Sharing and Pairing this Thanksgiving
Our beers are engineered for sharing and pairing. Just look at our signature 750-ml. bottle – it makes for a standout presentation on the dinner table, and it’s ideally sized to share with friends and family. In fact, some are dipped in wax or sealed in decorative capsules to help you resist the urge of opening up a bottle too easily on your own (though we’re all guilty of that!) A number of our beer concepts are inspired by culinary experiences – whether we’re recreating flavors or designing a recipe to compliment a dish, we have an endless smorgasbord of options. And on Thanksgiving, the pairing and sharing potential for our beers is nearly endless.
We asked our staff which beers from The Bruery and Bruery Terreux they’re most looking forward to sharing and pairing this Thanksgiving. Here’s what they said.
Tom P., Retail Events Coordinator
The beer I’m most looking forward to sharing on Thanksgiving is Grey Monday. It’s my favorite beer that The Bruery produces. The flavors of dark chocolate, hazelnut, caramel, and toasted oak make for one delicious beer that can wonderfully cap off any indulgent meal like Thanksgiving dinner. I’m looking forward to sharing this flavorful experience with my close friends at a Friendsgiving. My friends have recently become more and more enamored with craft beer so sharing this beer with them will be a great way to bring us together.
The beer I’m most looking forward to pairing on Thanksgiving is Mash & Coconut. A beer this decadent can’t be left out. Mash & Coconut will pair very well with the focal point of Thanksgiving dinner – the turkey! Thanksgiving turkey has rich, fatty, and umami flavors as well as slight acidity depending on the type of marinade you are using. A beer like Mash & Coconut with its sweet and toasted maltiness along with hints of toasted coconut can help balance the flavors of the turkey and create an awesome pairing experience. Think hints of sweet & salty as your expected flavors during dinner. I feel that pairing something with the centerpiece of Thanksgiving dinner is the most important and gratifying experience for such a wonderful occasion.
Lee N., The Bruery Tasting Room Manager
The beer I’m most looking forward to sharing is Ride That Goat. (Or Rueminator!) This beer speaks to my family’s German heritage while simultaneously offering complex notes of bourbon, caramel, banana bread and spices. It is a tradition with some of the men in my family to have a nice cigar after we share a meal. It is also tradition to pair the cigar with a craft beer or a nice spirit (i.e. scotch or bourbon). Having a sweet and smokey cigar with an oaky, bready beer, the flavors will very likely compliment each other nicely.
The beer I’m most looking forward to pairing on Thanksgiving is The Grade. This will go excellently with my Aunt Carol’s sweet potatoes with caramelized brown sugar salty walnut topping. I think the roasty, coffee notes of the baltic porter background of this beer will compliment the smooth, pureed sweet potatoes. Its lower abv (7.6%) will not overwhelm the dish with too much residual sugar. The maple and vanilla aspect will pair nicely with the salt and brown sugar walnut topping. This beer will be a welcome surprise with new flavors that my family has not tried before, compared to the macro lagers that will most likely dominate the backyard cooler. It should really stand out as a memorable experience.
Tom C. and Lee N.
Joel K., Retail Marketing Manager
The beer I’m looking forward to sharing the most on Thanksgiving is PB & Thursday. My friends and family are always looking (and hoping) that I bust out the next big thing from The Bruery, and this certainly qualifies on all fronts. PB & Thursday is an exclusive release to members of our 2016 Hoarders Society. This 19.8% ABV stout features layers of peanut butter character and bourbony-fudgy goodness on top of the base beer, our storied imperial stout, Black Tuesday. Ideally, it’ll be something to end the night on. We might not be able to hold out that long.
For pairing, I’m going to solve one of America’s foremost problems at the Thanksgiving table: what wine do you pair with turkey? And rather than entertain the arguments for pairing a red or white wine, I’m going to shift the dialogue entirely by placing a beer & wine hybrid centerstage. The beer? Rue Sans. Released in 2016, Rue Sans is a fusion of our sour rye ale at Bruery Terreux with Roussanne grapes, which are known for rich, complex notes of apricot and honeysuckle. The creation spent nearly a year in American Oak barrels. It’s spritzy, oaky and bold, yet deceptively delicate despite its 12.5% ABV. I’m looking forward to the robust flavors, spice notes, rustic character, sour notes and fuller body complimenting the brininess, savoriness and roastiness of the turkey, especially on pieces where the Maillard reaction plays out and spices from the stuffing spill over.
Mark F., Bruery Terreux Tasting Room Manager
I’m looking forward to sharing PB & Thursday with my family. They aren’t much into craft beer and I think this one would blow their minds. It’s a style most of them have probably never had – and with the alcohol content, a little will go a long way. Plus, I can’t drink it alone for the same reason.
The beer I’m most looking forward to pairing on Thanksgiving is Culture Club: Biere de George. I think it would go great with just about everything I plan to eat. Tofurkey, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, biscuits and maybe even Dutch apple pie.
Steven M., Distribution Marketing Coordinator
While I’ve made many dishes with a beer pairing in mind, I’ve never actually used beer in the cooking process. I wanted to take standard Thanksgiving staples and add a twist to them by adapting a recipe created by J. Kenji López-Alt, I made a Brown Butter Cornbread with Autumn Maple Syrup.
