Archive for the ‘cooking’ Category

Restaurant Thir13en Sacramento Beer Dinner with Chef Adam Pechal

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

When it comes to a day that appears only once every four years that just so happens to land smack in the middle of Sacramento Beer Week, we figured it was the perfect excuse chance to have a tremendous, Epicurean night of food and craft beer. Chef Adam Pechal has been making a name for himself in his role as head chef of two of Sacramento’s more inventive restaurants Tuli and Restaurant Thir13en, so when he brought up the idea to do a beer dinner at Thir13en, we jumped at the opportunity to put it together.

With a contagious exuberance that likely hasn’t waned much since he was a small boy and an undeniable talent in the kitchen, Chef Pechal worked with our Head Brewer Brian Thorson and created a 5-course menu of sumptuous dishes each paired with a different Drake’s beer.

As guests began to arrive early in the evening, we poured our light and crisp Kolsch-style Blonde ale, to pair with the first dish of the night: Lobster and Blonde Beer Fritters with Meyer Lemon Aioli.

Hungry from set-up and the choice to eat very lightly throughout the day pre-beer-dinner, the intoxicating smell of these delicious golden puffs of beer batter and lobster made it difficult to keep from promptly stuffing four into our mouths and washing down with a full Blonde, but we refrained. Good thing too, because the hits just kept on coming.

Chef Pechal finally instructed us all to take our seats for the next course and introduced to the crowd our owner John Martin and Brian. Then, when the opening remarks were complete, the wait staff brought in dish and beer number 2. Drakes Amber paired with 12 Hour Pork Belly with Honey Amber Mustard, Toasted Pistachios, sauteed Blueberries, and Red Mustard Frisee.

After the delicious and almost mandatory infusion of pork belly, we moved on to course three: House Made Squid Ink Pasta with Grilled Monterey Squid, Calabrian Chilis and Arugula paired with 1500. The lightness of the 1500 and the citrus in the hops perfectly paired with the richness of the pasta, lightness of the squid and the spice from the chilis.

Now that we had hinted at the hops and the spice, the fourth course took it to the next level. Glasses of our seasonal Hopocalypse Double IPA made their way to each guest as servers dropped vintage martini glasses filled with Fort Bragg Rockfish Ceviche with Blood Oranges, Habeñero, and Hopocalypse-Avocado Mousse garnished with a crispy corn chip.

Then, the night got even more interesting. In a mad scientist turn, Chef Pechal brought a table to the front of the room and had his sous chef bring in a large metal container filled with liquid nitrogen. After donning protective gloves and goggles the two chefs began to pour the -320 degree liquid nitrogen into a container filled with a hefty amount of our latest sour Theia (an American Strong Ale aged in Chardonnay Barrels with Brettanomyces), thus creating tableside sorbet. Fog from the liquid nitrogen billowed out of the top of the container as Chef Pechal stirred the mixture to a perfect sorbet consistancy– the perfect palate cleanser for a beer dinner. Chef Pechal served small spoons of the Theia sorbet with garnish of carbonated blood oranges (made by putting oranges and beer into a keg and cranking up the psi to carbonate the juice inside the oranges) and a glass of the non-frozen Theia.

After the entertainment of the evening was finished, and all of our palates thoroughly cleansed, servers began to bring out the fifth pairing: Black Robusto Porter with Porter Braised Beef Shortribs with Crispy Fingerlings, Carnival Cauliflower, and Toy Box Carrots. We had no words…

Nearly stuffed, a bit red faced, and very happy at this point, every cheerfully welcomed the final pairing for dessert that was both delicious and inventive. Dessert paired our well-named Barrel-aged Barleywine blend, The Good Shit with Apple-Barleywine Bundt Cake with Cardamom Ice Cream and Apple Barleywine Granita.

We left that night full, completely satisfied, and absolutely certain to dream about the foods and beers we had had. Both Brian and John agreed it was one of the more excellent pairing dinners they had ever had the pleasure to experience, and if Chef Pechal wants to do another dinner with us… you can be sure that we’re in.

