Magnolia vs Dogfish Head

It's SF Beer Week!!! Aaaahhh! It's like Christmas + Birthday all week for me :) The whole thing kicked off on Friday at Monk's Kettle. Although I love beer and I absolutely fell in love with the place, it is too soon for me to go back there without having the water works turn on, so I opted to go Alembic yesterday instead. I had an amazing experience with food and beer pairings. Marge and I spent our Sunday afternoon-evening drinking, eating, socializing with fellow beer lovers and just had an overall good experience. Plus, I got to meet and photo opp with two of the coolest dudes in my book. Brewmasters Dave McLean of Magnolia Pub and Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head. Starstruck! First off, check out the food pairings with the beer....





Of course we all know that if I'm given choices, I will most likely pick all of it. And that's exactly what we did, we picked all 5 pairings. We had a total of 10 beers (5 each), plus a pint of the official SF Beerweek ale, skewered chicken hearts on a bed of indian spice aioli sauce and a to die for chocolate chip cookies with ginger/nutmeg flavored soymilk dessert for good measure. Yup, you can say that I was slightly inebriated by the time the 4th pairings came out.

My favorite pairing was definitely #3 the chicory stout braised pork cheeks. The pork was very tender, the flavor of vanilla and black miso was amazing and matched with the Stout, I was in beer-food heaven! I remember sitting quietly, chewing ever so slowly and savoring each flavor.

Marge took this picture after I had the 3rd pairing. Look of love? Nope, just slightly inebriated :)





So who won it for me?



Hands down...



No doubt about it...




The best beer-food pairings award goes to...





Drum roll please...

Dogfish Head, Delaware

They paired each food with similar brews of Dave and Sam's beer. The variation in taste was only slightly different but Sam's brew definitely had a rounder, longer lasting finish. The flavor in his beer, long after i've put my glass down still lingered on my lips. There's still that longing to have more of it. The sweetness was perfect, the bitter was just right and the spice was not over powering. I am a new fan!

I know someone who really likes Midas Touch which is coincidentally brewed by Dogfish. See pairing #2. I asked Sam about it (yes, we're on a first name basis now) and he said that to make Midas, he uses the same berries that are used to make Pinot Noir. Bingo...now I know why "he" likes it. Wish I can share that bit of factoid to him but I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually, if not already.


Brewmasters Dave McLean (left) of Magnolia Pub and Sam Calagione (right) of Dogfish Head.





Beer- helping ugly people get laid since 6000 BC

Here's the link to the photo gallery by some random girl walking around with her nice camera. Marge and I are in the pictures randomly but enough to show that we were there for a total of 5 hours! Man! no wonder I was so drunk by the time we left :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bittermelon/3270141714/in/set-72157613578543317/

Cheers,
jakey