the other. It is now

common to see chefs working to pair dishes

with intensely bitter ales or making desserts that

go with chocolaty stouts.

The [brewing] industry has made great

strides in terms of quality, variety and

sophistication of product, says Devereux. In

terms of flavor, chefs and specialization, the

foodservice and brewing industries have a lot

in common. &

JACK ROBERTIELLO writes about

spirits, cocktails, wine, beer and food from

Brooklyn, N.Y.; he can be e-mailed at

[email protected].

BEVERAGE TRENDS

Deschutes Brewery and

Brew Pubs of Bend, Ore.,have been educatingcustomers about craftbrews and beer-enhancedcuisine for 20 years.

DESCHUT

ESBREWERY

AN

HEUSER-BUSCH

HOP ALONG: Americans love hops; offer refreshing, hop-heavy

beers to pair with spicy foodsTAKE A LOW RISK: Add a few unusualbottled beers as LTOs to bring newattention, seasonality and flavordescriptors to your bar scene

TAP POTENTIAL: Sip-sized samplesof beer on tap are an affordable wayto introduce new choices and open adialogue between servers and guests

AGE WELL: Consider adding a cask-aged beer to the mix for flavor andfor a good story

T A K E - A W A Y T I P S

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