Snörkel is the Jester King’s Farmhouse Ale, brewed with Alderwood Smoked Sea Salt and Oyster Mushrooms and, if you can find a bottle of this, it pairs wonderfully with the salad, both highlighting the umami profiles, all while staying light and refreshing. Other spontaneous ales, or even a gose, or mushroom IPA would also bring out the best in this dish.

Ingredients

Shrimp

6 to 8 large shrimp, deveined and cleaned

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp garlic, grated or microplaned

Salt

1 Tbsp canola oil

Dressing

1/2 cup light mayonnaise

2 Tbsp white miso paste

1 Tbsp smooth dijon mustard

1 garlic clove, microplaned

1 anchovy fillet or 1 Tbsp anchovy paste

2 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp rice vinegar

Salt and Pepper

Salad

5 to 6 large sprigs curly kale, de-stemmed and chopped

1/4 cup radicchio, thinly sliced

1/2 cup croutons

Shaved parmesan cheese

Directions

Make the shrimp. In a mixing bowl coat shrimp with olive oil and combine with garlic and salt to taste. Heat a skillet over high heat with the teaspoon of canola oil until wisps of smoke appear. Pat the shrimp with a clean paper towel to remove excess moisture and add them to the skillet. Cook until opaque and cooked through, about 4 to 5 minutes, remove from pan.

Make the dressing: In a blender or food processor, combine mayonnaise, miso paste, Dijon, garlic, anchovy, cheese, olive oil, and vinegar. Process until smooth and season with salt and pepper.

Make the salad: In a large bowl add kale and fold in dressing until leaves are lightly coated Top the kale with radicchio, shaved parmesan, shrimp, and croutons. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

About Jester King Brewery: The brewery on the outskirts of Austin is the stuff of legend by many drinkers and was driven to heights of popularity thanks to the wild and spontaneous beer that founder Jeffrey Stuffings and his brewers have produced through the years. It’s an idyllic place to visit, quiet and peaceful. The brewery is adapting to the times. It now has a clean fermentation program.  There’s a wine program in the works, and a renewed sense of experimentation.

Pre-order a copy of The Craft Brewery Cookbook by John Holl

The post Miso Kale Caesar Salad first appeared on All About Beer.

The secret to getting a restaurant-quality sear on your scallops starts long before you heat the frying pan, and it’s an important step that will give your dish a professional level taste. The issue most home cooks have with getting that lovely crust on their scallops has nothing to do with their abilities: it’s the scallops themselves. Most scallops are soaked in a phosphate solution that allows them to stay fresher longer. This same solution prevents the little sea creatures from searing properly and instead lends a slightly “soapy” taste once cooked.

The answer: either buy freshly harvested scallops that never see the need for this freshness extending liquid (hard to do in the vast majority of the world), or give them a good soak in a nice brine. A brine will help “wash” the solution out of the scallops, letting you avoid the soapy taste, and giving you a nice crust. It’s the easiest way to impress your dinner guests with the best home-cooked scallops they’ve ever had. Yield: 4 servings.

For The Scallops

12 ounces pale ale (pilsner, wheat beer or pale lager will also work)
2 tablespoons salt
1 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice
12-16 large or jumbo scallops
2 tablespoons butter

For The Asparagus And Romesco

2/3 cup sliced almonds
1 large bell pepper, roasted (from a jar is fine)
1 cloves garlic, smashed
1 can (6 ounces) tomato puree
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
3 tablespoons stout beer
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound asparagus, trimmed
3 tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. In a large bowl stir together the pale ale, salt, water and lemon juice.
2. Add the scallops, cover and refrigerate for an hour.
3. rain the scallops and place on top of a stack of paper towels. Add another layer of paper towels and allow to drain and dry for 15 minutes.
4. Make the romesco. Add the almonds to a pan over medium high heat. Pull the pan back and forth across the burner to toss the almonds until they have lightly toasted, about three minutes (keep a close eye, they burn quickly).
5. Add the almonds, red bell pepper, garlic, tomato puree, parsley, beer, red pepper flakes, smoked paprika, salt and pepper to a food processor.
6. Process for about one minute, then slowly add the olive oil until well combined (romesco can be made several days in advance, store in an air-tight container in the fridge until ready to use).
7. Melt two tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium high heat until very hot. Add the scallops, flat side down, and allow to cook until a dark golden brown crust forms on the bottom, about two minutes. Flip and cook until seared on the opposite side. Remove from pan when a slight hint of translucent pink still remains at the center—don’t overcook.
8. Melt three tablespoons butter in a large skillet over high heat (you want the asparagus to form a nice char but to still retain a good bite and not get soggy, if the heat is too low the asparagus will overcook before getting the desired char). Add the asparagus, tossing until most of the asparagus has charred slightly on one or both sides, remove from pan.
9. Plate the asparagus, top with romesco sauce and scallops, serve immediately.

