Shouldn’t every dinner be a beer dinner?

Beer belongsFlying Dog Brewery, based in Denver, has launched a stand alone site dedicated to beer dinners.

It’ll be interesting to follow how this plays out, since right now the information posted is Flying Dog centric. This certainly could be a great resource.

There’s a category for promoting dinners, which would allow brewpubs, restaurants and even organizations (say a local homebrew club) to promote events. Will they want to do this within the Flying Dog pound? We’ll see.

Visitors may also submit beer dinner ideas or review dinners. “We want to educate beer aficionados about the entire beer dinner concept, show people how pairing food with beer can really be a remarkable experience and help them be in-the-know on this hot new trend,” Flying Dog director of marketing Neal Stewart says in a press release.

The notion that fine food and fine beer belong together is hardly new, but is still gaining momentum. Lucy Sanders’ The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing & Cooking with Craft Beer has just gone to press, and you can expect plenty of articles about cooking with beer and pairing food with beer throughout the fall.

You’re going to want to read about beer and food somewhere, and this may turn out to be a fine place to “shop” for recipes, full menus or just plain tips.

About the photo above: Flying Dog has a bunch of delicious looking photos at the site. But I went with one from the “Beer Belongs” campaign of almost 50 years ago because I love those old illustrations (they ran in mass circulation magazines – also becoming a throwback).

Goose Island Cascade Pumpkin Brulee

The other day I mentioned Goose Island Cascade Pumpkin Brulee and Eric Trimmer asked for a recipe. Here it is.

As already noted, Goose Island brewmaster Greg Hall says to bury the eggs in a container with the Cascade hops, seal, and refrigerate for 3-5 days. Goose Island Brewmaster Greg Hall says that because eggs are porous, they will breathe the hops aroma and perfume the eggs. He suggests and extra special bitter with the brulee.

10 raw eggs
1/2 pound Cascade hops (either pellets or whole hops)
1/2 pound cooked pumpkin or butternut squash, puréed
1/2 cup milk
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 vanilla beans, split lengthwise
Pinch of salt
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of cinnamon
1/4 pound brown sugar

1. Seal the eggs in a container with the Cascade hops for 3-5 days.
2. Preheat oven to 300º F. Place all ingredients except eggs and brown sugar into a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
3. Remove from heat, and let sit so the beans can steep for at least 1 hour, or until mixture cools to room temperature.
4. Strain through a mesh sieve, discard the vanilla beans, and gently push the pumpkin through the sieve.
5. Pour 1/2-inch hot water into a 2-inch deep, 13×21-inch baking dish (or use two smaller baking dishes). Place in oven for 15 minutes.
6. Separate Cascade-scented eggs, discarding the whites. Whisk the egg yolks into the cooked mixture, and strain again through a fine mesh sieve.
7. Pour into 8 4-ounce brulée dishes or soufflé cups. Place dishes in the water-filled baking dish in the oven. Bake until the custard sets, about 45-60 minutes. A knife inserted into the center will come out dry when set. Remove from the water bath, and let cool at room temperature for 15 minutes. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. (Steps 1-7 can be done a day in advance.)
8. To serve: Sprinkle the brown sugar evenly across the tops of the brulées. Be careful not to clump the sugar. A propane torch works best for the “bruleeing,” but your oven broiler may be used as well. Place under the flame for about 30 seconds, or until sugar is evenly caramelized. Serve immediately.

8 servings

Copyright Goose Island Brewing Co., Chicago

Brewers and breweries doing good

Dale KatechisA trifecta today of stories about the role breweries play in communities:

– Dale Katechis, founder of Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, Colo., has been selected as the recipient of the Colorado Restaurant Association’s Cornerstone Humanitarian Award. The award is sponsored by the National Restaurant Association, and Katechis will be considered for the national Cornerstone Humanitarian Award.