Quick shout out to the servers and staff that made the dinner as wonderful as it was. Probably going to dream about this food again tonight. Cheers.


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Posted in beer, Brewers, cooking, cooking with beer, Event, food and beer pairing | 1 Comment »

It’s Official- Drake’s is Good Food

Monday, January 16th, 2012

The Second Annual Good Food Awards was held this past weekend, and we are very happy to announce that our Drakonic Imperial Stout took top Craft Beer honors alongside just a handful of other beers. Our malty beast held it’s own against hundreds of other craft beer entries from around the country, and now it must be forever acknowledged that Drakonic is definitely Good Food.

On Friday, Brian and Alex attended the Good Food Awards ceremony at the San Francisco Ferry Building to officially accept our award amongst some of the best artisan food producers, distillers and brewers around as well as a gaggle of foodie luminaries.

Then on Saturday during the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, Gabbi and Jeremy poured samples of Drakonic to the public in the Good Food Awards Marketplace which highlighted the winners from the previous night. The Ferry Building was buzzing with folks wanting to try the winning foods and drinks, and if anyone left that day not full, satisfied and ready for a nap, we’d be seriously surprised.

Here are our pictures from our Good Food weekend. It was delicious.


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Posted in beer, Beer Fests, Brewery, cooking, Event, Good Food Awards | 1 Comment »

Food Pairing: Cheese and Chocolate with Drake’s

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

A week from Friday, Drake’s is teaming up with Tcho Chocolates for a Beer, Cheese and Chocolate Pairing event, and so, to prepare the best line-up of pairings for that night we thought it would be a good idea to have a pre-tasting here at the Brewery. Also, we just really really like cheese, chocolate and beer…mmm.

Last Friday at the Barrel House we gathered our bounty. With five cheeses — smoked gouda, chevre, Dubliner Irish Sharp Cheddar, Triple Cream, and Roquefort blue — six chocolates — Classic Milk, Dark Milk, Fruity Dark, Citrus Dark, Nutty Dark and Pure Chocolatey Dark — and the DBH’s grand wall of over twenty taps we proceeded (in a very orderly fashion and not at all like animals who hadn’t eaten in days…) to work to find perfect pairings.

It was arduous eating all that cheese and chocolate and drinking Drake’s beers… truly it was… but it had to be done.

BUT in the end we were triumphant, coming to several conclusions that we can now share with you.

  1. Drakonic Imperial Stout, blue cheese and Pure Dark Chocolate- Simple Perfection.
  2. Drake’s IPA, tangy chevre and dark milk chocolate. This one caught us a bit off-guard, but the tangy flavor of the chevre both worked with the grapefruit, citrus characteristics of our hoppy flagship and balanced perfectly with the malt tones and the bitterness. The sweetness of the dark milk chocolate was then the perfect cap that brought it all together.
  3. Drake’s 1500, Dubliner cheddar and fruity dark chocolate. Our hop-foward 1500 paired great with the sharp and nutty cheddar, and the fruity dark chocolate was a harmonious match with the citrus flavors from the hops in the Pale Ale.
  4. Smoked Cheeses are tough to pair as they just make all the beers taste like smoked beers. But, they seemed to work best with our Black Robusto Porter.
  5. Triple Cream also worked well with the Drakonic. The one we had was more mild but a funkier cheese would have been absolutely perfect. A triple cream blue would be amazing.
  6. While we weren’t looking at the Barrel Aged beers too closely- they had some amazing pairings too. One that was particularly stellar: Midnight Run- sour imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels – and Blue Cheese.

So, now we know you’re jealous and marking Oct. 21 on your calendar to go hang out with some Drake’s beers, cheese and chocolate in the city, but if by some terrible coarse of events you can’t make it we have a solution. Gather your own cheese, chocolate tasting smorgasbord and come down to the Barrel House. If you come up with any great pairings of your own- let us know! Cheers.

