Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Marin Brewing Beer Dinner at Noonan’s

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It’s definitely beer dinner season, and that’s a very good thing. The next one in the Bay Area will feature Arne Johnson’s beers from Marin Brewing Co.. It will be a four-course dinner and should be well worth the $69 price of admission. It will be held at the Noonan’s Bar & Grill in Larkspur (across from the ferry landing) on Thursday, October 18, 2007, beginning with a reception at 7:00 p.m. Call 415.342.1592 for more information and reservations. I’ll see you there.

 

The Menu:

 

Reception: 7:00 PM

A Trio of Tostada: Nopalitos, Mixed Seafood Ceviche, Beef Salpicon

Beer: Mt. Tam Pale Ale

Dinner: 7:30 PM

First Course

Avocado/Cabbage Salad with margarita marinated prawns and citrus vinaigrette

Beer: Tiburon Blonde

Second Course:

Pork Mole Empañadas with fresh cotija cheese

Beer: Pt. Reyes Porter

Third Course:

Petaluma Duck Breast with Pale Ale braised beet greens, sage & queso fresco polenta and ancho chili orange sauce

Beer: White Knuckle

Fourth Course:

Oàxaca Molten Chocolate Cake, served ala mode with coconut ice cream

Beer: Barrel Aged Quad

Arne and me at another Brewer’s Dinner, this one at last year’s GABF.

 
10.18

Marin Brewing Beer Dinner with Arne Johnson

Noonan’s Bar and Grill, 2233 Larkspur Landing Circle, Larkspur, California
415.342.1592 [ event website ]
 

More on Blogging Ethics

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I was away this weekend at the Northern California Homebrewers Festival and — gasp — had no internet access for two whole days. As a result I missed the Wall Street Journal article about ethics among food bloggers that ran in Saturday’s paper entitled The Price of a Four-Star Rating. Luckily, more than a few people sent me a link to it (thanks, you know who you are) given my recent musings and ramblings on The Ethical Blogging Debate. There are certainly a few parallels to our own issues and it makes for interesting reading, assuming you enjoyed the initial forays into the subject here and at Stonch’s Beer Blog and A Good Beer Blog. There’s also a related WSJ article that lists ten popular restaurant review sites and their general ethical policies.
 

Session #8: Food and Beer

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Our eighth Session, hosted by Captain Hops at Beer Haiku Daily, involves the pairing of beer with food, a subject near and dear to my heart. I have been persuaded by extensive testing — better known as eating — that beer and food go together far better than wine will for the average meal. Oh, I’ll grant you that there are fine pairings that can be made with wine, but a diet of heavier flavors, potent seasonings and meat dishes will yield to beer’s superior ability to cut through this complex and thickly rich mélange of tastes. There are many people to thank for that awareness, from Michael Jackson to Garrett Oliver to Bruce Paton.

Friday night, I was happy enough to be invited to the 10th annual beer dinner at the Northern California Homebrewers Festival held at Lake Francis Resort in Dobbins, California. It was put on by Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef and ran to six courses. And many of the courses had several dishes, too, so the amount of food was truly staggering. Sean went all out for his tenth anniversary dinner. And with eight great beers being paired, it was sure to be a memorable evening. I had come with the entire family and because the weather had grown quite cold, we were all bundled up and brought our appetities, ready to eat. We were not disappointed. Chef Sean Paxton deserves much praise for not only his pairings, but also using the beer in the dishes, as well. When you consider the entire dinner was accomplished by amateurs, the achievement is all the more impressive. But enough praise, here’s a nutshell account of the evening’s culinary and fermented delights. But before we can begin, a haiku is both necessary and appropriate:

Pairing food and beer
To compliment or contrast
That is the question

Our chef for the evening, Sean Paxton, addresses the hungry and thirsty crowd.

The beer paired with our first course, a Belgian endive salad, was Watermelon Funk, a collaboration between 21st Amendment Brewery and Russian River Brewing. This is perhaps the fourth time I’ve had this beer and it just keeps getting better, it’s too bad it’s virtually all gone. Here Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River tells the beer’s story in humorous fashion. They took a barrel of Shaun O’Sullivan’s popular Watermelon Wheat and aged it in an oak barrel, sparking it with brettanomyces. It worked nicely with the crisp flavors of the salad, especially the pomegranate seeds.