The Chef’s Pairings: Yuzu Beers

Brewers continue to experiment with specialty ingredients, pushing the boundaries of flavor. Since a good beer deserves a good meal, All About Beer Magazine asked Jackie Dodd, founder of TheBeeroness.com, to taste a few beers brewed with yuzu fruit and offer tasting notes and pairing suggestions. Get more pairing ideas and recipes at allaboutbeer.com/food.

The post Beer-Brined Scallops Over Asparagus With Stout Romesco first appeared on All About Beer.

No matter how you take them, there’s a beer style that pairs perfectly with your favorite wing sauces and seasonings. Just don’t forget the napkins.

Traditional Buffalo and Helles Lager: The spicy vinegar kick of this classic wing sauce can be tempered by the subtle sweetness and balance of a Helles lager.

Honey Mustard and Berliner Weisse: The light tartness and refreshing quality of a Berliner weisse makes it an appropriate pairing for nearly any wing, but it’s an especially good partner for the tanginess of honey mustard.

Coconut Curry and Belgian Tripel: This Thai-inspired sauce finds a friend in one of Belgium’s most well-known styles. The spicy notes imparted by Belgian yeast—think pepper, clove and lemon—complement the coconut and curry.

Barbecue and Schwarzbier: Light in body yet dark in color, a Schwarzbier’s mild notes of chocolate and coffee are the perfect complement for a sweet and smoky barbecue sauce.

Caribbean Jerk and Scotch Ales: With a sweet blend of caramel and dark fruit notes, scotch ales can cool the scotch bonnet heat of a traditional jerk sauce.

Teriyaki and Belgian Dubbel: Dark malts find their match in the sweeter side of teriyaki sauce, while a Belgian dubbel’s yeast-driven notes of apple and pear play well with teriyaki spices like ginger and soy. 

The post Pairing: Beer and Buffalo Wings first appeared on All About Beer.

Pozole is such a classic Mexican dish that nearly every family that grew up eating it, grew up with a different variation. Some like it with a red chili base, others prefer the verde version. Some recipes call for pork, chicken, fish or even goat. In its most classic form, pozole is hearty, filling, full of beautifully slow-cooked meat and filled with a nice helping of hominy. Don’t forget the toppings—they are an essential component to balancing the flavors of the dish. Pineapple beers, with their tropical flavors and bright pop of acidity, pair perfectly with the deep, rich, spicy flavors of a hearty bowl of pozole.

Ingredients

2½ pounds chicken (bone-in: thighs, wings and/or drumsticks)
1 teaspoon salt
1 white onion, quartered
1 large carrot, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
12 ounces Flanders red beer
3 pounds hominy from a can, rinsed and drained
4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon dried cilantro
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon cumin

Garnishes

¼ whole green cabbage, thinly sliced
1 large tomato, chopped
1 large avocado, chopped
½ large red onion, chopped
½ cup cilantro, chopped
½ cup crumbled cotija
½ cup red radishes, thinly sliced
2 limes, cut into quarters
2 large jalapeños, chopped
Tortilla chips

Preparation

1. Place chicken pieces in a large pot, cover with about 2 ½ quarts of water, salt, onions, carrot, celery and half of the beer, stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until the chicken is tender and cooked through, about 30 minutes.

2. Remove chicken from pot, allow to cool slightly. Using two forks, pull chicken meat away from the bones, shredding into pieces. Reserve the meat, return the bones to the stock pot. Continue to simmer the bones, uncovered, for 45 minutes.

3. In a blender or food processor, add half of the hominy, garlic cloves and 2 cups of the stock from the pot. Blend until smooth.

