Top Shelf: Beer and wine pairing events grow in popularity

Anything can be paired with beer.

That's the philosophy at Lion Bridge Brewing Company, where a series of local pairing events have highlighted the brewery's beers alongside everything from apples to cupcakes to cheese. And Lion Bridge isn't alone - pairing events and dinners are growing in popularity around the Corridor.

Over the last three days alone, area gourmands could have tried a food and beer pairing in partnership with Millstream Brewery at the Linge Lounge in Theatre Cedar Rapids, attended a five-course wine dinner featuring food by Bata's Restaurant paired with vintages from Coquerel Family Winery hosted by First Avenue Wine House, tasted Scratch Cupcakes paired with brews from Backpocket Brewing at Iowa River Landing or headed to the Amanas for a food and wine pairing 101 workshop at White Cross Cellars as part of Maifest.

The events help drive business for restaurants and breweries by providing unique events while customers eager to learn more about where their food and drinks come from are introduced to other local food providers, said Lion Bridge chef Stacia Dougherty. Lion Bridge has paired with local farmers for many of their events, and for a recent cheese and beer pairing worked with New Pioneer Co-op to highlight local and regional cheeses.

'We just really like to create a community with the other businesses around us, and we want people to know about other businesses as well,” Dougherty said.

Nate Marsceau, manager of Linge Lounge and concessions at Theatre Cedar Rapids, brought the pairing dinners concept to the theater's small cafe when he started working there three years ago.

'I have a passion for cooking,” he said. 'I also like to experiment, I like trying all kinds of new and different things and really working on incorporating beer and wine into inspired foods for these events.”

Linge Lounge holds regular beer and food pairing events, usually in partnership with a craft brewery. Marsceau tastes the selection of beers that will be featured and develops appetizers, salads, main dishes and desserts to go with them. When he can, he incorporates the beer itself into the food.

'I like profiling the aromas and flavors of the beers I use,” he said.

The dinners are a popular draw for Linge Lounge, which primarily is open for Thursday and Friday happy hours and before shows at the theater. When he started as the manager, one of his goals was to find ways to bring more people into Linge Lounge. The pairings do just that. Marsceau said there is a growing interest in craft beer from the public. Growing interest in local food and drink also helps drive the event's popularity, he said.

'The really fun part of my job is developing those relationships, getting to meet the representatives from the breweries, sometimes visiting them and developing the menu from there,” he said. 'Our patrons love the fact that we're highlighting Iowa breweries.”

Brewery representatives will often attend and answer questions about their beer. Pairings are a win-win for both the breweries and Linge Lounge.

'We love if patrons can have the opportunity to talk to the representative. We want them to have the same passion we do for the beer. And we definitely want them to come back to our establishment, but we would love them to go the brewery as well and go to the liquor store and see it on the shelf and remember that food.”

He listed three things he considers when pairing beer and food - complementary flavors, contrasting flavors and flavor amplification.

Contrasting flavors might mean pairing bitter beer with something spicy. Amplifying flavors could mean finding a chocolate stout beer to highlight a chocolate dessert.

He gave examples of pairings he developed for a recent event in partnership with Kalona Brewing Company. He paired Kalona Classica, a light lager, with sweet corn fresh garden salsa.

'I love to have salsa with light beers. The malt of the beer calms the spice a little bit and brings out the flavor of the salsa,” he said. 'I really want to complement the flavor of the beer.”

He often pairs IPAs with something sweet, 'to numb the bitterness down,” such as a salad with citrus. At the Kalona dinner, he used an IPA with notes of grapefruit to infuse a vinaigrette for the salad.

For the main course, he paired a stout with notes of chocolate and coffee with a chocolate-rubbed smoked pork loin. He infused beer into the barbecue sauce. Dessert saw another infusion, with a dark wheat ale-infused caramel sauce over chocolate cheesecake.

He said he hopes people are inspired to try their own pairings and to cook with beer or wine themselves.

'Just have fun with it, that's the key. What I like to tell people is to just have fun experimenting with flavors you like,” he said. 'I want, more than anything, for my passion for what I'm doing to be infectious in a way that gets other people to do the same thing.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8434; alison.gowans@thegazette.com