Move over wine bars!
Microbreweries and craft beer pubs are the new hip place to meet for a drink and a bite. In December 2017, the Brewers Association reported the United States had more than 6,000 breweries, more than double the amount there were four years ago. The boom in breweries has cracked open a whole new world for seafood vendors.
The rise in craft beer has given adventurous chefs and sommeliers a new project on food pairings as they study the nuances of an IPA, saison, or lager as they would a pinot noir or chardonnay. And enterprising chefs are discovering that beer isn’t just about burgers and fries. They are taking a page from countries such as Britain, where a pub menu would be incomplete without fish and chips, cullen skink, or smoked salmon, and from Belgium, where beer is considered a natural accompaniment to mussels.
As a result, seafood is creeping onto brewery menus across the county. One chef who has enthusiastically embraced the concept of seafood and beer is Robert McCarthy, the executive chef of Thirsty Bear Brewing Company, San Francisco’s first and only certified organic brewery. Thirsty Bear Breweing features a Spanish menu that pairs perfectly with its diverse beer offering. When asked about the place of seafood on his menu, McCarthy told SeafoodSource, “What’s not to like about beer and seafood?”
“Spanish food is much more suited for beer pairings than, say, French where you need a wine to cut through the butter sauces,” he said.
Owner Ron Silberstein and brewmaster and certified cicerone (the sudsy equivalent of a sommelier) Brenden Dobel offer the chef plenty to work with, using a German-influenced, West Coast style of brewing, with a special emphasis on pilsners, IPAs, stouts, Belgian-inspired ales, cask conditioned ales, session beers, and barrel-aged brews.
To build on the pairings, McCarthy not only cooks with the beer, but adds brewing ingredients such as malt, hops, and yeast to his dishes – think malt extract in his empanada dough and hops in the salmon cure. In a recent interview, McCarthy waxed lyrical about the grapefruit notes of Cascade hops, and how the differences between the tastes of an East Coast IPA and a West Coast IPA contrast in their interactions with food.
Here are the top five seafood dishes McCarthy has paired with a sampling of Thirsty Bear’s organic brews.
