Beer Events; Crane Alley Merchant du Vin Dinner wrapup

The dinner last night was great. Good food, good beer, good people.

The dinner started with a salad with Anchovy filets, Kalamata olives and fried capers. This was served with a Samuel Smiths Winter Welcome. While I don't normally like that beer, it seemed to go really good with the salty pieces in the salad. The beer also seemed to be a little less spiced than I remember it previously. I'll have to give it another try.

The second course was three different sushi's. The first was a white tuna, the second was a smoked roe, the third was a baked eel. This was served with ayinger Brau Weiss. This wound up being my least favorite pairing of the night. I thought the seafood might have gone better with a Gueuze, and I mentioned that to Aaron, and he said they also thought that, but didn't want to put two lambic's on the menu. Other people there, who were more familiar with sushi, thought this was the best pairing of the night. So, if I became more familiar with sushi, I might have liked it better.

The third course was oven roasted cornish game hen, over quinoa, with green, purple and white asparagus. This was served with Orval. Prior to the presentation of each beer, the Merchant du Vin distributor (Brian Van Zandbergen, I believe) spoke about each beer. For Orval, he gave a history of the beer, described it, and also told the romantic version of Dame Mathilda's ring (with the caveat, that it's most likely not true).

The hen with the beer was outstanding. The quinoa (that I've never had before, but read about from 3D) was great. The three asparagus, were really interesting to note the flavor differences in. The purple almost had a chlorine flavor to me, and reminded me of swimming. Kriddy's didn't have that same flavor, so I don't know why mine had that.

The fourth course was buffalo shank with wild mushroom risotto. This was served with both Rochefort 8 and 10. This was an outstanding course (sorry no picture). We got to try both side by side. The 8 was definitely sweeter than the 10, but the 10 seemed to go better with the meat, as it wasn't as sweet as the 8. Several other people in attendance agreed with me on that.

The next course was the first of the deserts. This wsa a pastry shell stuffed with jalapeno-marscapone, topped with honey pecan drizzle. It was served with Lindeman's Pomme. The marscapone was surprisingly spicy, and held the heat of the jalapeno well. The pomme cut right through that and was a nice compliment of apple to the desert. I don't think I've ever had a spicy desert before, other than maybe having a slice of cake on my plate where there was some residual tobasco sauce on it, but this was outstanding.

The final beer and food for the night was Sam Smiths Oatmeal Stout, served over Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. It was a Sam Smiths Oatmeal Stout float. Kriddy was in heaven, one of her favorite beers, served over ice cream. On the side were strawberries dipped in dark chocolate fondue. I only had one bite of the ice cream, then passed the rest on to Kriddy. I did drink all my beer though.

It was a good meal. I was thinking I would go away hungry after looking at the first two courses, that appeared tiny, but by the end of the hen, Kriddy was getting full, and I was starting to slow down as well. If the portions were much larger, it would have been almost too much food. (Although a good soup before or after the salad would have been a nice touch). If this becomes a once a month event, like Aaron expects it to be, it would make a pretty good "date night" for a couple. It was a little pricey at $60 a person, but the food was not your average bar food, and was darn good.

The next beer dinner will be with Lefthand Brewery. Upcoming beer dinners will be with Unibroue (makers of la fin du monde), Rogue (makers of Dead Guy) and Aaron claims the one "not to be missed" will be the Dogfish Head dinner.