“What I find is most people don’t really think about what they’re tasting,” Bemis says. “It’s just good or it’s not, for the average guy or gal. But when I sat down and talked with the guys at Breck[enridge], what I began to realize is these guys really think about what they’re tasting. And that’s where I had to go.” The beer pairings decided, the rest of the menu would be up to Bemis and his team.
“I left with a lot to think about,” he says. “A whole lot to think about.”
Rules of Three
At an earlier point in his career, Bemis worked a restaurant where one of his duties was to crumble up Stilton cheese for a French buffet. Not a fan of the cheese, he referred to it as stinky socks’ Eventually the German chef he worked with took him aside and told him to get some Stilton. When Bemis refused to eat the sock-like cheese, the chef went to the restaurant bar and returned with an old bottle of port.
“He said, ‘Eat the cheese,’” Bemis recalls. “And I’m like, really? And he goes, ‘Shut up and eat the cheese.’ OK. Yes, chef. And I ate the cheese, and then he gave me the port.”
Bemis recounts the incident clearly, as something of a gastronomic signpost. The classic pairing of Stilton and port worked, and he remembers wondering, “How can two things that taste so different taste so good together?” He took the lesson to heart.
There’s a notable shift in Bemis’ intonation when he changes from talking beer to talking food. From the beginning, it was established that the chefs wouldn’t be cooking with the beers. After doing a bit of basic research, he lost interest in cut-and-dried recommendations pretty quickly.
“The reality is, once I got to tasting the food with the beers and things like that, the nuances that made the beers go together, you just had to find that right note in-between to hit with the food. That’s kind of what made it a challenge.”
Some of the pairings fell into place more easily than others. Breckenridge ESB and Bell’s Hopslam Ale were the welcome drinks, while Breckenridge’s Regal Pilsner and Bell’s Quinannan Falls Special Lager Beer (both crisp, hoppy lagers) were a natural fit for the lighter fare of artisan cheeses and winter fruits. The other pair of reception beers—Summer Cab Ride from Breckenridge (a lower-alcohol golden ale aged in Cabernet barrels) and Bell’s Cherry Stout (reminiscent of a lightly tart chocolate-covered cherry)—were worlds apart and required a bit more effort. The common core notes between the two of them were fruitiness and acidity, which worked well with a range of charcuterie and foie gras pâté rolled into balls that were then dipped into a sweet-tart gelatin. The two reception courses brought together meat, cheese and fruit, with the part of fruity acidity supplied by the winter fruit in one pairing, and by the beers themselves in the other.
From his Texan roots and the experience at Breckenridge, Bemis knew he wanted to include a barbecued course. A smoked pheasant barbecue followed the reception courses, serving as a rich accompaniment to a winter salad, spicy vinaigrette and pickled red onions. Two malty beers, a whiskey-barrel-aged ESB from Breckenridge and Bell’s Hell Hath No Fury (a Belgian-style dubbel), tempered the spice and hit a natural chord of whiskey, barbecue and beer.