I sat with Vinnie Cilurzo at the dinner and happily he brought along a few extra beers for the table. Here my wife Sarah holds up one my personal favorites: The Damnation Batch 23.

A bit unusual for the typical beer dinner, but — and I can’t stress this enough — Frittes should become de rigeur for every beer dinner. You can just never have enough frittes for my tastes. Served with two kinds of aioli sauce (Duvel Shiso Aioli and Fou’ Foune Aioli), Sean’s frittes were spectacular.

Two of the other beers served at the dinner were brewed by these two gentlemen, Peter Hoey, from Sacramento Brewing, and Todd Ashman, from Fifty Fifty Brewing.

We weren’t the only ones thrilled that Vinne brought some of his beers along with him. Matt Bryndilson, from Firestone Walker Brewing, kisses a bottle of Russian River’s Toronado 20th Anniversary Ale.

Piping hot steamed mussels, steamed in beer that is. They were Prince Edward Island mussels, with shallots and thyme steamed in homebrewed wit, which was also the beer paired with them. Delicious!

For the vegetarians among us, pumpkin steamed in beer topped with spinach, sorrel, parsley and a Japanese mint (that Sean had grown in his garden). Yum.

At this point I got too busy eating and drinking and forgot to keep taking pictures of the food. The next beer was one of the GABF Pro-Am beers for this year. It was brewed at 21st Amendment Brewery and was Jamil Zainasheff’s award winning Belgian Strong Dark, which he named The Beer Hunter. It was paired with a thick stew of a dish, Les Carbonnade Flamandes, which Sean described as a Flemish stew cooked with beef, lamb, dark candy syrup cured bacon, leeks, shallots, thyme and, of course, the Belgian Strong Dark beer. It was piping hot and very rich. In the cold October night air, it warmed our souls.

An extra treat, Sean created a sorbet-like dish at our table using liquid nitrogen.

Much to the delight of my daughter Alice.

Sean stirring the sorbet looked more like a scene from Halloween than a restaurant. But the sorbet was delicious.

The fourth course paired Peter Hoey’s sour mashed farmhouse style saison with a Waterzooi, described as a classic Ghent milk stew made with cod, leeks, fennel, onions, shallots, saison, milk and herbs. A very nice saison, it worked well with the complex and diverse flavors of the stew.

The fifth course paired two beers from Russian River, Sanctification and Temptation, with two amazing dishes, duck legs cooked in a brett blonde and beer-braised veal cheeks. These were served with Brussels sprouts cooked in brown butter and nutmeg and cauliflower gratin, which had been blanced in an ale and topped with a Gruyere cheese sauce. Also, there was a bier risotto made with heirloom tomatoes and pearl barley served with a sauce made up of Temptation, lobster mushrooms and roasted thyme shallots. There were just so many different tastes going on here it made your head swim. Luckily the two Russian River beers cleared your head as they cleansed your palate so that each subsequent bite could be enjoyed as much as the first one.

Finally, the dessert course had two sweet pairings. First there was Todd Ashman’s Trifecta Belgian Style Tripel, from his new brewery in Truckee, California, Fifty Fifty Brewing. It went with a vanilla bean tripel infused pot de creme, a very creamy dessert using Todd’s beer along with vanilla beans infused into cream and slowly cooked in a water bath. If that sounded too light, then there were the dark chocolate framboise truffles. Sean took a Brendan’s wisky barrel and filled it with porter and dark chocolate, spiked it with Brettanomyces and let it age for seven months before blending it with Thirsty Bear’s Golden Hallucination and Brown Bear. It was served with Brendan Dobbel’s Thirsty Bear Menage a Framboise. I could have eaten these all night, as full as I was, because they were so damn good. I just kept telling myself with each one, “they’re wafer thin,” which, though a lie dead surely, allowed me eat as many as I possibly could guilt free.

After the dinner, chef Sean Paxton and my wife, Sarah, share a hug.
 