4. Strain the broth to remove and discard the bones, then add in the pureed hominy. Stir in the chicken meat, cilantro, oregano, cumin, pepper, remaining hominy and beer. Bring to a simmer and cook for an additional 10-15 minutes.

5. Serve the pozole alongside the garnishes, allowing guests to garnish as they choose.

The Chef’s Pairings: Pineapple Beers

Brewers continue to experiment with specialty ingredients, pushing the boundaries of flavor. Since a good beer deserves a good meal, All About Beer Magazine asked Jackie Dodd, founder of TheBeeroness.com, to taste a few beers brewed with pineapple and offer tasting notes and pairing suggestions. Get more pairing ideas and recipes at allaboutbeer.com/food.

The post Flanders Red Chicken Pozole first appeared on All About Beer.

Learning about beer and food can be a ton of fun. Any beer pairing dinner will feature lively interactions carefully put together to show off the best in the beer, and if you’re paying attention, you may pick up on a few general principles and a few hints and tips.

But what if you want to make a serious study of it? Most dishes have several ingredients working together in particular ways. It’s a little overwhelming trying to untangle it all in the context of a beer and derive some general principles from it. That’s why I suggest you start with cheese.

Cheese is profoundly complex, but when it’s in front of you, it’s just one thing. It’s much less bewildering than a main dish, or appetizer. Cheese shows clearly how beer and food can interact, and it’s easy because every beer and cheese has a multitude of perfect pairing partners.

So what are the goals for a great beer and food pair? First, I guess you’d say, “Do no harm,” which means both partners should play nicely and not stomp all over the other one. This is usually stated as trying to match intensities, or at least avoid a collision of one big, bold partner with a much more delicate one. It’s pretty basic. You just have to consider everything in the beer from the alcohol and the bubbles to potentially intense elements like bitter hops and roasted malt. The same summation needs to be made of the food elements. In cheese, we’re talking about things like fattiness, salt and pungency.

The real goal is to achieve what the Brazilians call harmonizacão, or harmonization, meaning a real relationship where each partner changes in interesting ways and often creates a third set of sensations springing synergistically from the food and the beer. Aroma sets the stage. Similar aromas, when they can be found, tie the pair together. Beer often has caramelly notes. Cheese, especially aged varieties (think 18-month gouda), also can be a bit caramelly, so there’s a link. Hops have herbaceous aromas that can resonate with the herbal notes in blue cheese. And of course we can look to cuisine for things that are harmonious without being similar: roast and meat; bread and butter; fruit and cream; and so on. Once you start paying attention to these, you’ll find plenty to work with.

Finally, there are the tastes on the tongue as well as mouthfeel. There are fewer tastes than aromas, but they need to be balanced carefully. Cheese has some acidity and umami, varying degrees of saltiness and usually plenty of fat. We’re fortunate to be working with beer, as it has qualities that are ideal for dealing with those rich, palate-clinging tastes. First, carbonation physically scrubs all that stuff out of your mouth, leaving you ready for more. Bitterness cuts through fat, so it can be helpful with rich cheeses, especially when they’re robust enough to tolerate the intensity of hops. Alcohol is a pretty good fat solvent, and so a high-alcohol beer can work great with a high-fat cheese like triple-crème. Beer is acidic, sometimes intensely so, and that can also help cut through fat. The rich proteiny taste of umami is something people just want to linger on and savor. It turns out that amber and brown beers, if they’re not too roasty, enhance the experience of umami, which is one reason brown beers are generally pretty good food beers. Salt can be a wild card. It’s very friendly to toasty and roasty and can minimize bitterness, but sometimes can be one flavor too many, especially when sweetness and bitterness are already in the pairing.

Usually if you find one combination that works, you can scale it up and down and find that the core concept holds together. If blue cheese and IPA works, then stilton (a very strong aged blue) and barley wine will also, and on the other end of the scale, so should blue brie with a hoppy pils.

People always ask: “Should I eat the cheese first or drink the beer?” After the first taste, it obviously doesn’t matter. I’m a beer guy, so I say taste the beer, but I probably would feel differently if I were a cheese maker.

Cheese varies widely in its character and depth of flavor, and actually parallels craft beer in terms of its artfulness. A regular grocery might have little in the way of artisan cheese, so you are better off shopping at a specialty shop or gourmet market that has people behind the cheese counter. In my experience these folks really enjoy beer and have great suggestions and insights. I rely on them frequently.

