Dinner with Dogfishhead

I surprised Latin Teacher with a beer dinner that I stumbled along through the Busy Bee Friday afternoon. I had never been to a beer dinner, but I know they are filled with good food, great beer, and friendly conversation.

It started with the entire restaurant being shut down for the event (something the Latin Teacher had never seen before at one of these events) and then once we were in we met the other couples at the table and started tasting beers.

The First course was Dogfish head (DFH) Red and White. It was accompanied by liver pate', jalapeno cornbread, peperoncini, and kalamata olives. I, along with the other ladies at the table, was not impressed with the pate'. But I'm just not a big pate' fan.

The next course was DFH Black and Blue (my favorite of the night). It was served in a wine glass which reminded me of wine... and that's my real favorite. It did have some wonderful fruit infusions and was very summery and light. This was pared with seared pork, NC sweet potatos, yuzu (an Asian citrus) lavender basil and oats. This whole course was the best of the night for me.

Course 3 was the DFH Olde School '04. This was an aged (6 years) beer with some accents of fig and honey that really lingered with each taste. This was served with a NC grouper, also seared, with a country ham "powder" and sherry with a grilled pineapple and a pineapple foam. This wasn't my favorite, only because I was a little confused by the foam and powder stuff, and the grouper was a bit hard to cut.

Dessert started with a "Randall the Enamel Animal" it was a machine that took beer and ran it through a thing that added more hops into it. It was really "Hoppy" but was still pretty good. The food was awesome vanilla ice cream, ginger flan, a banana sponge cake, and some peppercorn. I was a big fan of the ice cream (no surprise) but not the flan so much.

The final beer (I know it was a LOT of beer) was a Chicory Stout. I was pretty "done" with both beer and food for the night, so I didn't finish this one. But I think everyone was the same.

It was a great night, Latin Teacher got a surprise dinner, although thinking about it afterward he is going to the World Beer Fest this morning, so it's going to be a big beer weekend for him.

Hopefully he can survive the whole thing.

Wish us all luck.

- Latin Teacher's Wife