Event

A Battle Royale! For Brewers!

We like doing beer dinners. Good beer and good food is a good night. And pairing beer with food is really fun! There are so many different types of beer being made that pairings can go so many different directions. Beer can be used to complement different food flavors or contrast them – or sometimes both in the same dish!  

Since there are so many different ways for beer to pair with food, at Drake’s we’ve put together a series of competitive beer dinners – the “Brewer v Brewer” series, where 2 breweries square off with their pairings, and the crowd judges who did it best. These dinners are fun and ridiculous and often result in some quality brewer to brewer shit talking – as well as some good education for the crowd in how beer works with food!

Those events are so fun that we’ve been thinking about ways to expand on them.  I’ve particularly spent some time with this puzzle – and then inspiration – Battle Royale!

OK, but how does a bunch of Japanese Middle school students killing each other translate into a beer and food pairing event? Well… so, we took the competitive aspect to another level – a round by round elimination tournament where multiple breweries bring their pairings, the crowd votes, and the lowest vote recipient is out (and perhaps we shame them?). Round after round, until we have a winner!  

So here we go! Tuesday night is our first Brewer Royale at Drake’s: BARN. We will do more. I think this will be a super fun experience for the crowd.  Every round they get to taste beers from 4 different breweries against a particular food item, and then they get to pick who’s eliminated. Note that the “losers” still get to pour, but they can’t win anymore. So much beer, so much food – this is going to be a thing!  We hope you like it.

The Competitors

The Brewers Competing at Brewer Royale

Taylor Smith – Drake’s Executive Chef
Pete Atwood– Bike Dog Brewing
Chris Miller – Berryessa Brewing
John GIllooly – Drake’s Brewing
Kyle Leddy – New Glory Brewing

The Food Menu

Harissa Chicken Wings

Round One: Adobo Sa Gata Tostada
coconut stewed pork, red bean slaw, mandarin segment
By Taylor Smith, Executive Chef

Round Two: Harissa Chicken Wings (pictured)
pickled fresno peppers, cilantro cream
By Bryan Widener, PizzaSmith, Head Chef

Round Three: Coma Gougers
fried pâte à choux donut, aroma coma syrup,
grapefruit zest, sea salt
By Matty Love, Drakes: The BARN, Chef De Cuisine.


Written by John Gillooly, Drake’s Brewmaster