Share this:
Sorry, it’s been too long since we posted part 1 of the Fido Food & Beer tasting event. August was a blur for us and we didn’t realize it’s been 4 weeks since that post. Kendall and I both started new jobs. I moved to a new organization and there’s a lot to learn. Kendall’s at the same company, but moved from the QA team to the QA Manager, so lots of new responsibilities. We are finally catching our breath and we promise we’ll get back to posting weekly.
In the part 1 post, we told you how we want to cover beer events, especially ones with food! Who doesn’t love a good beer and food pairing? Part 1 started with Lucky Bucket’s Pre-prohibition Style Lager paired with Braised pork belly skewers. Then we moved onto Stoudts’ Pils with a corn dawg. Could it get any better? Yes. Yes it could.
The third offering was an Amish butter biscuit with country ham, pickled peach and noble goat cheese. This was my favorite course. It was a heavenly combination. A fresh buttery biscuit like Kendall’s granny used to make, filled with salty ham, creamy goat cheese, slight bite of pickled peach. Perfect. And perfect with the Butternuts Heinneweisse Farmhouse Ale. The ale poured a hazy yellow with a white foamy head. There was a slight tartness, but it was also fruity, with the banana and clove you expect in a hefeweizen. Kendall noticed a slight clove flavor in the ham and thought it was a perfect match to the bit of clove in the ale.
The next course was Kendall’s favorite, but he’s an IPA fan, especially the great IPAs from San Diego’s Green Flash. The pairing was Green Flash Hop Head Red IPA with grilled corn *off* the cob, lime butter, habanero, Kentucky rose blue cheese and cilantro. So good. It was creamy and spicy, the bleu cheese and habanero worked surprisingly well together. It was deceptive. The corn was sweet and buttery at first, but then the habanero kicked in! The Red IPA was a deep copperish red, poured a full head and had good retention. It was balanced for an IPA, you could really taste the caramelly, red ale maltiness. It was hoppy, but not overpowering. Because it was not bitter but had a great hop flavor and aroma, Kendall suspected there was some good dry hopping involved in this beer. He was right. We checked the Green Flash site and found, “we dry-hop the brew with bucket loads of Amarillo hops.” Yep, you could taste the bucket loads. Nice.
As good as the food had been, we knew dessert would be special, but we had no idea it would be so good. We had a Fort Collins Chocolate Stout paired with a Benton’s bacon waffle with smoked maple syrup, caramel and orange. Bacon paired with something sweet is popular right now, and for a good reason. Sweet + salty = delicious! And you can’t get better than Benton’s Bacon from Madisonville, TN. The stuff is legendary here in Tennessee. Best. Bacon. Ever. The combination of bacon, smoke, maple, orange and caramel not only worked well together, but the really pair well with the Chocolate Stout. The Fort Collins Chocolate Stout is exactly what you expect: dark, rich and a bit of chocolate. The chocolate is a perfect level, not overpowering or too little. We also got a chocolate mini cupcake with rich, fudge-like icing. The perfect ending to a perfect meal.
We had a wonderful time at the beer dinner with Fido and Bounty Bev. We can’t wait until the next one!