AT THE BAR
browns or sour porters also have their
place on the menu.
“They’re a good match with a dish like
sauerbraten,” says Sean McMullen,
manager (and former chef) of The Horse
& Plow at The American Club in Kohler,
Wis. “We offset the sourness in the
dish with root vegetables, so it isn’t too
overwhelming. At first the guests didn’t
understand, but then they got the affinity
of the dish and the beer.”
Kohler Co.
“Since we select the beer first, we can
make adjustments to the recipes, as
necessary,” Koberstein says. He likes the
group approach to planning the menu. “It
makes us more creative.”
Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn
Brewery in Brooklyn, N. Y., says most any
kind of food can be matched with beer. “As
much as I love wine, it has some problems
with foods, from eggs to artichokes. Beer
is far more versatile. It has a far wider
range of flavors than wine does. This drives
its superior matching ability.”
guidelines. Oliver at Brooklyn Brewery
selects beers for beer dinners at venues
around the world. As a brewmaster, he
prefers to have the chef submit the menu,
then he chooses the beers.
Beer dinners
Recognition of this versatility by chefs
as well as brewmasters is evidenced by
the popularity of beer dinners, both in
casual and upscale dining rooms. At The
Horse & Plow, the menu features casual
pub fare and the beer list has about
100 beers, including local, regional and
microbrews, and international selections.
Each year, the restaurant hosts a half-dozen beer dinners, where chef Ulrich
Koberstein, The American Club’s culinary
director, McMullen and several other staff
members get together to select the beers
and plan a five-course dinner or a three-or four-course lunch menu. The beers are
of the “top-shelf” variety and all from the
same brewery, and the food is created to
complement them.
When planning their beer-dinner menus,
staff don’t hesitate to think outside the
box. They’ve served a Waldorf salad made
with arugula, jicama, orange segments
and toasted walnuts topped with
buttermilk dressing paired with Wisconsin
Cran-bic, a special brew from New Glarus
Brewing Co., New Glarus, Wis., made from
indigenous yeast and cranberries, and
aged in oak barrels. For another dinner,
they paired Snake Dog IPA, an India pale
ale style beer with light citrus flavors from
Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, Md., with
fire-roasted-tomato/chipotle soup with
grilled crostini and cracked coriander.
The first thing he looks for is balance. “You
don’t want the food tackling the beer, or
vice versa,” he says. “Then I look for what I
call the ‘flavor hook’—the part of the beer’s
flavor that links up and harmonizes with
particular flavors and aromas in the food.
Beer can often do contrast and harmony
equally well, and at the same time.”
For a beer-dinner entrée, the chefs
prepared cocoa, coffee and peppercorn-
rubbed New York strip with caramelized
Vidalia onion, black garlic and a grilled
baguette to serve with Peruvian Morning,
an imperial stout style beer that has
coffee added and is fermented in bourbon
barrels. The beer is produced by Central
Waters Brewing Co., Amherst, Wis.
As an example, he pairs a porter, a dark
ale using roasted malts, with a black bean
soup to create a harmony of the smoky,
earthy black bean flavors with the smoky,
coffee-like roasted malt flavors. Bitterness
and carbonation provide cutting power and
contrast, especially if the soup is spicy.
Hop aromatics combine well with cumin
and cilantro. “So this great pairing will work
on several levels,” Oliver says.
Hooked on flavor
There is no box when it comes to pairing
beer with food, and while there are
no rules to speak of, there are some
At a beer dinner at New York’s Per Se,
Oliver paired Brooklyn Brewery’s
Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse
with butter-poached Nova Scotia lobster
