The Naked Pint (57 page)

First, make sure you have food readily available at a tasting. And have something substantial, not just fruit and veggies; some sort of bread, like a baguette, is good for soaking up alcohol. Second, be sure to have loads of water around, and put it out on the table, right next to the beer. People will get a bit parched when drinking alcohol, but if water isn’t in front of them, they may forget to drink it. Do some sparkling water if you want to keep it classy. If you are doing a beer dinner, have a separate glass for water and several bottles of sparkling on the table, or a pitcher of regular water. And if no one fills their water glasses, do it yourself after the first few courses. You don’t have to be a mom about it, just think of it as being a gracious host.

When hosting a beer tasting, be sure to tell people to treat it as a wine tasting, spitting out or dumping beers after they’ve tasted. This is tough to enforce, but keep the dump buckets out there, and do it yourself to get the ball rolling. Usually people will find one or two beers that they will drink in their entirety, which is great—they’ve found their new favorite—but not every beer will be, so encourage the dump. The best way to make sure no one goes overboard is to pour the correct amount for a tasting or beer dinner: a three- to four-ounce pour. This may seem skimpy to some of your more lushy guests, but assure them that there is plenty of beer coming, and that you don’t want drunkenness to dull their senses. This should get them excited and encourage restraint.

Some signs of drunkenness we’ve learned to look for from years in the restaurant biz are the following: slurred speech, red eyes, inability to focus, swaying, dropping drinks, and taking off one’s shirt and singing George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” If you’ve done all you can, and everyone still hit the sauce a little too hard, take their keys, call them a cab, offer them the couch, or give them a ride if you are sober. As embarrassing as this may be for you and your guest, it’s actually brave, noble, and far better than the alternatives.

S
o remember what a huge hit your beer-tasting party was? Well, your beer-pairing dinner is about to blow it out of the water. It’s true that beer dinners are significantly more work, but they are oh so worth it. As we mentioned in Chapter 8, pairing beer with food can be a truly rewarding experience. In the greatest pairings, not only does the beer enhance the food but the food enhances the beer. A beer dinner is the time for these pairings to shine. It’s a sort of seduction into craft beer, and if done well, your guests will be true beer lovers after the first course.

Think outside the box. Many beer-pairing dinners get trapped in a category, like German beers paired with German food or Belgian beers paired with Belgian food. While that’s all fine and dandy, pairing beer, with all of its varieties and complexities, begs the act of rebellion. As we said, there are no real rules. Cook an Italian or French meal and instead of the wine, pair each course with a beer. Heresy! Experiment with Asian dishes and Belgian-style beers. Shocking! Go nuts and serve some courses that are cooked with beer as an ingredient (see Chapter 8), and then pair them with a different beer! What? That’s crazy! The beer-pairing world is yours to explore.

Like the beer-tasting party, make sure that you have clean glassware, that you serve your beer at the right temperature, and that you have dump buckets readily available. Also, make sure not to “soak” your guests. It’s a good idea to stick to six or fewer food courses, serving your guests no more than four ounces of beer for each course, and again, keep water on the table. Different, though, from the beer-tasting party, the dinner is more of a sensory experience and less of a classroom. It’s good to be armed with knowledge about the beer pairings, and it’s still a great idea to print out the menu and information about the beers for guests to take home. But this is not teaching time; this is close your eyes and appreciate time. This is the time to step onto the starship
Sensory Voyager
.

Here is a menu from a beer dinner we hosted. We encourage you to be inventive.

CRAFT LOS ANGELES

 

 

Chef de cuisine Matthew Accarrino and pastry chef Catherine Schimenti developed this amazing menu, and Christina picked the beers used for cooking and pairing and led guests through the dinner held at
Top Chef
head judge Tom Colicchio’s renowned restaurant, Craft Los Angeles. The dinner was sponsored by the National Beer Wholesalers Association. Take note of the way the beers are paired with the food in sometimes contrasting, sometimes complementary, and sometimes surprising ways—but always tasty. In our experience, even seasoned foodies are usually blown away by a thoughtful beer pairing. Attendees at beer-pairing dinners are almost always amazed at the variety that encompasses beer as well as how wonderfully beer pairs with more refined food.

 

 

Chimay Cinq Cent and Guinea Hen Consommé with Hop Foam

Paired with good old Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

 

This lemony and herbaceous Trappist beer was a perfect accompaniment to the golden consommé, which, topped with the white hop foam, looked exactly like a mini pint of beer.

 

 

Kampachi, Hitachino White Ale Gelée, Crispy Hen of the Woods Mushrooms, Heirloom Apple, and Sorrel

 

Paired with Unibroue Blanche de Chambly

 

Chef Accarrino made a gelée out of the Hitachino Witbier, creating a concentrated solid beer cube, which was somehow still effervescent. The concentrated flavors of apricot and other stone fruits married wonderfully with the raw kampachi and the heirloom apples in the sauce.

 

 

Beer-Braised Pekin Duck Pyramid Pasta and Spiced Pine Nuts

 

Paired with Deschutes Black Butte Porter

 

This pairing was sick! The earthiness of the duck stuffed in succulent pyramid pockets with roasted, spicy, and grassy pine nuts harmonized perfectly with this delicate smoky and toasty Porter.

 

 

Roasted Suzuki, Saison DuPont-Braised Mussels, Japanese Leeks, and Dry Cured Chorizo

 

Paired with Saison DuPont

 

See page 194 for the chef’s notes on why this is an amazing pairing.

 

 

Mothais Goat Cheese, Quince Crepe, Lambic Gastrique, and Frisée

 

Paired with Cantillon Iris Gueuze

 

This may have been the best pairing of the evening. This special cheese was aged in 100% humidity, making for one funky dairy product. Paired with the barnyard, earthy, immensely sour, and bone-dry unblended Lambic Ale—forget about it. This was a truly inspired combination.

 

 

Young’s Double Chocolate Stout Beer Cake

 

Salted Corn Nuts and Reissdorf Kölsch Ale Sorbet

 

Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale Chocolates

 

Blackberry and Peach Lambic Jell-O Shots

 

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout Float

 

We love beer and dessert pairings. This one knocked it out of the park and really showed how beer could be used in massively creative ways. James Beard Award nominee pastry chef Catherine Schimenti made a cake, sorbet, chocolates, Jell-O shots, and an ice cream float, all using beer and all delicious.

D
o you want to be known as Dr. Beer? Sir Brews-a-lot? The Honor able Master of Ale? Queen of the Malt? Well, that’s never going to happen. We aren’t quite saving people’s lives here (though we are vastly improving them) or curing diseases, so don’t expect to be knighted because of your beer knowledge (unless you live in Belgium, where they do that for real). You may be asked to preside as a beer judge at a beer festival, but don’t show up in robes with a gavel. Look, we chose the terms
beer expert
and
beer sommelier
because when we started, there wasn’t really a word for what we do. There is no all-encompassing term for someone who can guide you on a quality Beer Journey, create inspiring beer pairings, or professionally host a beer dinner, so we just chose what we thought made sense. So if you’re looking for a beer sommelier box on job surveys, don’t hold your breath. And there are many respectable beer writers, experts, lovers, and brewers who have never been certified, so don’t think that this is something you have to do to be a valued member of the craft beer world.

There is a way to get some respect in the upper echelons of the beer world, however, but they involve a dreaded four-letter word:
test
. So if you want to prove to the world that you know enough about beer to school anyone, crack the books and brew the coffee—it’s time to cram. You can take a beer equivalent of the famous master wine sommelier test, and there are a few choices.