Restaurant Beer Dinner Experiences

I am hosting my first "professional" beer dinner at a friend's restaurant coming up in March. It's a South American restaurant, so they normally serve wine and light lagers. Thus making craft beer a new experience for her usual customers.

We've already set the beer and food menu and I'm pretty stoked about this.

I was wondering if anyone on here has done this before and has any tips on your experiences.

I've put on a large beer tasting event before, but never a wine or beer dinner.
One thing that we had to deal with in our tasting with a lot of vendors and beer choices was that when a customer gets a beer sample that they don't care for you have to provide a way to dispose of it so they can move on to another brew; otherwise, if they just had to knock the sample back to move on, they would get way too hammered to get thru the event.

Even though the "getting hammered" risk isn't there, still along those lines of people possibly not liking every beer style, you might want to consider some way of providing a beer alternate for each course where you'd be serving a new beer - in other words, a choice between two different beers. One with a lot of character ... and an alternate with a more modest palate.

You could start with a small two-glass rack (say, 3 or 4 oz ea) for the customer to taste the choices and then indicate which one they want for the course.

Maybe this is worth it, maybe not ... it is certainly a lot more work.

Just throwin the idea out there. fwiw.

I have no input, as I've never done anything like that at all, but if Pappers doesn't see this, maybe send him a PM as he has done things like this at home and is quite well versed in what to do, in my opinion. He may be a good resource for you in this!

Thanks! I'll definitely shoot Pappers a PM.

And if anyone is in Dallas on March 16th, please shoot me a PM!

Sounds like fun! Is this going to be a special reservation event? If it is, spending a little time talking about beer and food pairings, thewn something about each beer and what to look for in its pairing might be interesting.

Have you read The Brewmasters Table? I really like that book.

What are your pairings? We can all be envious!

Yes, this is a special RSVP event. I had planned on talking to each table during each course to describe the beer, where it comes from, and why I decided to pair it with that food.

Haven't read The Brewmasters Table. My current resources are He Said Beer, She Said Wine by Sam Calagione and Marnie Old, as well as Beer and Food by Mark Dredge. I'll have to check that one out.

Trying to keep most of the beers local to DFW, but definitely wanted to try out the Cuvee Brut with the chocolate because Mark Dredge says it is one of the perfect pairings to really boost the flavors of the chocolate.

Here's our menu:

First Course:
Food: South American style beef heart pâté, infused with wine and herbs, served with crostini.
Beer: Community Trinity Tripel (Dallas, Texas)

Second Course:
Food: Grilled hearts of palm, Romaine lettuce and crab meat dressed with orange vinaigrette, topped with queso fresco.
Beer: Saint Arnold Boiler Room Berliner Weiss (Houston, Texas)

Third Course:
Food: Duck confit red risotto with plantains, topped with a poached egg, garnished with pickled onion and tomato salad.
Beer: Martin House Imperial Texan Red IIPA (Fort Worth, Texas)

Fourth Course:
Food: Seared corn cake served an eggplant escabeche and yogurt cucumber salad.
Beer: Grapevine Sir William’s Brown Ale (Grapevine, Texas)

Fifth Course:
Food: Chocolate cheesecake with dry cherries, topped with shaved cayenne bitter chocolate
Beer: Liefmans Cuvée Brut Oud Bruin with Cherries (Oudenaard, Belgium)

Oh my, those sound good!

I like the idea of going around to each table to describe the beers and pairing, but wonder if you will have time to do so, and if it would seem intrusive to make your way around the room for each course. Its a single seating meal - everyone sits at the same time? If so, it might be fun to start the evening off with a few brief remarks from you and the chef, about the idea of beer and food pairings and some general things to look for. An short introduction about how there is so much broader a range of flavors between beer styles than between wine styles, which gives so many more options for pairings with food - the strong hop bitterness of the IIPA, for example, cutting through the fatty richness of the duck confit risotto and egg.

Also, how will the servers be pouring the beer? At beer/food pairing dinners at restaurants I've been to, the beers have been on tap and the servers poured from pitchers, which allowed for some to say they only wanted a little, or for the servers to go around a second time in the course if it seemed like folks wanted more. If these are from bottles, that's an interesting question - how to serve? Are you doing a commemorative glass for them to take home - that might be fun. As mentioned before, if beer is being served at the table from pitchers, some way for them to dispose of beer they don't want to finish - a dump pitcher or some such. Also, make sure the servers keep the water replenished at the tables at an event like this - very important.

You've probably already thought about a take-home sheet or menu that describes the beers and the courses. Also, maybe have the two books you mentioned on display, and mention them if people want to read up and learn more.

Finally, I think an apertif is always good - a beer to get things going before the first course. Something light, refreshing, to get the appetite going, and served in modest quantity.

Your menu sounds extraordinary and I'm sure its going to be a fun night!

It's a fairly small restaurant to begin with, so I can't imagine we'll have more than 40 people. I'll kinda have to play it by ear on how often to talk to each table. I like the idea of doing some kind of announcement at the beginning, but I'm not sure if the whole restaurant will be doing the dinner. Otherwise, I can just roll that into my conversation with each table.

The beer will be poured from bottles/cans. Since they don't normally serve much beer, they do not have a draft system. I imagine we'll keep them refrigerated until its time per course and then pour them from the bottle/can into each glass. I guess I still need to sit down with the chef/owner and work out the details, since she does not know much about beer.

I really like the idea of an apertif. Could even use some of the South American beers that she normally serves to kind of showcase the difference of the beer local to the style of the food. We also already have a take home sheet planned to give out as well.

Thanks for the ideas, I can't wait for this to come through!

Posters are made. One step closer!

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I was at a smaller restaurant (30 seats?) event, and the table to table presentation went very well. A long minute at each table while the beer is poured is sufficient. Then walk through for additional commentary as time permits. They also had menus and pens for note taking at each seat.