It’s also helpful to learn your way around the cheese landscape. Cows, sheep and goats each make very different milks, and each impacts the cheese in different ways. In production, cultures, natural or otherwise, may ferment the milk, changing and adding flavor. The middle of the process is all about water removal, which obviously affects the texture, but also how hard the cheese will be, how long it will age and how intense its flavors are. Different aging techniques affect the final cheese, as do secondary treatments like the injection of penicillium fungus that adds its delicious moldiness to blue cheese.

Putting together a small-scale cheese and beer tasting is among the simplest gourmet adventures you can have. Pick half a dozen cheeses, trying to mix things up: get at least one goat and one sheep; try to have some soft and some hard, one blue, one washed rind (the stinky type that comes in many degrees of stinkiness), one aged. Now that you have cheese in your basket, try to visualize the flavors and imagine which beers might pair well with them. Medium-intensity beers are usually good bets with cheese. As I mentioned, don’t be afraid to ask for help from the folks at the cheese counter. And just below, I’ll detail a few pairings I think generally work.

Harder cheeses are best pre-cut. I like to cut each cheese differently to make them easy to tell apart. Harder cheeses need smaller pieces as they’re more intense, but I like these to have a lot of surface area, so very thin tapered slices or irregular matchsticks; some softer cheeses can be just served with a knife or spreader as they glue themselves back together after cutting. For just a little taste, 1/4 ounce (7 grams) is adequate; half ounce per cheese is fine. If people are really eating, a little more. Bread is optional. For educational purposes I find it gets in the way, but for more casual tastings, it makes the whole thing feel more like food.

So here are a few pairings I always have a great time with:

1. Hefeweizen with fresh mozzarella. It seems strange until it’s in your mouth, where the milky creaminess of the cheese encounters the fruity, almost peachy aromatics imparted by the yeast, plus a twist of spice on top. Really makes you think of peach ice cream.

2. Amber to brown ale or lager with a washed-rind cheese. Recognizable by their orangish rind and gooey interior, these cheeses also offer varying degrees of cheesy funk. Despite their aromatic intensity, the inside of the cheese (experts call it “paste”) is very mild, so the beer can’t be too bitter or roasty. Done right, you get a “liquid-grilled-cheese-sandwich-in-your-mouth” effect. If you’re frightened by funk, ask your cheese merchant for a milder one.

3. Blue cheese and IPA. We normally don’t think about the mold of blue cheese having an herby quality, but when you put it with hops, it just explodes. Also, the cheese is pretty fatty, and the bitterness just blasts it away, while at the same time the cheese reduces the perception of bitterness.

4. Triple-crème bloomy-rind with doppelbock or Scotch ale. Played against this rich, salty-buttery cheese, the dark malts and beer’s sweetness creates a sort of chocolatey/caramelly cheesecake effect. If you want an alternative for a very different kind of pairing, a Belgian strong golden or tripel works great.

5. Three-year gouda with imperial stout. This super-aged cheese is caramel in color as well as flavor, with a lot of meaty and buttery notes. Pair it with a big, dark beer and you put meaty, roasty, caramelly and salty together. If you think about a cheeseburger, it’s all there but the pickles.

Getting to know beer and cheese is an ongoing process, but a very fun, rewarding and social one. In addition, it will help you grasp the basics so you can move on to more complex dishes. I urge you to get out there and explore this fascinating combination, slice by slice.

Randy Mosher is the author of Tasting Beer and is a senior instructor at the Siebel Institute.

The post How to Pair Beer and Cheese first appeared on All About Beer.

A renaissance blossomed in American restaurants throughout the mid-1990s. The Food Network had just launched, and notable chefs were becoming household names. It was a time of growth, experimentation, education and sophistication in the culinary industry—a community that gained a steady foothold during the decade. Diners hungered for new and exciting flavors, farm-fresh ingredients and fine wine. It was a good time to be in the restaurant business and the wine industry.

And in the middle of it all, one craft brewer in Brooklyn dared host dinners and pairings around beer instead of wine—quietly disrupting tradition and holding the door to the culinary world open for the craft beer community.

When Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery in New York (and a regular contributor to this magazine), originally started merging his love of good beer and good food, it was nothing more than a slick marketing idea.

“I saw that wine was getting respect, and food was getting respect,” reflects Oliver, “but beer wasn’t getting any respect. I thought that beer was just as good with food when it came to pairing as wine was, and I thought that by putting these two things together, you could basically get the reflective glory from the food world onto the beer world.”

In the early days, getting people on board with his idea proved challenging for Oliver, whose pairing event suggestions were mostly met with laughter and ridicule. But slowly, and surely, members of the culinary industry took notice.

In 2007, Oliver began brewing a special Brooklyn Brewery beer for the beverage menu at The French Laundry, Thomas Keller’s world-renowned dining establishment in California. The collaboration came at the request of Keller, who was looking to expand his beverage program to include more beer offerings. For Oliver and the brewing industry, the move came as a sign that the gap between the culinary world and the craft beer world was beginning to close.

Roughly around the same time, Yvon Ros—longtime James Beard Foundation employee and the current director of sponsorship and special events—started to see an increase in award nominations for members of the brewing community.

“We started seeing an increase in nominations for those in craft beer over 10 years ago; I would say the early 2000s,” says Ros. “In 2003, Fritz Maytag, former owner of Anchor Brewing Company, won the award for Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional. Since then, we’ve seen nominations for beer professionals both on the beer brand and brewing side, and for beer service in the U.S.”

But it wasn’t until 2014, after receiving a handful of previous nominations, that Garrett Oliver took home his own James Beard Award in the same category—which until 1999, didn’t even include the mention of beer in the title. For Oliver and his industry peers, the award represented more than just recognition from the culinary industry—it served as validation that the craft beer movement was here to stay.

Since its inception in 1986, the James Beard Foundation has honored and recognized food and beverage professionals at the top of their field. A James Beard Award has the ability to launch a career. It’s almost guaranteed to fill barstools and dining chairs. For Oliver, a win garnered a level of attention that up until that point wasn’t afforded to the craft brewing community.

“It was great to win,” says Oliver, “but I didn’t see it as something that I won. It was an acknowledgement by the culinary world that beer had arrived and was something to be respected and paid attention to.”

With more eyes on the growing industry, and a new level of respect, the task of advancing the business of beer at a local, state and national level became slightly easier. Lobbyists vying for better beer laws were now speaking to a more attentive crowd. Banks began taking loan requests from start-up breweries more seriously, and craft beer consumers were increasingly able to find larger, more diverse craft beer options on restaurant dinner menus—something Oliver touts as a huge key to moving the needle forward for the craft beer community.

“If you neglect the table and you’re not represented as an industry and a culture, then the meaning you have to people is going to be thin,” says Oliver, noting that so many special moments happen around a dinner table.

Although beer still has a long way to go to achieve the same level of respect as wine in the culinary world, the future is bright.

“In the last five years, two of the wins in the category of Outstanding Wine, Beer or Spirits Professional have gone to beer professionals, which shows great growth in the influence and prevalence of beer in the industry,” says Ros.

In 2017, both Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing Co. and Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery were nominated in the category, with Calagione emerging with the win—making him the third member from the beer industry to win the award in a category mostly dominated by wine. That same year, Jorge Guzman—then serving as the executive chef at Surly Brewing Co.—earned a nomination from the foundation in the Best Chef: Midwest category.

[Pull Up A Stool With Sam Calagione]

Following his win in 2014, Oliver and Brooklyn Brewery helped foster the relationship between beer and food with the opening of The Brewery at the CIA—an educational brewing facility on the New York campus of the Culinary Institute of America.

Since 2015, the institute has served as a vital resource for the culinary industry to better appreciate craft beer. Armed with the tools to understand the brewing process, ingredients used in beer and interesting ideas for pairing beer with food, more chefs are entering the job force with the same appreciation and respect for beer as they are taught to have for wine.

“If you reach people as they’re pursing a culinary career and they have programs like this put in front of them, when they do reach the culinary world, they’re going to have a respect for beer that they otherwise might not have had,” says Oliver.

Tyra Sutak is a freelance beer, travel and outdoor writer and photographer based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado.

