a few weeks ago on dr, someone mentioned a glass giveaway at rustico. curious about this, i visited rustico's website and struck gold:

Garrett Oliver subtitled his novel, "Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food." Tonight we do just that! Brooklyn Brewery's Brewmaster will be onhand to discuss the art of pairing great beer with great food as we explore a vibrant selection of his beers paired with dishes created by EatBar's Chef Nathan Anda. Cost is $90 (including tax & gratuity); $120 for dinner and a signed copy of Garrett's beer bible, The Brewmaster's Table. This evening's blow-out beer dinner is not to be missed!

i don't claim to be the next michael jackson of beer, but i know what i like, and i like brooklyn brewery beers. so it was obvious that we were going to reserve tuesday, feb 6 for the brooklyn brewery dinner.

eatbar is in virginia, a half mile or so from the clarendon metro stop on the orange line. it actually opened recently (2006) as a gastropub, attached to another neighborhood restaurant, tallula.

after braving the cold walk to the restaurant, i was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere of the place. we walked in the eatbar doors (and not tallula), and it was a very relaxed. the lighting was warm and inviting, and it seemed the patrons were neighborhood folk trying to warm themselves up from all the cold with good beer and good food.

when we finally figured out the dinner was being held in the private back room, and made our way back. we found a lowly lit room (candles) with a 6-seater rounded bar, and 5 or 6 tables with name cards (well, a folded piece of paper, actually). we were the first ones there, and found our names at a cozy 2-seater booth against the wall next to the bar. great! i was glad that we didn't have to sit with people we didn't know and make small conversation. people started to trickle in, and at 7:30, the dinner began.

garrett oliver started the night off contrasting homemade bread/wonder bread and artisan cheese/kraft "slices". this naturally led him to talk about the differences between large scale beer makers and smaller craftier breweries (like brooklyn brewery). he was a great speaker and captivated the audience every time he spoke, which he did before each of the 6 courses, to talk about the beer and why it was paired with a particular dish.

i won't go into full details about the food and the beer pairings, which you can see in the linked picture in this blog entry. but i will mention a few things.

i think my favorite dish was the braised pork belly with house baked beans, paired with the brooklyn smoked weissbock. if i remember correctly, i believe mr. oliver mentioned that the malt was lightly smoked for brewing, which led to the nice smokiness of the weissbock. i think it was perfectly paired with the pork belly, which was also smoked, as well as the beans. i seriously could have eaten 5 of those dishes and still had room for the rest of the meal. it really was outstanding. i might have to try to recreate the dish at home.

we also were privy to a new beer they were making at the brewery that hadn't yet been released to the public: brooklyn local 1. it had notes of bananas, cloves and bubblegum (that's what mr. oliver said, and when i tasted it, he was spot on). it reminded me of victory's golden monkey, but not as strong, with a smoother finish. (i think i prefer brooklyn's local 1.)

the 5th course was a cheese course. i was curious to see what cavin was going to do, because not only was it a cheese course, but it was a stilton cheese course. it was paired with a black chocolate stout. eh. mr. oliver actually told us a quick anecdote of how this pairing came about. he was at another pairing: stilton cheese with the barleywine (which actually ended up being paired with the 6th course), except when he arrived, someone messed up and they only had the black chocolate stout. so he had to "bluff" his way thru the talk, as if he had done the stiltons and the stout on purpose. for him, this ended up being a blessing in disguise, because he actually thought the pairing worked, and decided to include it in our dinner.

there were two "stiltons" served, one an old-world style from england, which actually was a stilton, and another new-world style from wisconsin, which was in the style of a stilton, but technically wasn't. i thought the cheese from wi was fantastic. i even ate some of cavin's because i knew that he wasn't going to really touch it (to give him credit, he did taste it). but the pairing was a little off to me, and i could barely drink the stout, even though i love them so much. (i would have prefered the barleywine with the stiltons, truth be told.) ah, tant pis!

to end the night, the last "course" was the barleywine served with a cigar. cavin and i don't smoke, but i thought it would be kind of cool to smoke the cigar (not the best cigar i've ever had, but it was decent with the barleywine) so we split one. it was a pretty great ending to the whole night.

at the end of the dinner, it was announced that there would be another beer dinner in the next month or so at eatbar: victory. i am also a fan of victory, and have actually gone to the brewery in pa, so we'll definitely be going again.

and eatbar/tallula seemed like a great restaurant to go to relax and hang out, so we'll probably be there in the future as well.

tallula/eatbar
2761 washington blvd
arlington, va 22201
703.778.5051

Labels: beer, cheese, event, pork, restaurant