Beermakers dinner: Brews and chews

Craft brewers, chefs merge their flavors in a six-course meal

Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

Just like wine, craft beers full of flavor can be the inspiration for food as evidenced by the emerging popularity of dinners featuring special brews.

After a successful run of winemaker’s dinners earlier this year, the owners of the Historic Requa Inn decided to try a dinner that featured a different local beer paired with each course.

Last Saturday, the dinner featured Asian cuisine and beers from  Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka.

The busy tourist season typically starts to slow down in October and beers go with the season (Oktoberfest and all), so the innkeepers thought to do a variation of their winemaker’s dinners, said Reweti Wiki, one of the owners.

“We’ve got great breweries in the area as well,” he said. “We wanted to see what the reaction would be to beermaker’s dinners and events in the fall.”

Thomas Wortman, a chef at Requa Inn, pours pork broth into a bowl for the second course of the Beermaker’s Dinner featuring Lost Coast Brewery last Saturday night. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

This Saturday will be the final beermaker’s dinner  for this year at the Requa Inn. The interest so far as been promising, the Wikis said.

“We’re excited to bring award-winning beers to the inn for a special night,” Geneva Wiki said.

Wiki’s aunt, Susan Masten, said she came away from the evening with a new appreciation for beer.

Evening covers a wide spectrum of tastes

The evening started with light appetizers and Lost Coast’s lightest beer, Great White, and progressed into more complex flavors, ending with dessert and Eight Ball Stout, the brewery’s heaviest beer.

Guests lingered in the main room of the Requa Inn, chatting, listening to the sounds of local musician Tom Boylan, known as Holus Bolus, and sampling the brews.

Briar Bush, the general manager for Lost Coast, talks about the brewery’s beers at the dinner Saturday. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

“It’s bringing together the culture of food to the culture of the beverage,” Bush said.

With beer, there’s a wide spectrum of flavor possibilities, which means more pairing opportunities, he said.

Beer: It’s not just for barbecues anymore.

Beer can fall anywhere on the very light to very dark spectrum, Bush said. Light beers are more subtle, dark beers more complex.

Craft brewers are using old-world techniques to create more flavorful beer — something that was lost when the big brewers took over the industry, Bush said.

“Brewers are trying to holistically build up the culture of beer,” he said. “We’re trying to get the word out as a craft brewer industry.”

And, it’s been working.

An oyster sits on a bed of kimchi. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

“The cat is out of the proverbial bag,” Bush joked.

Lost Coast has been around for 20 years and really can’t be considered a microbrew anymore, he said, since it’s sold in 22 states, some provinces in Canada, Puerto Rico, Korea and just recently in Japan.

Citrus beers, savory flavors

Each of the six courses was small enough that it wasn’t overwhelming and even dessert was welcomed.

Before each course, Bush told diners about the beer and what notes they might detect. Requa Inn chefs Thomas Wortman and Paul Hess then described how they designed each course to suit the flavors of each beer. They decided on Asian cuisine for this dinner.

The night started off with Great White, a crisp, hop-less beer with a citrus note from kaffir lime leaf (often found in Southeast Asian cuisine) and a little spice from coriander.

The first course was a Kumomoto oyster on the half shell on a bed of kimchi, a Korean vegetable dish.

Duck breast with a yeast bun and oyster mushroom. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

The next course featured another popular Lost Coast beer, Tangerine Wheat, which has an undeniable citrus flavor. This beer is made with tangerine essence, or the perfume that arises from running a fingernail over the fruit’s rind.

Bush said the cloudy appearance of this beer comes from the amount of wheat. This, with the essence, gives drinkers a sense of having a slice of tangerine in their mouth.

The second course was a spicy pork broth with fresh handmade ramen noodles, pressure-cured pork belly, scallion, basil and bean sprout.

Wortman said that pork and citrus would be “nice on the palette.” The fat from the meat and acid from the citrus “create a new flavor in your mouth,” he said.

The noodles were soft and floated delicately in the broth while the pork belly was rich and salty. The sweetness of the Tangerine Wheat and the savory pork melded effortlessly in the mouth.

By the third course, the beer and food were becoming a little bit heavier.

