Brugge White, New Albanian Thunderfoot and 1997 Lafayette Brewing Company Big Boris Barley Wine
To kick off the Microbrewer’s Festival this year, the Brewers of Indiana Guild hosted a Brewmaster’s Dinner on Friday night. And what a dinner it was! We all went into the dinner with a bit of confusion over how it would be carried out. It turned out that local celebrity chef Greg Hardesty put together a great gourmet rendition of a picnic buffet. The menu included:
- Salad of Indiana tomatoes and sweet corn with basil vinaigrette
- Wasabi scented fingerling potatoes with wilted Asian ’slaw’ greens
- Seven bean summer ragout with applewood smoked bacon
- Grilled Fischer Farms beef sirloin with mocha ancho chili glaze
- Grilled Fischer Farms pork loin with spicy salsa verde
- Bittersweet chocolate fudge cake
- Barley wine panna cotta with marron glace
On top of that, the following beers were available:
- Brugge White
- Half Moon Honey Rye
- Ram Buttface Amber
- Mad Anthony IPA
- Brass Monkey Green Tea Pale Ale
- Lafayette Brewing Company Common Ale
- Broad Ripple Brewpub Wee Alec Heavy
- Lafayette Brewing Company 1997 Big Boris Barley Wine aged in Oliver Winery Oak Barrels
- New Albanian Thunderfoot
- Three Floyds Hvedegoop
- Brugge Diamond Kings of Heaven 2008
I think Upland’s Preservation Pilsner may have been on tap earlier in the evening as well. The whole event kicked off about half an hour late, due to an issue with Opti Park not having power provided and a loss of refrigeration in the beer truck (oh no!). Luckily once everything got started, everyone had a great time. I didn’t take notes on the pairings, but I’ll do my best to recall everything.
The tomatoes in the salad were incredibly ripe and the corn, sliced into 1 inch pieces, had a great balance of salt and pepper. Everything came together wonderfully when mixed with a light basil vinaigrette. Everyone at our table was in love with the corn. The suggested pairing here was either the Brugge White or Half Moon Honey Rye, both lighter beers with notable sweetness to pair with the sweet corn and a citrus flavor to cut through the oil in the vinaigrette.
The seven bean ragout was a very fresh take on a the traditional multi-bean salad that many families prepare for pitch-ins and cookouts. The green beans had a nice crunch to them and the applewood smoked bacon was a real treat that was a surprise, as it hid well within the multi-colored sea of beans. Ram Buttface Amber was the suggested pairing here, chosen for its lighter, yet sweet malty characteristic that would pair well with the meaty taste of the beans. I have to be honest, I didn’t try this pairing so I can’t say how well it worked.
Wasabi was the star of the show in the fingerling potatoes and slaw greens. Not an overly strong wasabi flavor that the trademark green pile next to your sushi provides, but a very well balanced wasabi flavor in a slaw style sauce mixed in with the potatoes and slaw vegetables. The wasabi hid itself well up front, while the vegetables showed off their flavors, then slowly worked its way up to a noticeable, yet reserved presence. I’m not ashamed to say I ate the excess sauce by itself off my plate. Tippecanoe Common Ale and Upland’s Preservation Pilsner were recommended pairings here, chosen for their ability to not cover up the delicate wasabi flavor.
Both the pork and beef were being freshly grilled throughout the dinner. The sirloin came up at a perfect doneness every time. For those of you who don’t know what the perfect doneness for a steak is, it’s medium rare, and that is not up for debate. Both the pork loin and the beer sirloin were well spiced and showed off how great Fischer Farms meat is. The ancho chile glaze had a hint of chocolate that made it taste like a cross between mole and adobo. Pairing this chile sauce and tender meat with the LBC Big Boris Barley Wine was amazing. The buttery caramel flavors in the barley wine intertwined with the tame heat and chile sweetness of the sauce and amplified the flavors in the sirloin. The green salsa with the pork loin was an extremely tasty combination of tomatillos, chiles, onions and fresh cilantro. Mad Anthony’s IPA was one suggested pairing, offering up the standard “hops cut through spicy heat” pairing, but a much more complex and impressive pairing was created with Three Floyds Hvedegoop. As with most Three Floyds beers, there was a noticable hop character that blended more than it overpowered the spiciness of the salsa. There was a very distinct malty sweetness in this beer that brought out sweet notes in the tomatillos and pork loin. I’m not sure what this beer is normally listed as, but I would call it an American ESB and it was great.
Dessert consisted of a very tasty brownie, made with Thunderfoot Cherry Imperial Stout with bittersweet chocolate chips mixed throughout. It should go without saying that since the brownie was made with Thunderfoot, Thunderfoot would be a good pairing. Imperial stouts carry a heavy roasted malt and chocolate flavor that always pairs well with chocolate and even more so with bittersweet chocolate. The panna cotta was very light, creamy and topped with slivered almonds. Broad Ripple Brewpub’s Wee Alec Heavy was the suggested pairing here, and what a pairing it was! The sweet, malt flavors of the scottish ale created a root beer float experience when mixed with the cream in the panna cotta. Quite a nice surprise, indeed!
Another highlight of the evening was the surprise of Brugge’s Diamond Kings of Heaven 2008. This is a beer normally released for competition and rarely ever served. Last year’s Diamond Kings was Jess and I’s drink of choice at the end of every Great American Beer Festival session. At 13%+ ABV, last year’s Diamond Kings was a fairly intense, yet delicious Belgian Strong ale. This year, Diamond Kings comes across as a much more drinkable Belgian Sour Ale, thanks to the surprise interaction between 20 pounds of Indiana Persimmons and the fermenting ale. Ted (Brugge’s brewmaster) explained that he thought the skins of the persimmons created a more bitter and sour flavor as they desolved off of the fruit during fermentation. Jess, Dave, Nate, Mike, Gina and I all agreed that this was one amazing beer and one perfect finish to a great dinner and evening. If they do this again next year, I strongly recommend attending!