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Posted in Barrel House, beer, cooking, craft beer, Drake's Brewing, Drake's Staff, Event, food and beer pairing | 1 Comment »

Brewmaster’s Dinner with Brian Thorson and Bruce Paton (the Beer Chef)= Culinary nirvana

Monday, August 15th, 2011

This past Friday Bruce Paton, aka the Beer Chef as he’s come to be known in the Bay Area, put together an incredible four-course menu to highlight some of our beers— including some of our barrel-aged beers.

Back in February during San Francisco Beer Week, Paton caught the ear of our head brewer Brian Thorson about getting together for one of Paton’s already well-known dinners. Paton said he hadn’t done a dinner in a while, and wanted to highlight a local brewery putting out some great beer and Drake’s was just the ticket.

Brian and Bruce cheers to great food and great beer at last Friday's dinner at Miss Pearl's Jam House in Jack London Square in Oakland.

Brian invited Paton down to the brewery for a tour and a tasting, and from the first taste, Paton says he was inspired especially by our barrel-aged selections.

“Brian’s beers are off the hook,” Paton said, “he just does a very good job with the barrel. Brian has that kind of talent; it’s just magic to me.”

And from the look and taste of the food, the beer magic inspired some culinary wizardry.

(more…)

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Posted in cooking, cooking with beer, craft beer, Drake's Brewing, food and beer pairing | No Comments »

Thanksgiving is coming!

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Thanksgiving is just around the corner!


Which means it’s time to eat and eat and drink and eat and drink and drink and then eat some more (at least that’s how my Thanksgivings are…)

Beer is a great drink to pair with Thanksgiving dishes. And, not only pair, but cook with. However, you don’t want to throw just any old beer style in with the stuffing or gravy- cooking with beer takes a little work. And, while you can drink whatever beer suits you with Thanksgiving dinner, if you do want to set up some great beer and food pairings you’ll need to plan ahead a bit.

For example, last year, I didn’t think twice about what beer I’d be drinking with dinner. I stuck my head in the beer refrigerator and pulled out a big, dark, hefty beer- by that I mean 15% ABV, 107 IBUs- one of the most filling beers I’ve ever had. Although the beer paired nicely with the food flavor-wise, suffice it to say that this beer was not a great pick while stuffing my face with triple helpings of mashers and turkey- this resulted in a near-literal interpretation of a beer-food coma!

This year, in addition to having a few selections of beer at dinner, I’m planning on throwing some beer into a few of the dishes. Some of you reading this might not be so sure about cooking with beer- well, let me digress for a few minutes to discuss a little history about beer and why beer is an amazing ingredient.

Once upon a time, beer was considered food. It all started many, many years ago in the Middle East, when the ancient peoples began cultivating barley. They found that when boiled, the grain tasted much better (sweeter). The thick sugary soup eventually became a thick malted brew. Depending on the region a beer was made in, certain spices, herbs and other ingredients were added to make the “dish” taste better.

Beer has come a long way since those days. For awhile, beer was pushed aside as people made way for wine at the dinner table, but, as Randy Mosher will point out in his introduction of Lucy Saunders’ The Best of American Beer & Food:

“with it’s vast range of strength, color, bitterness, sweetness and aromatic delights to work with, it is a rare food that fails to find a beery partner… matching up beer and food is really about using common sense and paying attention.”

And so we arrive here today, a society full of craft beer, beer pairings, beer chefs, beer dinners, and beer as an ingredient. Beer can play many roles in cooking and baking. I came across a great article called “Tips for Cooking with Beer” by Kate Heyhoe of Global Gourmet, that summarizes how beer can be used in cooking. Here are some of the main points:

Beer flavors food in 3 ways:
1. Bitterness from the hops
2. Sweetness from the malt
3. Yeast from the beer has tenderizing enzymes













Some guidelines to consider:
1. An all-beer meal is usually NOT a good idea

2. There is no need to pair a dish with the same beer you used to cook with

3. Sweet foods benefit from the bitterness of hops
  • Use sugary veggies like onions, carrots, corn etc. and even add some sweetener like molasses, honey, or sugar

4. Hop bitterness helps counteract the richness of creamy, oil-
based or cheesy dishes.
  • Use sparingly as you would a squeeze of lime or vinegar
5. Acidic foods can compliment the sweet flavors of beer, adding depth and balance
  • Think tomatoes, citrus fruits, vinegar and mustard

6. Yeast is a great tool for battering and baking.
  • Breads and pancakes benefit from very yeasty brews, which can lighten the texture and make for soft, delicious crusts

7. Beer tenderizes meats (enough said!), making for great marinades

8. The more beer is cooked and reduced, the stronger the flavor will be. If the dish requires long cooking and reduction, avoid using too strong a brew.

