Savor

Last Friday, C.S., his friend D.G. whom I also know, and I attended Savor: An American Craft Beer and Food Experience, held at the Mellon Auditorium on Constitution Ave. It had its merits, but in the end I must say I was disappointed.

Like any grassroots and largely artisanal undertaking that is fortunate enough to achieve some commercial success, the US microbreweries are displaying telltale signs of not being sure how to manage being a little too big for their britches. The first of these is calling itself an industry. A few short years ago, it was still the simply the “beer scene,” but now it is a Craft Brewing Industry. The second is attempting to muscle in on markets traditionally occupied by other products, hence the recent drive to market complex, distinctive beers as alternatives to wine, to be consumed with gourmet meals. And closely related to this is the increased reliance on the professional marketing circus to find new and impressive ways to hawk their wares. Hence this was no mere tasting, but an Experience. I suppose we have Jimi Hendrix to thank for rendering the word incapable of carrying any actual meaning.

There is also an obvious desire to go upmarket, to sell to consumers who in the past might have regarded your product as beneath them on a socioeconomic level, and the concomitant increase in price. I don't normally object to this as long as I feel like I am still getting my money's worth, but on Friday that was the biggest problem – the tickets, at $85, were simply too expensive for what we ended up getting. To be sure, it didn't seem so initially. C.S. did an excellent sales job on me, but I certainly was a willing buyer, too. It sure looked like that we were going to get our money's worth. Here were those marketing shenanigans again.

The idea behind the event was to demonstrate how well craft beers pair with food. Fifty or so breweries brought two beers each, every beer paired with a complementary small plate. In addition, there were optional sit-down tastings where you could focus on a few pairings in greater depth in a more intimate setting.

The evening was off to a decent start: we attended one of these optional tastings that was hosted by Garrett Oliver and focused on pairing beer and cheese. Oliver is the founder of Brooklyn Brewery, the author of The Brewmaster's Table, and the self-appointed elder statesman of beer and food pairing. He is a decent speaker – a little lectury and overanalyzing at times, he could also be engaging and funny. The beers and cheeses were all excellent. The highlights for me were a washed rind cheese called Hooligan from Cato Corner in Connecticut paired with Two Brothers' Domaine Dupage (a French Farmhouse-style ale; I had no idea such a thing existed) and the legendary Brillat-Savarin triple-cream paired with Oliver's own Local One. He talked up his serendipitous discovery of the pairing of stilton and a chocolate stout, but I was less impressed. Definitely a pairing of contrast rather than harmony.

A few minutes after 8:00, we emerged onto the main floor and discovered the problem. The so-called small plates were indeed small. Tiny, in fact, more like amuse-bouches than real food. Think crackers or mini-toasts with bits of things on them. Many beers were paired with chocolates. Delicious no doubt, but not real food. The beer samples, on the other hand, were quite generous, and though many brewers brought their least-interesting, most mainstream offerings (why would you go to a tasting to drink Sierra Nevada Pale Ale when you can get a pint at your neighborhood watering hole?), there were enough doubles, triples, strong ales and barley wines to keep beer geeks happy. Even the hardiest of drinkers, however, can absorb only so much of this bounty of malt and hops before they need some solid sustenance. A lot of solid sustenance. Much more than the event's organizers envisioned. Most of it consumed – you guessed it – during the hour my friends and I were sequestered in the back room tasting cheese with Oliver. People were double-, triple- and quadruple-dipping until there was nothing left.

By the time we left around 10:00, having tasted a dozen or so beers apiece, we were quite buzzed and ravenously hungry. Ridiculous as it sounds, we walked the few blocks to Harry's and had a late dinner of surprisingly decent burgers.

Bottom line: Beer: 4/5; Food: 1/5. Value for the money: 1/5.

Some highlights:
Russian River Pliny the Elder. Enormous double-IPA with a fragrant, wonderfully floral hops aroma along the lines of Clipper City's Loose Canon.
Flying Dog Kerberos Triple, a deep, rich Belgian-style triple that might unseat the Victory Golden Monkey, my current reference for American triples.
Deschutes Obsidian Stout. Chocolatey and dry at the same time, delicious all around.
Pelican Doryman's Dark Ale and Le Pelican Brun: both were well-crafted and drier than the standard for their style, from a small brewery in Oregon I had not heard of before.
Pizza Port Brewing Veritas 003. A skull-splitting blend of a several of their Belgian-style ales, all made with brettanomyces and aged in oak barrels. Not for the faint of heart.
Dud of the evening: 21^st Amendment Watermelon Wheat. Sold in cans, it tasted like the bad idea it was.