Among Oskar Blues’ early fundraising efforts was a 1998 event that raised $25,000 for a local family whose husband/father was stricken with cancer. The following year, Oskar Blues raised a similar amount for two children who lost both of their parents within just a few weeks time.

For ten years Dale and Oskar Blues have hosted a local seniors group (The Golden Gang) each month, providing them with free meals and a meeting space for their gatherings.

Oskar Blues has also hosted local high school bands in its music room, giving young musicians the chance to raise money and play on the same stage that welcomes national and local bands.

“My mom raised my brothers and me with the message that helping out the community is a requirement,” Katechis said. “I’m trying to uphold her high standard. Thankfully I have a staff that shares my love for lending a helping hand. None of the good we’ve done could happen without their help, it’s a team effort.”

This year Oskar Blues donated several thousand dollars toward the building of a new weight room for the Lyons High football team, and a skate park in Lyons.

– Don Russell (Joe Sixpack) writes today about the pub as an urban tonic.

His column focuses on the newly opened Dock Street Brewery & Restaurant in Philadelphia’s Cedar Park section, which community leaders hope will bring new spirit to their neighborhood.

Beer as an agent for positive social change – can you believe it?

Well, yes, if you’ve been paying attention. Northern Liberties took off after the 700 and Standard Tap beer bars opened; the same thing is happening in Fishtown in the vicinity of Johnny Brenda’s, and in the newly minted Newbold section that surrounds the South Philadelphia Tap Room.

This is Community Infrastructure 101: People need a comfortable gathering place to meet and welcome outsiders. A brewpub is ideal in an urban setting because it attracts singles and young families who are in the market for affordable rowhouses. They come for fresh beer and hunker down for life.

Russell describes a pub designed to fit into its neighborhood, one much different than Dock Street’s now-closed original location next to the Four Seasons in Logan Square (long on polished brass and marble).

– The Pelican Pub & Brewery’s fourth annual Brewers Summer Games, held in June, raised more than $5,000 which will be distributed to two local charities: Nestucca Valley Boosters and Caring Cabin. These funds were raised from beer, root beer, food and clothing sales.

Hops, eggs, Goose Island, and organic

Bird's nest in hops

Sierra and I made a home school field trip yesterday to check out a small operation a few hours to the north, virtually on the banks of the Rio Grande, where a couple of guys are growing all manner of organic foods at 5,800 feet.

Included are many varieties of hops, most of them apparently native to New Mexico. That’s a story I’ll be digging into, but that’s another day.

This was a fascinating lesson in biodiversity. For instance, all kinds of flycatchers and birds use the hopyard trellis (built with wood reclaimed from a mountain fire) as a hunting platform for insects.

Thus the picture at the top. Birds have built a nest in some of the thicker hop bines (in this case Cascades). It made me think of a recipe Goose Island brewmaster Greg Hall provided more than 10 years ago when we were compiling the Brewpub Cookbook for Time Life Books.

Hall suggests burying the eggs used in the recipe in a container of Cascade hops for three to dive days. Because eggs are porous, he said, they will breathe the piney aromas and it will perfume the eggs.

Let’s hope the eggs in this picture hatch. Then maybe some day a resident of the Embudo area will have a bird fly close and think: “I’m not sure why, but I seem to crave a hoppy pale ale.”

Miller Chill Challenge canceled

Last month I suggested it would be fun to conduct a Miller Chill Challenge, having participants taste Miller Chill, drinks (such as Chelada) with recipes Corona is promoting and the new Budweiser (and Bud Light) pre-mixed Chelada’s.

The tasting has been postponed, and likely canceled, due to lack of interest.

The people I hang out with – including many who seldom drink beer and some who drink light beer – are not members of the target audience. Almost every one I suggested this might be fun simply said, “Why?”

And they were right. Quite obviously there is a market for these mixtures – newspaper food sections that would carry stories about beer should be conducting this test – but we are talking about blends built on light lagers.

If I worked for one of them I might feel obligated to do this. I don’t, and there are too many better topics to discuss.