Beer pairing dinners show that ale isn’t just for frat boys
On the second floor of the Buck Hotel, in Feasterville, no one was thinking about “great taste, less filling,” “cold filtered,” or “superior drinkability” — whatever that means.
Rather, people gathered to take in a slew of craft beers, each complimented by a dish cooked up by the hotel’s executive chef. It’s a trend that’s been growing in the past ten years or so — leaving behind the big, internationally owned breweries in favor of homegrown suds.
Neil Harner, editorial director of “Philly Beer Scene” magazine, helped put this series of dinners together at the hotel. Prior to putting out his first edition of the magazine last spring, Harner held a small beer festival at the hotel and conspired with the hotel’s chef to hold some larger dinners; each one showcases a specific brewery. The Sept. 23 event was the fourth in the series, and highlighted beer from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., out of Chico, Calif.
Wearing a T-shirt promoting his magazine, Harner walked around the dining area, making last-minute tweaks with the chef and the Sierra Nevada beer rep. Harner calls himself a “beer geek,” and is quick to differentiate the phrase from “beer snob.” A craft beer lover for about five years, Harner, who owns a Web and graphic design studio in Bristol, said he and his friends realized that while there are a lot of publications dedicated to beer, none of them is reaching out to a targeted area. And with the number of breweries in and around Philadelphia, he and his friends launched “Philly Beer Scene.”
But who cares that much about beer?
Drinking craft beers is one of the largest growing beverage trends in the country, if not the largest, Harner said. And the reason is simple.
“People are beginning to appreciate the flavor,” he said. “Even college kids that were buying $10 cases of beer are beginning to experiment and are saying, ‘Maybe I should get the $20 case because I’ll enjoy it more.’ Microbreweries have only become really huge since the mid ’90s, and it’s only really escalated to such an amazing point in the last ten years.”
Patrick Mullin, sales representative for Sierra Nevada, the largest privately-owned craft brewery in the country, said when the Chico-based company opened 29 years ago, it was only one of 44 breweries in the country, and as of a month ago, there were 1,527 breweries.
“Just in the last 30 years, we’ve seen that kind of growth,” Mullin said. “We just surpassed the largest number of breweries that we’ve had in the country since prohibition, but we’re still well behind pre-prohibition levels.”
Craft beer sales are up 6 percent this year while larger domestic beer sales are a little flat, and the imports are suffering, likely due to their high price. And agreeing with Harner, and said it comes down to taste.
“I do find once you develop a taste for a better beer, it’s hard to go in the other direction,” he said. “People will make sacrifices elsewhere in their budget, but they’ll still pay for good beer.”
The good beers on the docket Sept. 23 were Sierra Nevada’s newly released Belgian Trippel, which is a little spicy and dry according to Mullin; the company’s Pale Ale, which accounts for half of its sales; a light, citrusy and floral Harvest Ale; a Kellerweis Hefeweizen; and the brewery’s porter, with dessert.
While the room was being set up, Joe Gudonis, the executive chef, was talking things over with Mullin – what he used in each dish, and what he thought about the pairings.
“Joe [Gudonis] was really calling me fairly regularly, asking about flavor profiles, I gave him a couple of samples, he was on our Web site looking at the way we describe our beer, and checking out the specs,” Mullin said. “We spent quite a bit of time figuring out how each one would match up.”
Gudonis, who labeled himself “a complete beer guy,” started by serving hors d’oeuvres with the Belgian Trippel; paired the Pale Ale with a California artisan pizza with artichokes, red peppers and brie cheese; the Kellerweis Hefeweizen went with a shrimp and crab salad with a lemon vinaigrette; the Harvest Ale was paired with a bacon-wrapped achiote marinated filet, and the porter teamed up with a Mexican brownie with cinnamon chipotle gelato.
“With the Sierra Nevada beers, I wanted the menu to have a California-feel to it,” Gudonis said.
And while it seems that wineries are trying to shake the image of elitism and snobbery, small breweries are trying to do the opposite by trying to break people away from thinking beer is relegated to NASCAR events, frat parties and sitting on the couch with a bag of chips.
“There’s almost a preconceived notion that beer is a common-man’s alcohol, where wine, ports and those higher-end liquors like Scotch are classy,” Harner said. “Those same people who have looked at beer the wrong way are now realizing that there are some really high-end beers. When you can buy a bottle of beer for $60 or $70, and you can probably enjoy it as much as a bottle of wine, if not more, people begin to look at it in a whole new perspective.”
