After sipping and nibbling through two formal wine dinners recently -- and reading Wine for Dummies cover to cover -- my senses were tweaked by last week's beer dinner at Kinley's Restaurant. It wasn't exactly a Hillary Clinton moment -- no Bud Light, no Frito pie, no bowling, and both the food and beer were distinctly high-end.
But shifting from vino to brewski inevitably means letting your hair down a bit. So does the arrival of summer, and Kinley's chef/owner Brett Knipmeyer plans to follow the beer dinner with a wine dinner next week, where he'll pair selected vintages with different styles of barbecue.
It was fun trying to apply some newly acquired ideas about food and wine to the beer option. As with wine, I enjoyed matches that were complementary rather than contrasts.
The first course suggested that the chef agreed. He paired Alaskan Brewing Co.'s first offering -- a light but rich raspberry wheat beer -- with a salad that had plenty of sweet and fruity counterpoints: Shaved fennel was tossed with baby greens and hearts of palm, then drizzled with raspberry and mango-lime vinaigrette. "Toss in a few fresh raspberries," Knipmeyer said. "That's a no-brainer."
Next up: a Belgian-style wit (white) beer. "White" refers to the yeast that lingers in this type of brewing. The chef matched the resulting complexity with a similarly not-so-simple formula on the dinner plate: onion-crusted rockfish in a savory mornay sauce, garnished with anchovy, lemon and capers.
Alaska Brewery's Jon Blakley, who hosts a beer dinner somewhere in Alaska about once a month, told diners that the original 11th-century brewing process was done without hops, and so coriander, citrus peel and other spices were used to add bite to the beer's flavor. Now, with hops in play, the brewers' challenge was to keep the medieval flavor in tandem with the 21st century hops.
At first I thought this match with salty-vinegary toppings had led me to the perfect beverage for a picnic -- where pickles and mustard and relish and potato salad turn most any nice white wine you bring along into acid. But the tart notes seemed, like most garnishes, to be there for contrast. On this plate, the beer's true dance partners -- the onion-redolent fish and the mushroom sauce -- shared the savory earthiness of the Belgian brew.
The next course was even more robust: a jalapeno India Pale Ale served with harissa- rubbed flank steak, sweet potato and black bean hash and sun-dried tomato and jalapeno-compound butter.
One classic rule of wine-pairing is that the wine's character should be stronger than its complement in the food -- a dessert wine, for example, should be a bit sweeter than the dessert. Knipmeyer used the same approach here: The harissa was sassy, but the IPA was sassier.
Last up: coffee brown ale. That dark bevvy and the chocolate creme brulee served with it suggested a super-rich finale. But the beer was way lighter than the stouts and porters that often swim with chocolate desserts, and the creme brulee was made with a light hand too -- with an espresso grenache bottom that reflected the coffee in the ale and finessed the evening's sweet finish.
This dinner included five beers and four courses for $55. Wine dinners at similar restaurants generally cost about $20 to $25 more for food and wine. While some restaurants have fewer summer events "while everybody's gone fishin'," others use the dinners to draw in Alaska's seasonally expanded population.
And while food changes the way we taste (and "feel") wines they are paired with, that didn't happen as much with the beer matches. If you came for the beer, that's probably something to smile about.
• Play dining reviewer Mike Peters can be reached at mpeters@adn.com.
Beer and wine dinners
Several area restaurants host pairing dinners regularly; Kincaid Grill and Orso are two that always offer a prix-fixe menu with wine pairings. Here are some Web sites to watch for special events:
• www.captaincook.com
• www.kincaidgrill.com
• www.midnightsunbrewing.com
Recipes with beer
Alaskan Brewing Co. has posted dozens of recipes that include its various beers at www.alaskanbeer.com
By Mike Peters
mpeters@adn.com