Critiquing the Critiquers

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olympia
The tagline from one of my favorite graphic novels, The Watchmen by Alan Moore, is “Who Watches the Watchmen,” which itself is taken from one of the Roman writer Juvenal’s Satires. The notion of who keeps honest the people entrusted to keep people honest is as relevant today — and possibly more so — as it was in First Century Rome when Juvenal first penned the phrase. With blogs this is done quite simply, with the blogosphere policing itself, in effect, as we endlessly comment on one another’s work. This often leads to a healthy exchange of ideas and is personally one of my favorite aspects of writing online.

oly-cakes

Back in July, I picked up on a item from the Oakland Tribune in which staff food writer Steve Dulas wrote about making pancakes with Olympia Beer, insisting it must be Oly or nothing. I didn’t think it would make much of a difference, and said so in my own post about Oly Pancakes.

Over at SF Weekly there’s a regular blog called The Snitch written by Joe Eskenazi and at the same time he also questioned the Oly mandate and tried making the pancakes using different beers for comparison. At the time I wrote my post, I commented on both the original piece from the Oakland Tribune along with The Snitch’s take. As what goes around, comes around, the Snitch today made my critique the story of the day.

In Joe’s original take on this story, he felt that Arthur Guinness would roll over in his grave should anyone have the temerity to try using his Irish stout for making pancakes. I took exception to that and this time around The Snitch tried making pancakes with Guinness, just to see if Artie’s ghost would indeed haunt him, and the results are as funny as they are illuminating. I just love the circular nature of the internet, it reminds of … well, pancakes. Well done, Joe, now I’m hungry again.

Guinness’ Latest “What Were They Thinking”

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. What the hell is Diageo doing with the Guinness brand? Are they trying to kill it, make it a mockery of its former self, or insult their customers even more than they already have? If so, they’re succeeding brilliantly. Diageo was created out of the merger between Grand Metropolitan and Guinness ten years ago. The new name was chosen for reasons passing understanding. Why take two recognizable names and trash them in favor of a new one nobody knows? The word Diageo came from the Latin word for ‘day’ and the Greek word for ‘world’. Apparently they couldn’t even make up their minds about what language to create the new company name from.

At any rate, over the last decade Diageo has displayed no respect whatsoever to the legacy, history or taste of the original Irish stout. Guinness had been brewing beer at St. James’s Gate in Dublin since 1759, with stout production beginning several years later, and now they’re even considering closing the brewery. Then there’s the $13 million widget bottle abomination that in 2001 tried to convince people to drink out of the bottle after all, setting the cause of better back again in the process. More recently, they’ve introduced “Extra Cold Guinness,” another useless novelty, and the test marketing of “Guinness Red” in England last year. The latest assault on their brand is “a plate-shaped device called the ‘Surger.’”

For a mere $25, Guinness wholesalers can stop selling Guinness on draft. Instead, they’ll pour it into a pint glass and put in on the “Surger.” Then “the bartender pushes a button to activate sound waves, which course through the liquid creating gas bubbles and ultimately the familiar cascading effect typical of a Guinness pint poured from draught.” One east coast distributor liked the idea, saying. “It gives me a new talking point that I can bring to my customers which is good for us.” Yes, forget about the beer itself, we need more talking points. This same guy “foresees the Surger eventually becoming available to consumers so they can drink a draught-like Guinness at home.”

Brandweek is spinning it like this. “One facet of marketing these days is to create an experience for the consumer. So Diageo will marry its new “Alive Inside” advertising message about the Guinness pour with a plate-shaped device called the ‘Surger.'” Given that there’s another, more important “surge” going on in the middle east involving more American soldiers fighting, was “the Surger” really the best Diageo could come up with? I always marvel at how the large companies strategize over their advertising and marketing messages. I suspect it’s embedded into the culture of big business, and in particular marketing, that nobody says “no” if the boss likes it or if a committee came up with it, once more proving that “group think” is a terrible danger. I always assume there’s some lone voice in the back, not being heard, saying “but what about the beer?” That guy will undoubtedly be fired within the week.