2018 James Beard Award Semifinalists

While none advanced as nominees, the following beer industry professionals were named semifinalists in the Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional category of the 2018 James Beard Awards:

Leah Wong Ashburn of Highland Brewing Co. in Asheville, N.C.
An Bui of Mekong in Richmond, Virginia
Dave Green of Skagit Valley Malting in Burlington, Washington
Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø of Evil Twin Brewing in Brooklyn, New York
Jeffrey Stuffings of Jester King Brewery in Austin, Texas
JC and Esther Tetreault of Trillium Brewing Co. in Boston
Sean Lilly Wilson of Fullsteam Brewery in Durham, N.C.  

The post The James Beard Foundation Shines Spotlight on Brewers  first appeared on All About Beer.

For a decadent dessert that can be either prepared or paired with maple beers, look no further than this recipe for stout pecan fudge. Opting for a barrel-aged stout provides an additional depth to the fudge’s richness here, and chopped pecans give a seasonal crunch that makes this one an all-too-easy dessert for the cool months ahead.

Ingredients

16 wt oz dark chocolate (60% cacao content)
1/3 cup (102g) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup barrel-aged stout, plus 2 tablespoons, divided
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preparation

1. Line an 8×8 baking pan with wax paper; set aside.
2. In the top of a double boiler over gently simmering water add the chocolate, 1/3 cup beer, and sweetened condensed milk. Stir until well combined and chocolate is melted. Remove from heat.
3. Stir in the vanilla extract and remaining two tablespoons beer.
4. Pour into prepared pan. Top with pecans.
5. Chill until set, about three hours. Cut into squares.

The Chef’s Pairings: Maple Beers

Brewers continue to experiment with specialty ingredients, pushing the boundaries of flavor. Since a good beer deserves a good meal, All About Beer Magazine asked Jackie Dodd, founder of TheBeeroness.com, to taste a few beers brewed with maple and offer tasting notes and pairing suggestions. Get more pairing ideas and recipes at allaboutbeer.com/food.

The post Stout Pecan Fudge first appeared on All About Beer.

Here’s a duck dish that’s not only easy to execute, but also enjoyable any time of the year. The savory richness of the duck breast and nutty flavor of the crisp duck skin pair well with the beer gastrique (for which we used Ecliptic Brewing’s Comet Calala Passionfruit Imperial Wit). The tartness of the gastrique cuts through the richness of the duck while maintaining balance, and the passion fruit lends a light and fruity taste that pairs well with game birds. Earthy and nutty quinoa is a healthy alternative that, with the addition of cilantro, brightens the entire dish. Serves 4 people.

Ingredients

Roasted Duck Breasts

2 whole Long Island duck breasts (4 halves) 

4 tablespoons grapeseed or canola oil

4 cloves of garlic, sliced

2 tablespoons of rough-chopped thyme

5 turns cracked black pepper

Red Quinoa

½ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 onion, finely diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups red quinoa

1/2 cup white wine

1 quart vegetable stock

1 sprig thyme

1 bay leaf

3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped

Beer Gastrique

4.5 ounces passion fruit beer

4.5 ounces apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons passion fruit puree

4 ounces sugar 

Preparation

1. Mix grapeseed oil, garlic, thyme and black pepper together and coat the duck breasts. Marinate overnight.

2. In a sauté pan, bring a tablespoon of canola or grapeseed oil to high heat. Season both sides of duck breasts with kosher salt, then place them skin side down in the pan. Reduce heat to medium.

3. Cook duck until the skin is golden and crispy. Pour off excess fat while cooking and reserve for something fun later (like potatoes!). Turn duck over to the flesh side and cook another 5 minutes, or until medium rare. Let rest 3 minutes and slice. 

4. In a pot, caramelize onions and garlic until golden brown. Add quinoa and toss to coat with oil. Pour in white wine and reduce until dry, then add vegetable stock and bring to a boil while stirring quinoa. Add thyme and bay leaf. 

5. Bring to a simmer and cook quinoa until al dente (about 15 minutes). Cool on a sheet pan, then season with kosher salt to taste and add cilantro just before serving. 

6. For the gastrique, combine all ingredients and simmer over low heat until the sugar melts. Increase to a boil. Reduce to low and gently simmer until caramel just coats the back of the spoon, then cool. 

