BEttER Late than Never

    It's a little belated but I've been wanted to post a re-cap of the Peak Organic Beer dinner from Tuesday the 16th.  First things first, from first to last course it was a ton of fun.  The menu was fun, the passed hors d'ouvres were fun and the people were fun.  It felt very light hearted and playful.  Rob Lucente, a co-owner of Peak was a great presenter and his passion for beer really shows.  Its much like my passion for food.  We built an awesome menu that people really enjoyed and paired quite well with the beers.

    Two months ago we had the idea to do a beer dinner and were deciding on beers to use.  We contacted Peak Organic because of their story and their philosophy.  They were a small start-up business based on the love for great beer and local organic ingredients.  Many of their beers use locally and organically grown malts and hops.  Its refreshing to see some of the same qualities we hold for food being evident in a brewer. 

    A few weeks later we had Rob in with some samples.  The two beers i was absolutely blown away by were the nut brown ale and the imperial hefeweiszen.  I loved the nut brown because it was so dynamic and mysterious.  It didnt tell you what it wanted to be paired with, it seemed to not know itself.  This was a very fun quality in a beer.  It was a bit of a challenge but in the end i feel the beer was giving the consumer an opportunity to manipulate it how they want.  The hefe was just over the top, huge alcohol, huge flavor, very strong.  I love it though.

    For first course we did a leek and lobster terrine.  We inlayed some beer steamed lobster tails into a terrine of butter poached leeks.  This we paired with a simple house pickled vegetable remoulate and a smoked tomato "caviar."  Many claimed this dish as their favorite.  I loved it because it was so striaght forward flavorwise and playful at the same time.  This we paired with the IPA which was very unlike an IPA.  It was light and crisp, left you feeling ready for more, not like some IPA's that let the hoppiness bog down the pallet. 

    For the second course I chose the Imperial Hefeweiszen.  I knew i wanted something with some brighter flavors and higher acid but still a good level of righness to settle the hefe.  We came up with a apple tarte tatin with goatcheese and black walnut gremolata.  This was finished with some toasted coriander for a bit of a floral finish.  It was the wild card but it worked well with the strong hefe and made a beautiful pairing.  We made it in the style of a traditional tarte tatin with a layer of goatcheese.

   One fun thing we did was a granita of Peak Organic Pomegranate Wheat; added a bit of sugar and froze the beer, scraping it every hour or so. 

    For the entree course we prepared a whole roasted pork loin with a gratin of zuchinnis, beet mustard, and a black IPA hollandaise.  Needless to say we served this course with the Black IPA (IPA Noir).  This IPA is a heavy hitter it is dark as night and very strong with notes of coffee, cocoa.  I wanted to make sure we got some real earthy flavors into the dish to parallel the beer while having some brighter flavors to offset it. 

   For that Nut Brown Ale I chose dessert.  Everytime I tried to think of a course for this beer i kept coming back to dessert so I decided not to fight it but just go with it.  Dessert it was!  We made some coffee and tea truffles by steeping the heavy cream for the truffles in coffee and tea respectively.  We reduced some of the nut brown ale and folded into some whipped cream for the dish.  We finished with some pine nut brittle and chocolate soil!

    It was a great night, lots of fun and I cant wait to do another dinnerwith Peak in the near future!  I love the challenge that their beers pose to creating a whole menu around them.  I love their philosophy and their support of local and organic.  If you like supporting local beer and local food, then keep an eye on Cronicle where the dinner will be featured in a special on beer!

   For now I must focus on our upcoming knock your socks off Silver Oak and Twomey wine dinner in september!!!