Here’s one of the new “Alive Inside” television spots:

Again, I must be the most out-of-step, uncool guy in the universe, because I find that ad more than a little creepy. Oh, I’ll grant you the music is slick and the effects are cool. But I can’t get past the idea that when I take that first sip, a million tiny men in white suits will be swimming down my throat. Yuck. It’s alive inside! What a terrible allusion to make. Isn’t that going to make the beer crunchy? Yeah, I know I shouldn’t take it so literally, but that’s how I roll. See, uncool to the bitter end.

 

A Sad, Sad Sight

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My friend Melissa, who brews at Drake’s, sent me a link to the BBC’s Day in Pictures, commenting simply. “That’s a sad sad sight.”

And I see what she means. Although there aren’t too many details about the photos apart from the caption, it’s the sort of thing you hate to see no matter what the circumstances.

Indonesian officials destroy alcohol confiscated from unlicensed stores in Jakarta.
 

MADD Takes On Gladys Kravitz Role

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The Florida chapter of the neo-prohibitionist group MADD is trying a novel approach to keep everyone but the teetotalers off the street: become Gladys Kravitz. If that doesn’t ring a bell, she was the very nosy neighbor on the 60’s-era television show Bewitched. Not only did she watch through the curtains from across the street, but also on occasion stalked Samantha and Darrin Stevens’ house, peering in the windows, looking for proof that “something was going on.” It seems that watching the neighbors was all she did, having little time left to live her own life outside of her singular pursuit.

In Tampa, MADD volunteers are set to test a pilot program throughout Hillsborough County called the Traffic Observation Program, with Florida’s executive director for MADD, Don Murray, hoping to take the program statewide.

Here’s how the St. Petersburg Times describes how the program would work:

Recruit 20 volunteers armed with donated cell phones and send them out in the middle of the night to watch for telltale signs of drunk drivers.

Murray envisions a program that will pair up community members who are willing to go through a screening process, including a criminal background check and an interview to ensure that those going out on the streets have proper training and experience.

“This isn’t like a vigilante program,” Murray said. “They won’t be attempting to stop or in any way interacting with these vehicles. They’re basically just observers.”

Volunteers will go out in teams. They will drive their own vehicles and take GPS equipment, so they’ll be able to find their way through unfamiliar areas for two to four hours of searching, Murray said. They’ll be told ahead of time of the sometimes-subtle clues for drunk drivers, such as driving under the speed limit or lingering too long at a green light, Murray said.

If participants spot a suspicious driver, they will jot down the license plate, a vehicle description and a location and notify the Sheriff’s Office. It’s up to the deputy to check out the vehicle to determine whether an arrest is appropriate, Murray said.

MADD’s New Watchdog Program

 Maybe it’s just me, but when I have my kids in the car, I do drive slower, usually the speed limit, which in hurried California is almost always slower than the flow of traffic. So that would make me a target of drunken suspicion? Or if I don’t immediately peel out of an intersection during the fraction of a second when the light turns green, I’m a possible drunk driver? Maybe Florida has changed a lot since the last time I was there, but there used to be a disproportionately aged population, who tend to drive somewhat slower as a rule, at least in my experience. Under such conditions, I don’t see how driving slow will be much of a tip to anything, except perhaps to harass the more careful drivers in Tampa. Maybe all the slow drivers will become disillusioned over being wrongly accused all the time and begin driving faster to avoid MADD’s critical gaze. Now wouldn’t that make the roads less safe?

But most kidding aside, despite Murray’s protests to the contrary, this very much is a vigilante program. Giving anti-alcohol groups the power to lurk around and report anyone they want to local authorities who are already pre-disposed to take their side is a very bad idea in an increasingly police state. To me, this just has “bad idea” written all over it. Who wants to live in a society where you’re always looking over your shoulder and never being sure who you can trust or who might turn you in if you happen to accidentally stumble?