7. Place a mound of quinoa in the center of a plate, with the sliced duck breast around it. Garnish with baby watercress, and spoon gastrique over the duck and around the plate. 

The Chef’s Pairings: Passion Fruit Beers

Brewers continue to experiment with specialty ingredients, pushing the boundaries of flavor. Since a good beer deserves a good meal, All About Beer Magazine asked Executive Chef Rachel Klein of Red Stripe Restaurants in Rhode Island to taste a few beers brewed with passion fruit and offer tasting notes and pairing suggestions. Get more pairing ideas and recipes at allaboutbeer.com/food.

The post In the Kitchen: Roasted Duck Breast with Red Quinoa and Beer Gastrique first appeared on All About Beer.

Start to finish, this meal requires three to four days of preparation—but it’s well worth the wait. The pickled watermelon rind offers a tart snap that’s a perfect complement for the savory, slow-roasted pork. Throw in cherry tomatoes, cilantro, onions and the heat of spicy serrano peppers, and this meal is a perfect ally with any of the beers mentioned below. Serves 5 people.–Chef Jeffrey Vance of No Anchor

The Pickled Watermelon Rind

1 watermelon

4 tablespoons dill seed

2 tablespoons mustard seed

2 whole star anise

1 cup vinegar

½ cup sugar

¼ cup kosher salt

1 cup cold water

1 bunch fresh dill

6 cloves garlic

The Pork Shoulder

3 tablespoons black peppercorns

2 tablespoons coriander seed

2 bay leaves

8 whole cloves

2 gallons cold water

8 ounces kosher salt

3 ounces white sugar

1 pork butt (3-4 pounds)

The Tacos

Corn tortillas

Cherry tomatoes

Serrano peppers

Onion

Cilantro

Preparation

1. Peel and discard skin from watermelon. Separate flesh from rind and reserve for another use—or enjoy now! Cut rind into bite-sized pieces.

2. Toast dill seed, mustard seed and star anise until aromatic.

3. In a large container or Mason jar, dissolve salt and sugar in vinegar. Add water, spices, fresh dill, garlic and watermelon rind. Cover and refrigerate for three to four days.

4. One to two days later, prepare the brine for the pork shoulder. Toast black peppercorns, coriander seed, bay leaves and cloves until aromatic. Tie toasted spices into a sachet using cheesecloth. In a large container, dissolve salt and sugar in cold water and add sachet. Completely immerse pork in brine. Cover and refrigerate for 48 hours.

5. After 48 hours, remove pork from brine and dry. Roast the pork in an oven at 325 degrees F (or in a charcoal grill) until the internal temperature of the pork reaches 190 degrees F. Using two forks, shred the pork into bite-sized pieces.

6. To assemble tacos, warm corn tortillas in a cast-iron pan. Place shredded pork, pickled watermelon rind, cherry tomatoes and sliced serrano peppers on tortillas. Top with chopped onion, cilantro and any additional toppings of your choosing.

Pairings: Hibiscus Beers

Brewers continue to experiment with specialty ingredients, pushing the boundaries of flavor. Since a good beer deserves a good meal, All About Beer Magazine asked Chef Jeffrey Vance of No Anchor in Seattle to taste a few beers infused with hibiscus and offer tasting notes and pairing suggestions. Get more pairing ideas and recipes at allaboutbeer.com/food. 

The post In the Kitchen: Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder Tacos with Pickled Watermelon Rind first appeared on All About Beer.

Brewers with marketing savvy (and, frequently, culinary sides to their businesses) are capitalizing on those gustatory harmonies by bringing them down a degree of separation. Now available is a smattering of brewery-branded sauces, though the beer presence in them is probably subtler than one would think.

Jason Rogers, the chef for Oskar Blues Brewery, says beer makes up about a 20th of the volume of each entry in Oskar Blues’ lineup of sauces. The idea started in Oskar Blues’ restaurant, where, Rogers says, he would add beer to the restaurant’s wing sauce, “just so I had beer on the line to drink while I was cooking.”

Customers loved the idea of beer-infused sauce, and so Oskar Blues partnered with Paul DiBello (aka Captain Spongefoot, a hot sauce maker whom Rogers describes as a “kind of a Captain Ahab”) and began packaging the brewery’s current lineup of condiments, which includes Dale’s Pale Ale Original Wing Sauce, Mama’s Little Yella Pils Saaz Hoppin’ Honey Sriracha Sauce and Hops & Heifers Ten FIDY Steak Sauce.

