Well, only two-weeks late, but thought I would share what we did to ring in the New Year. Matt and Kate came over for a six course meal with each course paired to an appropriate beer. Of course in order for the plan to work, each course was a reasonable portion of food, and each beer was only a half-pint (otherwise we wouldn't be able to make it through the meal!) Overall the food was good, there were some rough spots, but I think the majority of the problems originated with the fact that I have never prepared so much food simultaneously without resorting to lots of casseroles and prefabricated things. For the first course we had a citrus salad featuring a strawberry chardonnay dressing. I think it was a big hit. The beer accompanying it was Éphémère, another pretty big hit I think. It was really nice as an appetizer, but it definitely wouldn't be a session beer in my mind. It had a pretty high carbonation volume, smelled of tart apple, and a slight tart apple taste as well. The second course was a bread and cheese course. We had a warm sourdough loaf paired with cheeses from different countries. There was a particular cheese that had caraway seeds that was more popular than the rest. The beer we had for the second course was Witte by Ommegang. It was a pretty typical Belgian White. The third course was a butternut squash risotto paired with a small bit of baked butternut squash. This may have been my favorite course actually. The beer for this course was Kells Irish Lager by Rogue. This beer was pretty magnificent. It was everything that Killian's Irish Red ought to be and more (very much more). Next up was apple chicken sausage simmered in my very own Maple Nut Brown Ale and accompanied by skillet fried Yukon gold potatoes. This course was good, but I felt it really suffered because I made it too far ahead of time (or maybe we enjoyed the other courses for too long :p) The beer accompaniment was of course, Maple Nut Brown Ale by Benjamin Brewing Company :) This Brown ale really started out pretty rough, but I added a very small amount of all-natural maple extract, and after a few weeks of cold conditioning, it is really maturing into a nice beer. The next course was beef tenderloin medallions simply seasoned with salt and pepper served in a reduced Cabernet Sauvignon sauce, with sautéed green beans. I really had high hopes for this course, but the wine I used for the reduction did not really contribute a great deal of flavor, additionally I think the sauce sat too long and the sauce finally reduced down to mostly wine tannins :-( Green beans were out of season of course so they weren't really on their a-game. The beer for this course was Porter by Sierra Nevada. Not much to say about this beer. It was solid, but it wasn't necessarily anything special. The final course was chocolate truffles brought by Matt and Kate. They were very rich, smooth, and did I mention rich? :) The beer paired with dessert was quite predictably, Double Chocolate Stout by Young's. This beer was pretty good, but I wish I would have gotten cans of it because the cans use the same little nitrogen deal that Guinness uses (so it would have had a little creamier mouthfeel), it was still good and it worked well with the chocolate I think.
After dinner we played Spades, where Matt and I had our butts handed to us by the ladies. Overall it was a pretty fun time, plenty of food and drink and great company. I have lots more to post about Benjamin Brewing Company's latest adventures, the labels I have for the beers thus far, and other random things, but that will have to wait!