Beer Dinner
My buddy Angela and I went to our second (my third) beer dinner at Summit's Monday night.

We got to meet the brewery owners/brewers/reps for a few hours before the show started this year. Breweries in attendance were: Dogfish Head, Clipper City, Sam Adams, Highland Brewing Company, Ommegang Brewery, Terrapin Brewing and Sweetwater Brewing. All East Coast brewers, and all pretty darned impressive. Angela and I have had the good fortune to be able to get stuff from Dogfish Head for a while, but they're new to Georgia, so there was a lot of excitement around that. I'd never had any of the Clipper City beers before, and I was pretty impressed with all of their offerings. All in all there were about forty beers there, and by the time I left I'd tried them all (though to be fair I'd tried some of them before and didn't bother having more at the dinner).

The menu was equally impressive. For starters there were Ostrich "Sliders" which were essentially White Castle sized burgers steamed in Chimay Trappist Ale, Mussels Delaware simmered in Dogfish Head beer, Roast Duck and Laura Chenel goat cheese quesadillas and the highlight of the evening for me: Kobe Beef "Pigs in a blanket." The Beef dogs were simply unbelievable. Rich beyond rich.

Entrees included Shrimp and Crawfish cakes served with wasabe remoulade sauce, Venison chops served with a Bordeaux truffle sauce, topped with peach infused caramelized onions (yowza), wild game fried rice and braized bok choy. Again with the meat, the Venison was just outstanding, it was meatier than any vension I've ever encountered.

Desert was a vatted beer ice cream with chocolate mousse and a beer infused Valhrona chocolate sauce.

And then we crashed.

Much inspiration for this year's birthday dinner in June. Hmmmmm.

I miss the punks.