Bar Crudo April Beer Dinner: A delicious adventure

This beer dinner came at the tail end of a marathon week of beer events, so it’s no wonder that by the time the week was over I had been lulled into a near-comatose state of blogging laziness by all the good beer and good food.  But, this Bar Crudo beer dinner was too great to skip over, even if it is now two weeks later. 

I arrived on my own, which was my M.O. of the week since I couldn’t find anyone else to go to so many beer events with me, and it’s also how I prefer to eat at Bar Crudo.  Seriously, you know a restaurant/bar is a truly welcoming, social place when you not only feel able to go alone, but prefer to go alone so that you can meet new people. 

The restaurant was surprisingly calm considering that they were serving a five-course meal to everyone in the place.  If you sit at the bar, the chefs are working right in front of you and there was none of the chaos I expected.  I couldn’t believe how collected Mike and the rest of the crew seemed.  I was of course sitting at the bar, which I was about to say is my favorite place to sit, when I realized that I’ve never actually sat upstairs in their restaurant before.  Oh well, just another good sign of a great bar: it’s actually more enjoyable and in-demand than the sit-down tables. 

Most people were there in pairs, but I sat with Jenn, a friend of Mike & Tim’s, who used to be a wine sales rep selling to Bar Crudo, and then later a Bar Crudo employee.  She was incredibly sweet, going as far to share her oysters (menu below) with me after I had already gobbled mine down because she wanted to tell me what to look for in the taste.  We talked about the time she had spent in Thailand, and what it’s like traveling around the globe on your own if you’re a woman, and the ups and downs of being a wine or beer sales rep (something much on my mind of late).  Later, after her boyfriend arrived, I wanted to give them a chance to catch up, and ended up talking to the couple on the other side of me.  Unfortunately, their names have escaped me, but they were a really fun pair from Bernal Heights.  The guy half of the couple was the architect for Bar Crudo, and also the architect for Mike & Tim’s new restaurant going in on Divisadero (more on this below). 

But enough about the atmosphere because, great as it is, the real story is the food & drink.  The food was a ‘French Bistro’ menu, while the theme for the beers was American extreme ales.  Here’s the menu:

• Hood Canal Oysters
•      Banyuls spring leek and pink peppercorn mignonette, caviar, lemon zest
•      Pairing: La Roja, Jolly Pumpkin, Dexter, Michigan, American Wild Ale, 7.2%

 

• Asparagus & Dungeness Crab Salad
•      Egg mimosas, icicle radish, flowering arugula, champagne vinaigrette, black truffle salt
•      Pairing: Bam Biere, Jolly Pumpkin, Dexter, Michigan, Saison, 4.5%

 

• Cod Brandade
•      Marinated olives, garlic toast
•      Pairing: Starbrew, Marin Brewing, Larkspur, California, Wheat Wine, 10%

 

• Bouillabaisse of Monkfish, Shellfish, and Spring Vegetables
• Rouille, pernod
• Pairing: Musette, Allagash, Portland, Maine, Scotch Ale, 10%

 

• Artisan Cheese Plate
• Pairing: Curieux, Allagash, Portland, Maine, Oak Aged Tripel, 11%

 

There was not one dish I didn’t finish in its entirety and I wish I could say the same about the beer.  However, they were full-glass pours and you’ll notice that there were five of them, three of them at 10+% ABV, and there’s no way I could drink the equivalent of eight glasses of beer in the course of one dinner, no matter how much I liked them.  

I’ve never been a huge fan shellfish, or more accurately of mollusks (I love crustaceans: shrimp, crab, lobster), but mostly for lack of giving them a try.  We never ate them growing up and I’ve never felt compelled to develop an appreciation for these pricey undersea critters.  However, I approached this dinner with the attitude of, “you never know, it’s all worth a try,” and believe me it was.  I think the oysters were my favorite dish of the night.  They were salty and tart, and though I had feared their texture, I actually liked it.  I tried to make them last as long as possible.  This is great news to me, since now that I’m open to eating oysters it about doubles the options available on a regular night at Bar Crudo.  

My other favorite was the cod brandade.  It was a creamy, fluffy little dish of warm baked cod that was a nice alternative to the only other seafood comfort food I can think of, clam chowder in a bread bowl.  

Every one of the beers was delicious, but I think my two favorites of the night were the Jolly Pumpkin La Roja and the Allagash Musette.  I love the Curieux, but I’ve had a run of it recently, about 5 times in a week and a half, and appreciated the novelty of these other two beers. 

Flemish-style sour ales have been high on my radar recently, but I had yet to try an American-made Flanders-style red ale.  This was deliciously tart and at least as good as the Rodenbach and other sour red ales I’ve drunk recently.  It really made me want to try more of their beers, and luckily it was followed by the Bam Biere, and a couple weeks later by an Oro de Calabaza I purchased.  I think the La Roja was my favorite of the three, for the boldness of it’s taste profile, but the Bam and the Oro contained the same layered complexity of flavors.  

Scotch ales are a style I’m just starting to get really excited about.  These beers are dark, sweet, and malty, with a low hop profile.  They are boiled longer in the kettle than most beers to caramelize the wort.  This creates a large amount of unfermentable sugars that remain in the beer instead of being consumed by yeast and turned into alcohol.  This gives these beers flavors of raisins, figs, dates, or other sweet dried fruit flavors.  Their second major characteristic is the smoky, peat-y flavor sometimes present if the malt has been dried over peat.  I love the flavor parallels this creates between scotch ales and single malt scotches, and the complexity of flavor it adds, keeping these from being simply one-note sugary-sweet concoctions.  The third major characteristic of these beers is the mouthfeel.  Because of the high levels of sugar, they can feel heavy, viscous, or ‘chewy’, which is where their nickname the ‘Wee Heavy’ comes from, I think.  Not necessarily the greatest choice for a hot summer day, but awesome in the winter, with dessert, or pretty much any time in San Francisco, where it never seems to be over 55 F.  Finally, these are high alcohol beers, in the 6.5 - 10.0% range.  This also adds to the warming, comfort-beer feeling that goes with the sweetness and the mouthfeel.  

Again, I know I’ve harped on this recently, but I think a wave of low hop beers coming and these have great potential to stand in the forefront of this movement - they’re underappreciated and haven’t had their moment in the limelight yet.  From the substantial yet sweet yet smoky malt flavor taste, to the caramel aroma, to the satisfying mouthfeel, to the high alcohol content, every facet of these beers is interesting and fun to explore.  

As if that weren’t enough, what I love about the Musette is that it takes a style that’s already so unique and puts their own twist on it, creating a whole new idea of beer and staying true to their Belgian-style credo.  The Musette is brewed with Belgian yeast, instead of British yeasts, and aged in bourbon oak barrels.  Yes, yes, everything is being barrel aged nowadays, but I think this is a particularly brilliant stroke, as it will emphasize the already whiskey-like character of this style.  It’s a great example of taking a trend and using it to enhance an existing style, rather than trying to force fit it to just any old beer you have in your kettle.  I loved the Musette for all the complexity of flavors described above and also for its restraint.  Though the alcohol was very high, 10%, the sugary malt levels weren’t over the top, and managed to avoid syrupy sweet territory, letting the flavor of the malt, not just the sugar of the malt, shine through.  

If I were going to change anything about the dinner it would be just this: of the five beers we had two from Jolly Pumpkin and two from Allagash, and I would have liked to try beers from five different brewers.  However, I can’t really complain considering that I liked ever beer we had and I trust Tim’s judgment as to what goes belongs in one of these dinners.  

I am definitely looking forward to the next Bar Crudo event and hope they announce it soon.