One of the rationalizations for this program that MADD’s John Murray gives is a concern that potential budget cuts would reduce the number of police officers on the road. This, to me, is a great illustration of how out of whack neo-prohibitionist priorities are. He’s not worried that a reduced police force would have a harder time contending with drive-by shootings, road rage, murder, robbery, rape, domestic disputes, or any of the things normal people might worry about. No, to MADD, less police means more alcohol drinkers might slip through the icy fingers of justice. That’s the biggest problem facing our society, that John or Jane Doe have one drink too many and drive home too slowly. These people need some perspective, and they need to get a life. Please, close the damn curtains.

 

WhiskyFest Pouring Into San Francisco

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If you’re a regular Bulletin reader you might think I drink nothing except beer, but that’s not at all true. I enjoy many different alcoholic beverages such as wine, especially heavy reds and fortified wines like Late Bottled Vintage Port, along with sake, hard cider, gin and other spirits. But I’m especially fond of whisky and, naturally, single malt scotch though I don’t generally write about it because my knowledge of it is restricted to that of happy amateur. I’ve skimmed Michael Jackson’s book Whisky, Jim Murray’s and a few others but generally I leave it to the experts. Happily, I know a few of them. One is John Hansell who’s been in the business for going on twenty-five years now and for many of them has been publishing Malt Advocate magazine, undoubtedly the best American whisky periodical. He also recently started a blog on the world of whisky called What Does John Know? My good friends Stephen Beaumont and Lew Bryson also write regularly for Malt Advocate.

Malt Advocate has been putting on tasting and educational events called WhiskyFests in New York and Chicago for a number of years, and this year they’re finally coming to San Francisco. WhiskyFest is exactly like it sounds, a festival where you can sample whisky and other libations, but it also includes an educational component with a number of speakers. And not only that, it will be the biggest whisky event in the country. If you love whisky, join me at WhiskyFest. It should be a blast.

It will take place in three weeks, on October 23 from 6:30-10:00 pm at the Hyatt Regency at 5 Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco. Tickets are $105 for regular admission or $145 for VIP admission, which gets you in an hour earlier. Tickets include all sampling, speakers and a gourmet buffet. You can get advance tickets online at Malt Advocate or by phone at 800.610.MALT.

From the website:

What will be poured?

More than 250 of the world’s finest and rarest whiskies will be available for sampling, featuring premium single malt and blended Scotch whiskies, the best bourbons and Tennessee whiskeys, top of the line Irish whiskeys, Japanese whisky and the best from Canada. Visit Malt Advocate for an up-to-the-minute list of what will be available for sampling.

Who will be speaking?

The focus is on education, and many well-known distillery managers and distillery representatives will be on hand at the pouring booths to explain how the whiskies are made. Thirteen of the world’s leading distillery managers and master blenders will be conducting seminars throughout the evening including:
 

  • Stephen Beal, Master of Whisky, Classic Malts
  • Parker Beam, Master Distiller, Heaven Hill
  • Simon Brooking, Global Brand Ambassador, The Dalmore & Laphroaig
  • John Campbell, Distillery Manager, Laphroaig
  • Ronnie Cox, Director, The Glenrothes
  • John Hall, Whisky Maker, Kittling Ridge
  • Lincoln Henderson, Whisky Expert, Suntory
  • Ian Millar, Master Distiller, Glenfiddich
  • Chris Morris, Master Distiller, Woodford Reserve
  • Fred Noe, Jim Beam’s Great Grandson
  • Richard Paterson, Master Distiller, The Dalmore
  • John Scharffenberger, President, ScharffenBerger Chocolate
  • Joy Spence, Master Blender, Appleton Rum

 

 
10.23

WhiskyFest San Francisco

Hyatt Regency Hotel, 5 Embarcadero, San Francisco, California
800.610.MALT [ website ] [ tickets online ]
 

Budvar Not For Sale

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The Prague Daily Monitor reported today that the Czech Republic government has changed its mind for the time being about privatizing Budejovicky Budvar brewery. Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek was quoted as saying there’s “no privatization,” adding that it would take at least 12-18 more months before Budvar would become a joint-stock company. He also laid to rest rumors that Marek Dalik, Topolanek’s advisor, was in negotiations with Anheuser-Busch to purchase the Czech brewery, as had been widely reported in the business press.