It won’t be long before asking for a beer list is as commonplace as requesting a wine list in fancy restaurants.
Craft brewers are taking notes from the wine industry, through consumer education, increasing accessibility and food pairings, to encourage people to drink better beer.
“Many breweries are trying to crack the restaurant code, for chefs and diners alike, to show how a high-end beer can accompany a meal. Naturally, understanding how to pair beer with food flavors is key,” says author Randy Mosher, who is working on a guide to beer and food pairings to educate restaurateurs and chefs, as well as consumers.
He has an audience across the continent. Chefs from Daniel Bruce of Meritage in Boston, to Tom Douglas of the Palace Kitchen in Seattle, and the McCormick and Schmick’s chain understand well-chosen beer can enhance their food. And with the rise of “gastro-pubs” in London and Brussels, Belgium, the trend is taking hold in Europe.
Top American craft brewers (small, regional, micro- or pub-breweries that use mostly malted grain, rather than rice or corn, in their beer) rang up a 7 percent sales increase last year, and growth this year looks similar. Perhaps that’s because craft brews offer an array of food-friendly flavors, at prices competitive with imported brews and vastly more affordable than wine.
At the Great American Beer Festival at the Colorado Convention Center (Thursday through Saturday), Vinnie Cilurzo, owner and brewer at Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, Calif., will conduct a tasting with Goose Sorenson, executive chef of Solera, a Denver restaurant noted for its wine list.
Russian River’s ales are barrel-aged in wood for a depth of flavor and range of acidity some drinkers compare to wine. Yet the brews are made from American-grown hops and malt, with tangy notes supplied by fermentation with wild yeasts.
“There’s lots of room for growth in pairing craft beer and food,” says Cilurzo. “Brewers need to understand what chefs do with flavors and cooking, and chefs need to understand what brewers do with flavors and fermentation.”
Bruce Paton of San Francisco’s Cathedral Hill Hotel plans to pair pan-seared scallops with a tangy banana salsa, along with brewmaster Garrett Oliver’s saison-style beer from Brooklyn Brewing Co. “Because the salsa is sweet and a bit spicy at the same time, it plays off the flavors of the fruity ale and seafood,” says Paton.
Oliver, whose award-winning book, “The Brewmaster’s Table,” is considered a bible for beer and food pairing, loves the interplay of flavors between a malty ale such as the saison, and seared scallops: “The flavor of the scallop is mostly from the pan-searing – a caramel flavor. Then you have sweetness, texture, sea aroma. The beer has bitterness for cutting power and contrast, carbonation to lift the butter, caramel flavors to match the sear.” Could a wine do all that? Oliver thinks not, even though he enjoys wine.
Chefs and brewers hope the beer festival will “elevate craft beer to where wine is with fine food,” says Paton.
Restaurateur and chef Daniel Bruce of the Boston Harbor Hotel’s Meritage believes that craft beer will never replace wine in fine dining circles, “because there’s too many years of history and tradition behind wine and gastronomy.” He adds, “Yet there’s definitely room for better beer in American restaurants, because craft brews offer so many flavors and more texture, more body, than mass-market lagers.”
Since Meritage has made its reputation with its wine-centric menu, Bruce plans to showcase craft beer in the hotel’s casual waterfront restaurant, Intrigue. A guest could savor a pint of Harpoon IPA with crispy shrimp spring rolls with a ginger-soy dipping sauce, or sip a fruity Magic Hat #9 between nibbles of lobster sausages topped with lemon-chive cream.
Lucy Saunders edits beercook.com and thinks of beer as food.
