For those of you who are routine readers, you know we’re not traditionally a cooking blog.  Some of you may wonder if we even cook at all! (We do and we eat healthy quite often – Otherwise, the dining out would have some obvious effects to our figures!) Since we joined Foodbuzz when we started this blog, we’ve received routine opportunities to participate in Foodbuzz’s Tastemaker Program, an opportunity to receive product samples to review on our blogs.  We’ve generally not expressed interest in these opportunities since we don’t blog about cooking, but when the most recent opportunity came about, we decided to throw our names in the hat to be randomly selected (along with a group of our Foodbuzz colleagues).  I’ve been considering throwing cooking onto the blog for a bit and this seemed like a good opportunity.

New Belgium Brewing was offering a promotion to food bloggers to use their beer either in a recipe or paired with one.  Since the Husband and I are fans of New Belgium beer (we’ve ordered it at Simms Steakhouse, Eb & Flo’s, and Mac’s to name a few that we’ve blogged about), I looked forward to the challenge of pairing New Belgium’s beers with my own cooking!*

When I began planning for the beer pairing dinner, I pulled up the trusty internet and searched for ideas on how to pair the beers (as pairing food with beer or wine is not my strong suit just yet – although I learned a lot with this challenge).  The New Belgium website is actually pretty darn awesome and each beer had pairing suggestions from restaurant owners and other foodies at the bottom of each beer page.  I got some general ideas, but instead of getting committed to any of them, I decided to head to my local Total Wine to see what beer was actually available – and I bought them all!  The bottles included Fat Tire, 1554, Ranger IPA, Trippel, Abbey, Mothership Wit, and Mighty Arrow (the current seasonal).

After I had my options in front of me, I planned a complete four course dinner for the Husband and I and his two best friends who were visiting from out of town (they enjoyed a guys weekend on the Strip and came home in time to enjoy this dinner with me).  After looking through all of the options, I knew that I definitely wanted to include Fat Tire in our menu as it’s the Husband’s favorite New Belgium beer (I think – though 1554 might be?) and there were lots of great pairing options.  Fat Tire is labeled as an Amber Ale which I believe is generally their flagship beer (even though its not a Belgian style ale – they expected their Abbey to be so).

After planning out the rest of the menu, I decided to pair the Fat Tire with a salad described by Melissa Newell who the website lists as being the owner of Terroir Restaurant.  It was a simple spinach salad with apples, spiced pecans, and a vinaigrette.  She recommended a sherry shallot version but I chose a red wine vinaigrette.

I selected a Granny Smith apple, a Gala apple, and a Red Delicious but opted not to put the Red Delicious in at the end as I had enough apple already with the first two.  Spicing the pecans (mixing them with light brown sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper then toasting them) was a lesson in how to possibly burn down the kitchen (or fill it with smoke), but I got it right the second time The salad came together nicely.  While not a perfect match for the Fat Tire, it was a decent compliment.

A lot of the beers had pairing suggestions with a handful of different meats, but knowing that the guys had hit up the prime rib specials over the weekend during their boys weekend on the Strip, I was drawn to a suggestion for a pairing with the Ranger IPA.  I also thought this would be a good choice because the Husband loves IPAs.

On the Ranger IPA webpage, Steve Morkin who is the owner/chef of Rimside Grill and Cabins, suggested a pairing of the Ranger IPA with Char-Grilled Peaches and Honey Glazed Grilled Chicken.  Since peaches aren’t currently in season, I went with jarred peaches instead of fresh.

I didn’t use any measurements making a marinade but combined the peaches, the juice of one lemon (I wish I had used some zest as well), and about half the bottle of honey.  (I ended up not using the thyme in the picture above).  I threw the chicken breasts in some tupperware with the marinade for a few hours and the Husband grilled it up on the gas grill.  It turned out quite well! And it went very well with the IPA! If you’ve been reading the blog a while, you might realize that IPAs are my least favorite beer.  The peach flavors in this dish brought out the citrus tones of the IPA which melded so well together.

The next course I was very excited about! The Trippel Belgian Style Ale was next.

I was inspired by Derek Kennedy’s recommended cheese pairing of Manchego! Having just been to Firefly Tapas Kitchen and Bar earlier in the week and having experienced the wonderfulness of manchego mac n cheese, I knew immediately what to make! (I really love the nutty flavor of manchego)

I googled for a manchego mac n cheese recipe and went with the first one I found from My Wines Direct, minus the chorizo (since we already had one meat in the menu).  I also used cavatappi instead of elbow macaroni but everything else was pretty much spot-on. I’m not sure how good of a pairing this was, but it certainly wasn’t bad and both the beer and the mac n cheese were delish!

Along with these courses, we also had a freshly baked loaf of french bread from the bakery closest to our house.  I also made Kath’s kale chips but apparently forgot to take a photo.  Interestingly, the guys thought that the Fat Tire went swimmingly well with the kale chips!

The last course was a fun one! I was hoping to find a dessert course and beer pairing.  While none of them were definitely considered “dessert beers,” the Abbey Belgian Style Ale had some sweet pairing suggestions thanks to its nose of sweet bananas.

After double checking with the guys that they like bananas and chocolate, I googled “banana and chocolate dessert” and was inspired by the Chocolate and Banana Dessert Wontons recipe on Appetite for China.  All you need is ripe bananas, good chocolate, wonton wrappers, some oil, and powdered sugar.  I used Nasoya’s wonton wrappers (located in the vegetarian refrigerated section for those unsure where to find it in their grocery store – I used my trusty iPhone to find them) and I think they’re smaller than the ones the recipe used – I could barely fit a teaspoon of mix in them but they were still delicious.  The guys loved them and they went well with the Abbey.  (I even made these again a week later – very easy to make!).

Overall, this was a really fun challenge and I enjoyed sharing a cooking experience with you.  New Belgium beer is often at the top of our list when we’re out to eat (as demonstrated throughout the blog) so we appreciate them working with Foodbuzz on the Tastemaker Program.  This also really gave me an opportunity to see how important it is to pair your beers and wines with your foods – they can compliment each other so well and bring out flavors you may not have noticed otherwise.  I often don’t drink beer during my meal as the flavors often clash (as I mentioned above, I don’t know how to pair quite yet), but this experience has inspired me to learn more about pairing.  Keep your eye out for my experiments with it at restaurants (and perhaps even back in my kitchen again some day soon)!

*Note – We received $50 towards the purchase of beer and food for this blog post.  However, the views and opinions expressed by the Husband and I regarding New Belgium are all our own as seen throughout our previous posts that included New Belgium beers.