I love wine, and I love beer. I've tasted a lot more wines than I have beers in my life, but these days I have beer quite a bit more often than I have wine. Part of it is the fact that I can more easily finish a bottle of beer by myself than a bottle of wine. To my everlasting frustration, Jeanette is not nearly as into alcoholic beverages as I am, plus she usually has work to do on weeknights, so she isn't often up for sharing a bottle with me. That makes beer appropriate for most nights, whereas wine is usually saved for the weekend or when we have company (which, to be fair, is pretty often). Still, I end up having a lot more beer these days, and it is more at the fore of my mind than wine. So, I'm quite enjoying coming up with beer pairings for the next Lazy Bear dinner!

The best thing about coming up with pairings is getting to taste lots of beers and take notes. Wine pairings for Lazy Bear are tough because I can't really afford to open several bottles just to test them out and take tasting notes. But with beer, it's affordable to do so. As a result, I think the beer pairings are generally more spot on than the wine pairings. In order to improve that situation, I've been getting some help from a friend, Max Coane, an L.A.-based sommelier (not his day job). Still, it's tough, since Max can't taste the courses ahead of time. But the pairings are getting better. We definitely had some winners at the last Lazy Bear. I break even (if that) on the beer and wine pairings for Lazy Bear, in order try to give everyone a great value and encourage them to get a pairing. Beverage pairings can really enhance a meal, I get to taste more, and plus people just have more fun when they're drinking.

I have the beer pairings all set for Thursday's Lazy Bear. It's a mix of a few of my favorites (such as Russian River's "Pliny The Elder," and Port Brewing Company's Old Viscosity Ale) and a few that are fairly new to me. In fact, one of them is a very special bottle indeed. Through the grace of one of San Francisco's best beer stores, I have one large bottle of an illicit treat: Brooklyn Brewery's "Blue Apron Ale," brewed exclusively for and distributed exclusively to The French Laundry. It was intended to pair with meats. It's going with short ribs on Thursday. However, this one bottle is all I could get, so I'm pouring it at Lazy Bear without having tasted it (and there are few reviews for it so far, and even conflicting stories on whether its style is like a Belgian Dark Ale or an English Brown ale).

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/11/11 @ 20:52 | Comments (1) | Drinks, Lazy Bear

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