The Alleycat Amber Ale has a golden hue from roasted barley. During the malting process, the barley is burned to add not only color, “but also to allow flavor components to come out,” Bush said.

Sirloin steak with Japanese yams, bok choy and a pickle garnish. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

Skin left on, the trout was crispy, but not overcooked, from a quick pan sear and the foam (made from the juice of blanched cilantro and mint) added flavor without the heaviness of a sauce.

The sweetness of this dish came out after a swig of ale.

Complex beers, sweet flavors

Then came the bold I.P.A.

India pale ales were developed as a way to satiate the thirst of the British while occupying India. The brewing process started in England and ended in India, Bush explained. The result is a beer with a higher level of alcohol and more hops as a preservative. For Lost Coast, it’s the Indica I.P.A.

“It’s a style that’s very unique,” Bush said.

The fourth course was all the rage among diners.

The chefs came up with a  Zheng bao-style yeast bun filled with a mushroom and cabbage stuffing with seared duck breast and yuzu marinated mushroom.

“I.P.A is a big beer with big flavor,” Wortman said. “We wanted to pair it with equally big flavors.”

The yeast bun stuffed with chanterelles and crimini mushrooms and cabbage exploded with flavor. The earthiness of the mushrooms was cut with the sharp vinegar flavor from the cabbage — flavors not expected to hit all at once.

With these bold flavors lingering, a drink of the I.P.A. seemed to say, “Don’t forget about me!”

On the side was an oyster mushroom marinated with yuzu, an Asian fruit that’s like a cross between a lemon and orange. The result was what seemed like a cross-breed of lemon and mushroom that almost canceled out the bitterness from the I.P.A.

The fifth course featured a sous vide Kobe sirloin steak with Japanese yam gratin, bok choy and sweet pickles paired with Downtown Brown.

Downtown Brown is an English-style heavy brown ale, Bush explained. There are three flavor notes to look for in this beer: toffee, coffee and bittersweet chocolate, Bush said, adding that it pairs well with red meat.

Which is exactly what the Requa Inn chefs decided to do.

Kobe beef tends to be tender and flavorful.

Chef Paul Hess explained that the sirloin steak was cooked sous vide, which means “under vacuum” in French. It cooked sealed in an air tight bag in a water bath for four hours at rare and then it was seared to medium rare, Hess said.

The chefs thought red meat would pair well with the malted sweetness of the brown ale.

“It will stand up well to the steak and the steak will stand up well to it,” Hess said, “and they’ll be friends.”

The steak was incredibly tender and cut like butter. A bite went really well with a bite of yams.

The Japanese yams were scalloped and stacked neatly in a square. A pickle garnish on the side was needed to “to break up the caramels,” Hess said.

The yams tasted sweet like apples and brought out the sweetness of the brown ale, creating a caramel flavor in the mouth.

The sixth course was dessert in both beer and food.

Eight Ball Stout is thick and black from roasted dark chocolate malts and oatmeal.

“What you get is a great frothy feel,” Bush said. “It feels almost like you can chew it.”

The stout is arguably Lost Coast’s most complex beer. It’s also best served at room temperature to get all of its flavors.

“You’ll pick up coffee, chocolate and caramel,” Bush said.

It was paired with black rice sweet dumplings with coconut sorbet and sugar fried herbs.

Hess said that the chefs took the coffee and caramel notes in the stout and made dumplings almost like gourmet cream puffs, profiteroles or eclairs, from a black rice that was ground to a powder that looked like “sand with jewels in it.”

The warm, crunchy dumplings had a soft middle that could be used to soak up the melting coconut sorbet.

Fried herbs — basil, mint and cilantro — dusted with sugar added sharp, savory flavors that made sure the dessert wasn’t too sweet. They were crispy like delicate chips.

The light dessert ended the meal with a hint of sweetness. The rich, warm stout was soothing all the way to the stomach.

This Saturday there will be a beermaker’s dinner featuring Mad River Brewing Company from Blue Lake. Call the Requa Inn at 482-1425 to see if there are any spots left.

Another months-long series of winemaker’s dinners will be starting in January. Go to requainn.com for more information.