“He’s crazy enough and loves spicy food enough where the two of us got along and gave this a shot,” says Rogers.

Sprecher Brewing Co. in Milwaukee also makes its own beer condiments—including barbecue sauces, steak sauce and mustards—on top of beer-infused food products like praline-coated nuts, brittle and truffles. Like Rogers and Oskar Blues, Sprecher president Jeff Hamilton believes that natural pairings of beer profiles and product profiles make for the best beer-infused culinary goods, even if the volume of beer in them is slight.

“The hops and the malts could definitely have an effect on the overall flavor,” says Hamilton. “What you don’t want to happen is that there’s another ingredient in there that doesn’t go well with the hop or malt profile.”

Many of these pairings are intuitive. Hamilton and Rogers say that recipes for more robust, rich sauces—such as steak sauces, barbecue sauces and hot sauces that tend toward the sweeter and smokier sides—naturally work best with sweeter, richer beers. Oskar Blues, for instance, puts its Old Chub Scotch ale in its 3 Chili Chipotle Sauce, while Sprecher puts its Black Bavarian schwarzbier in its steak sauce. Conversely, hops and spice (as well as higher acidities) pair extremely well
together.

“The spicier sauces, as you get up the Scoville units, that hoppy thing, that connection has become synonymous,” says Rogers.

His point comes with history: Just as hops were used to preserve beer crossing from Britain to India, spices were used to preserve food. That connection is part of why Oskar Blues puts its highly hopped Deviant Dale’s in its Mega Hot Meleguta Sauce—though, again, flavor compatibility reigns.

“I think sometimes the acidity of hops almost cuts open your taste buds, so it’s not just heat,” Rogers says.

Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland followed a similar pairing method in creating its own line of barbecue sauces. Great Lakes’ Edmund Fitzgerald Porter barbecue sauce contains roasted peppers for a hint of sweet, robust heat, and its Dortmunder Gold Lager barbecue sauce has hints of hickory smoke and tomato to complement the lager’s crisp acidity.

“The Edmund Fitzgerald [barbecue sauce] we’ve had at the brewpub for many, many years,” says Marissa DeSantis, a spokesperson for Great Lakes. “It’s something that’s been on the menu for a long time, and people have been asking if they could take it home for years.”

As DeSantis acknowledges, products like sauces aren’t something integral to breweries so much as they are a way to advance a brand and further connect to customers. Sprecher has more than 60,000 tourists visit its brewery each year, and Hamilton says many enjoy picking up goods to take with them when they leave. Oskar Blues, which is working on a way to can its sauces and expand the lineup, also sees its sauces as functional novelties.

“It’s more of a marketing thing. … We’re not going to be the Heinz family any time soon,” says Rogers.

More Sauces

Oskar Blues, Sprecher and Great Lakes aren’t the only breweries making sauce. Here are a few others worth a try.

Odell Brewing Co.
Odell offers three sauces made from its beers: Easy Street Heat (a peach hot sauce made with Easy Street wheat beer), Hop Sauce (a hot sauce made with its IPA) and 90 Shilling Grilling Steak Sauce.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Sierra Nevada makes two barbecue sauces: one with its Hop Hunter IPA and one with its original stout. It also makes a honey spice mustard with its flagship pale ale and a Torpedo hot sauce.

Stone Brewing
Stone offers quite the assortment of beer condiments, including a Smoked Porter barbecue sauce, a mustard grill sauce made with Ruination and a series of mustards made with its Pale Ale, IPA and Cali-Belgique IPA.

Straub Brewery
Straub makes habanero ketchup, jalapeño ketchup, sweet hot mustard, habanero hot sauce, wing sauce and apple barbecue sauce with its beers.

Boulevard Brewing Co.
Made in collaboration with Boys Grow, Boulevard BBQ sauce uses 80 Acre Hoppy Wheat Beer in conjunction with jalapeño peppers to make a grill-worthy sauce with a kick. Boulevard also makes a pale ale mustard.

Bo McMillan is an editorial assistant at All About Beer Magazine.

The post Breweries Dabble with Beer-Infused Sauces first appeared on All About Beer.