Autumn Maple was an obvious choice for a beer that I wanted to incorporate. We brew this beer with a hefty portion of yams in addition to molasses, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and vanilla. My thought was to make a syrup out of Autumn Maple and use that in place of standard sugar in the cornbread. I started by putting 1 cup of Autumn Maple in a saucepan over medium heat and stirred occasionally until it lost about 1/3 of its volume. At that point I added in 2/3 cup brown sugar and stirred until the sugar was dissolved. Taking 1/2 cup of that syrup, I whisked that into the liquid ingredient mixture before adding that into the dry ingredient mix. Remember to not use any other sugar in the recipe!
[Side note – I made some french toast while the cornbread was in the oven to use up the remaining syrup. You won’t regret doing that.]
In addition to the cornbread, I also made a cranberry sauce with Frucht: Cherry. I poured 1 cup of Frucht: Cherry and 1 cup of white sugar into a saucepan and cooked over low heat until the sugar dissolved. Next, I added in a 12-oz. bag of fresh cranberries and raised the heat to medium. Stir occasionally and cook the cranberries until they all pop and start breaking apart. At that point pour it into a bowl and you’re done (the sauce will thicken as it cools).
Maureen R., Human Resources Manager
The beer I’m most looking forward to sharing on Thanksgiving is Autumn Maple! This beer was my first exposure to a non-pumpkin fall beer. I’ve always brought it as my contribution to the Thanksgiving meal as a liquid alternative to the yams. I will be sharing it with my parents, my five siblings and I suppose my husband if he wants a sip.
The beer I’m most looking forward to pairing on Thanksgiving is Black Tuesday. This will be paired with the entire Thanksgiving meal, dessert and late-night seconds since it takes time to savor each high ABV sip.
Cambria G., Distribution Marketing Manager
The beer I’m most looking forward to sharing on Thanksgiving is Bourgogne Blanc. My family loves both beer and wine, but I want to convert some of the slightly wine-biased members into sour beer lovers with Bourgogne Blanc (and Rue Sans) as gateway options. I plan to taste them on it blind before I reveal that it’s a beer.
The beer I’m most looking forward to pairing on Thanksgiving is Share This: Mole. This beer has so many awesome things going on – in both its charitable concept and in its flavor profile – that I couldn’t think of a better bottle to share at the table when giving thanks! It’s a beer that just begs to be paired with a plethora of Mexican dishes. Since it’s such a flavorful one, I’ll be keeping the pairing simple with some warm cinnamon sugar tortilla crisps. One of my brothers loves just about anything made with cinnamon & sugar, and while I’m not talented enough to make something like churros at home, cinnamon sugar tortilla crisps will be an easy compromise that we can all make together … even after a couple beers have been consumed. The secret is sneaking some vanilla into the melted butter!
AJ B., Shift Lead, Bruery Terreux Tasting Room
The beer I’m most looking forward to sharing on Thanksgiving is: Bourgogne Blanc. I’m looking forward to sharing this beer because it tastes just like a white wine. My family members aren’t huge beer drinkers. Bruery Terreux likes to push the boundaries of what beer can be. I think my family would find this beer/wine hybrid most interesting and delicious on Turkey Day – maybe as an aperitif before the big meal.
The beer I’m most looking forward to pairing on Thanksgiving is Autumn Maple (2008). The release of Autumn Maple has aged gracefully. It has full on yam flavor up front, and it’s malty and vegetal in a good way. It has little to no carbonation left but it is still tasting delicious! I would like to pair this beer with our Thanksgiving feast to show how gracefully a beer can age even over a period of eight years.
Joanna D., Graphic Designer
The beer I’m most looking forward to sharing on Thanksgiving is a growler of Mischief (soon to be featuring CITRA® and Motueka hops! What?!) I am most excited because this has already proven to be a crowd pleaser with my friends and I know that my family will like the crisp hoppiness and fact that it is one of the easiest drinking beers we have. I think it would go nicely with Thanksgiving dinner but my family gathers early and will probably drink it before we sit down. It’s nice that the ABV is on the lower side because, with my family, anything higher will be drama.
Instead of a formal pairing with dinner, I think I am going to try making an Autumn Maple whipped cream to pair with pumpkin pie or yams! I am hoping that the sweetness of the whipped cream will compliment all of the nuances of the beer. Time will tell on the outcome of this idea!
Ellen P., Tasting Rooms General Manager
The beer I’m most looking forward to sharing on Thanksgiving is Share This: Mole with my family. I really enjoy cooking with beer and this beer makes an amazing addition to creme brulee. The spices hold up really well to the cream – better than any other beer I’ve used! Here’s the recipe:
Creme Brulee Recipe:
1 1/2 c heavy cream
1/2 c beer
1 vanilla been, split/scraped
5 egg yolks
1/4 c sugar
Instructions:
– Bring beer to boil over medium high heat, set aside
– Bring cream & vanilla bean over medium high heat, stirring constantly
– Remove from heat, add beer, cover & let sit for 15 mins
– Remove bean and strain
– In a separate container, whip yolks & sugar until pale & thick
– Stir in a little cream mixture at a time
– Skim away foam
– Pour in 7-oz ramekins, set in a pan of water that goes halfway up the height of the ramekins
– Cook at 325 degrees for 30-45 mins until the center is set but still trembles
– Let cool for 2 hours up to 3 days (in fridge)
– Let sit at room temp for 30 mins when ready to brulee
– Sprinkle top with thin coating of sugar, using a sweeping motion with the torch to brown the sugar
The beer I’m most looking forward to pairing on Thanksgiving is The Grade. Breakfast is just as big of a deal in my house as dinner. You’ve got to prep your tummy with a great breakfast that day. This beer really sets off my famous corned beef hash. The maple syrup flavors add a sweet balance to the salty made-from-scratch corned beef.
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