St. Arnold Tasting with Brock Wagner - Tues, 9/14 @Lake CreekAdvance tickets available hereFoodies and beer drinkers unite! This Tuesday (9/14), we are pleased to be hosting a beer dinner at Lake Creek with Houston’s oldest and finest craft brewery, St. Arnold. Owner and founder Brock Wagner will be in attendance to host the event and run through some of the brewery’s finest offerings, paired with a multi-course mini-feast to complement the brews. My mouth is watering just thinking of the “Taco Party” course. Check out the menu below as well as a writeup of what’s in-store via resident Alamo Beer Guru Jim Hughes.
The Menu will include
1st Course – Seafood
St. Arnolds Lawnmower : New England Clam Chowder.
St. Arnolds Texas Wheat: Kristalweizen Mussels with coriander and shallots
2nd Course – Taco Party
St. Arnolds Amber: Amber marinated flat iron steak with roasted poblano peppers and cotija cheese
St. Arnolds Elissa IPA: Achiote and Orange marinated chicken w/ Habenero cream sauce..
St. Arnolds Oktoberfest: Braised pork w/ mango and red cabbage
3rd Course – Dessert
St. Arnolds Brown Ale: Pear Fritters and Marzipan ice cream with almonds and St. Arnolds Brown ale Wort Reduction.
“To kick off the evening, a double-barrelled seafood course paired with two of the St Arnold Brewing Company’s crisp summer beers. First up is New England Clam Chowder with Fancy Lawnmower. Lawnmower is a Kölschbier, a beer style originally brewed in Cologne. Its moderate hop character won’t overpower the chowder but is able to cleanse the palate in readiness for the second half of the course – mussels cooked in wheat beer and coriander. St Arnold Texas Wheat is a filtered wheat beer, making it a kristalweizen. Wheat beers, whether filtered or unfiltered, hefeweizen or witbier, are generally the summer beer of choice here in Texas.
Moving along to the main part of the dinner – three courses of meat served with progressively bigger beers. Firstly, flat iron steak marinated in St Arnold Amber, and paired with… what else? St Arnold Amber is a rich, malty beer, not too sweet and with a soft, citrusy hop character. It’s St Arnold’s flagship beer, and rightly so. Achoite and orange-marinated chicken is next, paired with St Arnold Elissa India Pale Ale – a big, hoppy IPA with a strong backbone of British Maris Otter malt to balance the hop bitterness. Elissa is unusual these days in that it’s a single-hop beer, being flavoured, bittered and dry-hopped with what is often thought of as the quintessential American hop variety – Cascade, lending strong spicy and floral notes to the brew and complementing the habanero cream sauce. And thirdly, well it would be just plain wrong not to include the best-known fall seasonal in the mix at this time of the year. St Arnold Oktoberfest is a fine example of this powerful, full-bodied and richly flavoured German beer style, traditionally brewed in the spring and stored throughout the summer for drinking in the autumn. Slightly sweet, not too hoppy, relatively high in alcohol content and with the distinctive caramel notes found in Munich malt, it goes perfectly with braised pork, especially pork which has been braised in St Arnold Oktoberfest!
At last, it’s time for dessert. Brown ales are often overlooked in favour of pales and ambers, IPAs, stouts etc, but this is not a beer style to leave by the wayside, and its characteristic dulcitude (look it up) goes well with dessert. You’ll often find malt-related hints of toffee and caramel here, maybe even a touch of chocolate, and a flavour often associated with brown ale – nuttiness. The pear fritters will be served with a reduction of St Arnold Brown Ale wort – the first part of the brewing process, a sweet liquid brimming with malt sugars and flavours. A perfect end to an evening of good beer and good food.” -Jim Hughes, Head Beer Nerd, Alamo Drafthouse, South Lamar
