16 Dec Triton Brewing & Oskar Blues Pair Up For A Beer Dinner Showdown
With the farm to plate emphasis on food even greater these days, you can find beer and food and pairings available more often. I’ve been to handful of them and in fact, a brother of mine does some for charity dinners in his small town. Kills me to admit, he does a good job.
Anyway, last week I had the fortune of attending the Triton Brewing and Oskar Blues Brewing Beer Dinner hosted by The Pint Room in Carmel which, instead of the normal offerings from one brewery, this one involved a “competition” between the two. Great idea! Since one brewery is locally acclaimed and the other is nationally renowned, it was fun to see where this one would go.
Oskar Blues sales representative Mike Collins and Triton sales “ambassador” Jesse Trent teamed up with Pint Room chef Ryan Romito to create the menu. Also different than most beer dinners, Ryan chose the food servings first and then Mike and Jesse tried to match their beer to the dishes. There was no pre-fight weigh-in or trash talk, just a friendly match of “Which pairs better?”
When a good portion of your calories come in the liquid form rather than solid,
you may not be the best at describing food. But I’ll give it a shot. The dishes ranged from light and tasty to bold and delicious. Here’s a few examples.
First was the lamb tartine with merquez sausage, manchego, cucumber and harissa. I don’t know what all of that means but the lamb was blended into a spicy sausage which had enough warmth enough to get your attention. I thought the Oskar Blues “Hop Chowda” IPA – which was new to me – was at least a double, if not an imperial IPA. I guessed right and in this case, the sweet booziness of Hop Chowda was the perfect pairing with the spices, as it won out over the “Sly Boogie” session IPA from Triton.
Next, and my favorite dish of the night, was the scored and seared scallops with “sauce armoricaine” and pureed beets, so light as to not overwhelm the scallopx. Again, Oskar Blues’ clean and crisp “Mama’s Little Yella Pils” won this round over Triton’s “Sin-Bin” Belgian Pale Ale.
The five food offerings were expertly prepared by The Pint Room Chef, Ryan Romito, and his staff. He later acknowledged that events like this are big fun because he can let his staff be a little creative and, like all great teachers, it gives them room to grow individually. Like being let out for a day pass and trusted enough to return, this allows Ryan to play outside of the menu boundaries and show off his chops.
I talked with Mike and Jesse after the dinner about how my wife and I voted on the beer, and we were happy to learn that our choices seemed to match up with theirs. They were also pleased to hear that this wasn’t viewed as a beer contest but rather, which particular beer went better with each separate dish. Sort of like a series of beer and food one-acts with different players.
I think Mike and Jesse were also curious how things would end up because they were playing right along with us. See, they chose their beer according to the described dishes but, get this, they hadn’t actually tasted the food beforehand. Having sampled the food first, they might have selected different beers. For instance, Mike might have selected a Dale’s Pale Ale as the beer of choice over another one, and Jesse could have presented Railsplitter IPA instead of one he chose.
Now if I had been asked to choose which beer was the best of the night, I don’t know if I could have done it. Why? Because like in a play, each scene dictates what kind of character the actor would play, and when I looked back at each beer individually, I would connect it with the food that I had. It’s like when I’m asked what my favorite beer is. I usually struggle with that and I say, “Umm, it depends…” So in this case, that would have been my answer – it depends on which dish you are talking about.
So many things influence our perception. Whether it is the season of year, your setting, or the company you keep, they all affect how we perceive things. That also includes the beer we’re drinking.
Gracious in victory and in defeat, the Oskar Blues and Triton fellas knew this night wasn’t about who won. Instead it was about offering some beer and food education, and having a fun night out. However, as we were leaving I’m pretty sure I saw Jesse raising Mike’s gloves and cleaning out his kegs, so I guess there are bragging rights after all.
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