9. Pale Ales and Nut Brown Ales are good for starters. IPAs are often too bitter for cooking.

10. For newbies to beer cooking, robust dishes are a great way to start so you can learn to distinguish the effects beer has on the dish. Then, you can experiment with the more subtle effects beer has on more refined flavorings.


Now that I’ve divulged to you the briefest version of beer and food history, let’s figure out how this applies to Thanksgiving dishes.

Beer can be used to prepare any number of Thanksgiving dishes including the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberries, and even pecan pie.

Regular potatoes, which can be both rich and creamy or sweet (or both!), are nicely prepared with an IPA or pale ale. As stated above, the hoppy character of these beers can balance the sweetness and richness of a dish. The flavors in sweet potatoes and yams, on the other hand, will be accentuated by a malty beer such as an alt beer or dubbel because yams are a little sweeter than regular potatoes, but still have a very earthy flavor.

Stuffing can be prepared in a number of ways because the bread absorbs whatever flavors the ingredients contain. You can make a rich stuffing to go with a more simple entree, or a simple stuffing to go with a rich entree. In general, you’ll want to stick with maltier beers when making stuffing (examples: brown ale, ESB, bock) because a hoppy beer will only intensify when cooked and reduced, and the bread will absorb most of the hop bitterness.

Perhaps the most common way to prepare veggies with beer is the beer-batter them. However, fried foods can be a little too rich for Thanksgiving, along with all the other big flavors of the meal. Depending on how you like your veggies prepared, you could make a light “sauce” with beer, vinegar, butter and some other seasonings to toss with almonds and blanched veggies (I suggest green beans).

When preparing the gravy, throw in a little bit of a mostly-malty beer, with a slight hop-kick to blend well with the earthy yet rich flavors of gravy.

The light flavor of cranberries, with their touch of bitterness, are well complimented with a light wit or wheat beer. Try and find a beer with some spices like clove and nutmeg, and also light enough that no malt or hop characters dominate the flavor.

Turkey can be prepared in so many different ways, and beer can aid in it’s preparation. Just remember, the longer you cook something in beer, the more the beer is reduced and the flavors shine through. If you’re preparing a recipe that involves cooking the turkey for a long time, I suggest using a lighter beer, like a Hefeweizen, rather than a stout or a predominantly hoppy beer.

While you still might think it sounds crazy, beer in pie is delicious. Definitely go for a big-flavored, malty beer, with some spices or chocolately qualities, and very little hops.

If you’re interested in trying to incorporate beer into some of your Thanksgiving dishes, but you aren’t quite sure where to start, check out the Homebrew Chef’s (Sean Paxton) website. After looking at his site, I’ve decided to make Roasted Garlic IPA Mashed Potatoes for my Thanksgiving dish, with some Drake’s IPA:


(yum!)

If you aren’t going to incorporate beer into your dishes, you can always just drink it (or do both!). Being as it is the season to spread holiday cheer, I’m going to turn that cheer into rosy cheeks, and bring some Drake’s Jolly Rodger, Denogginizer and a growler of our George Brett Sour Ale. They should pair nicely with the big, flavorful dishes of a Thanksgiving feast.


While I know I’ve gone into some serious depth about beer and Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is one of my most favorites times of the year. Family and friends coming together, lots of home-cooked meals, colder weather, and some craft beer to warm us up. Yes, I am very thankful for all of that!

Cheers ’til next time!


Brittany

Posted in Beer Bloggers Conference 2010, cooking, cooking with beer, craft beer, food and beer pairing, Thanksgiving | No Comments »