The next in the series of beer-pairing events will be held at the Buck Hotel Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $45 and will feature beer from Bavarian Barbarian, out of Williamsport. For more information, visit beerscenemag.com or www.thebuckhotel.com.
Neil Harner, editorial director of “Philly Beer Scene” magazine, helped put this series of dinners together at the hotel. Prior to putting out his first edition of the magazine last spring, Harner held a small beer festival at the hotel and conspired with the hotel’s chef to hold some larger dinners; each one showcases a specific brewery. The Sept. 23 event was the fourth in the series, and highlighted beer from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., out of Chico, Calif.
Wearing a T-shirt promoting his magazine, Harner walked around the dining area, making last-minute tweaks with the chef and the Sierra Nevada beer rep. Harner calls himself a “beer geek,” and is quick to differentiate the phrase from “beer snob.” A craft beer lover for about five years, Harner, who owns a Web and graphic design studio in Bristol, said he and his friends realized that while there are a lot of publications dedicated to beer, none of them is reaching out to a targeted area. And with the number of breweries in and around Philadelphia, he and his friends launched “Philly Beer Scene.”
But who cares that much about beer?
Drinking craft beers is one of the largest growing beverage trends in the country, if not the largest, Harner said. And the reason is simple.
“People are beginning to appreciate the flavor,” he said. “Even college kids that were buying $10 cases of beer are beginning to experiment and are saying, ‘Maybe I should get the $20 case because I’ll enjoy it more.’ Microbreweries have only become really huge since the mid ’90s, and it’s only really escalated to such an amazing point in the last ten years.”
Patrick Mullin, sales representative for Sierra Nevada, the largest privately-owned craft brewery in the country, said when the Chico-based company opened 29 years ago, it was only one of 44 breweries in the country, and as of a month ago, there were 1,527 breweries.
“Just in the last 30 years, we’ve seen that kind of growth,” Mullin said. “We just surpassed the largest number of breweries that we’ve had in the country since prohibition, but we’re still well behind pre-prohibition levels.”
Craft beer sales are up 6 percent this year while larger domestic beer sales are a little flat, and the imports are suffering, likely due to their high price. And agreeing with Harner, and said it comes down to taste.
“I do find once you develop a taste for a better beer, it’s hard to go in the other direction,” he said. “People will make sacrifices elsewhere in their budget, but they’ll still pay for good beer.”
The good beers on the docket Sept. 23 were Sierra Nevada’s newly released Belgian Trippel, which is a little spicy and dry according to Mullin; the company’s Pale Ale, which accounts for half of its sales; a light, citrusy and floral Harvest Ale; a Kellerweis Hefeweizen; and the brewery’s porter, with dessert.
While the room was being set up, Joe Gudonis, the executive chef, was talking things over with Mullin – what he used in each dish, and what he thought about the pairings.
“Joe [Gudonis] was really calling me fairly regularly, asking about flavor profiles, I gave him a couple of samples, he was on our Web site looking at the way we describe our beer, and checking out the specs,” Mullin said. “We spent quite a bit of time figuring out how each one would match up.”
Gudonis, who labeled himself “a complete beer guy,” started by serving hors d’oeuvres with the Belgian Trippel; paired the Pale Ale with a California artisan pizza with artichokes, red peppers and brie cheese; the Kellerweis Hefeweizen went with a shrimp and crab salad with a lemon vinaigrette; the Harvest Ale was paired with a bacon-wrapped achiote marinated filet, and the porter teamed up with a Mexican brownie with cinnamon chipotle gelato.
“With the Sierra Nevada beers, I wanted the menu to have a California-feel to it,” Gudonis said.
And while it seems that wineries are trying to shake the image of elitism and snobbery, small breweries are trying to do the opposite by trying to break people away from thinking beer is relegated to NASCAR events, frat parties and sitting on the couch with a bag of chips.
“There’s almost a preconceived notion that beer is a common-man’s alcohol, where wine, ports and those higher-end liquors like Scotch are classy,” Harner said. “Those same people who have looked at beer the wrong way are now realizing that there are some really high-end beers. When you can buy a bottle of beer for $60 or $70, and you can probably enjoy it as much as a bottle of wine, if not more, people begin to look at it in a whole new perspective.”
The next in the series of beer-pairing events will be held at the Buck Hotel Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $45 and will feature beer from Bavarian Barbarian, out of Williamsport. For more information, visit beerscenemag.com or www.thebuckhotel.com.
