Time for Noms!

As I’ve mentioned previously on the blog, there are quite a few new breweries that either have opened recently or are scheduled to open soon in our area.  While it’s not quite next door, we attended the grandopening of 8 Bit Aleworks a few months ago and were suitably impressed with their setup and the quality of their offerings.  When I read on Facebook that they’d be hosting a beer pairing dinner, we figured we couldn’t miss it!

We’re ready to eat!

8 Bit is a production brewery with a tasting room, so they don’t have an attached kitchen; while this means they don’t serve their own food, they’re very cognizant of the need for solid noms, and they often bring food trucks to their location to feed the hungry masses.  For this dinner, 8 Bit paired up with the folks who run the Frites Street food truck, one of the delicious offerings in our mobile Phoenix food scene.

Pic of the truck from the interwebs.

I forgot to take my own.

Thanks, Google!

While Frites Street’s menu is normally constrained to frites (fries) and things to put on top of them, they expanded out a bit more for the dinner, and the results were outstanding.  It really made me want to keep an eye on where they’ll be located each week to eat there again!

Anywhoo, on with the dinner!  First, our dining companion for the evening was our buddy Matt.  We wish his lovely wife Kristie would have been able to join us, too, but since she doesn’t enjoy most beer, it seemed silly for her to spend the full cost of the dinner and only enjoy half of the offerings.  As a side note, we mentioned the idea of offering a discounted “designated driver” ticket to Krystina, one of the owners of 8 Bit, and she was super receptive to the idea; they really are lovely folks there and very interested in feedback.

Salut to good company!

The set schedule for the evening was five courses ranging from salad to appetizer 1 to appetizer 2 to main to dessert.  Each course was created by Frites Street and incorporated the 8 Bit beer we’d be drinking while we enjoyed the food.  Course 1 was a romaine salad topped with homemade mozzarella, bacon fat confit tomatoes, and candied bacon.  It was served with the Extra Life Amber, which wasn’t on tap when we visited for the grand opening, so it was nice to try for the first time; it was a very traditional amber with a little less hop bite than normal, which I enjoyed.

Course 1

Course 2 was a dish of house made pretzel nuggets with an herbed (thyme, mainly) beer cheese sauce served with the Legend of Zymur Double IPA.  When last we visited, I wasn’t a massive fan of the Zymur, but this round was much better; the aroma hops were delightful on the nose, and the finish wasn’t too bitterly hoppy for my palate.

Course 2

In Course 3, we finally got to try the frites!  Specifically, the chefs made us a traditional Moules Frites dish of mussels steamed and served with a shrimp stock complete with all sorts of aromatics (onions, garlic, etc).  The frites themselves were thick-cut fries and were served with an aioli made from the shrimp stock.  8 Bit’s White Mage witbier went into the preparation of the dish, and it was also served alongside as our beverage.  When we were last here, White Mage was one of my favorite of the offerings at the brewery, and it still held up pretty well.

Course 3

By this time, I was starting to fill up, so Chris ended up helping me finish off Courses 4 and 5.  For Course 4, we were served a braised beef belly over a grits polenta with a side of braised collard greens, all covered with a stout/red wine demi glace.  The Black Mage stout went into the food, and it was served as our pairing.  When we visited for the opening, Krystina mentioned that while the first batch of Black Mage was a bit more chocolatey in flavor, subsequent batches would feature more coffee notes, and I found that to be the case here – tasty!

Course 4

Our final course was dessert, and it was prepared by the wife of one of the Frites Street gentleman, as she happens to be a pastry chef!  Dessert was a peach tart, served over a spread of homemade goat cheese drizzled with local honey.  The current miniboss beer, the Princess Peach IPA, went along with dessert.  The Peach was a new beer to us as well, and it was good - really interesting - super juicy but with a dry hop backbone.  Eventually, the hoppy side of it got to me, and I only finished about half of my pour, despite peach beers being favorites of mine; my all time favorite is Four Peaks' Peach Ale, but I recently tried the Beer Research Institute's Peach Lolli, and that was great, too.

The finale!

Obviously, I got so excited I forgot
to take a pic before I started chowing down.

Throughout our meal, both the food and beers were outstanding.  Seriously, if you live in Phoenix, find this food truck and make a visit to the brewery immediately; actually, when we were at the dinner, Krystina mentioned that she has food trucks lined up to visit the brewery every Friday night (I think it was Fridays) through October, so you may be able to accomplish both goals at once.  Score!  

Where a bit more improvement might be needed, however, was in the pairing itself.  Some courses were paired just perfectly – Course 2 in particular was great, as the hop of the double IPA did a nice job cutting through the viscosity of the cheese – but others were a little off.  For example, it’s pretty standard practice to braise a thick cut of meat in something like a stout, but serving a coffee stout with the same beef seemed a little too rich and sweet; generally, stouts are saved for dessert pairings or with things like mole sauces that have the same sweet backbone. 

Overall, though, everything was great, and it was a lovely evening filled with excellent food, outstanding beer, and even better company!

Later!

Amy