If you remember my post for #Beersaturday last week you'll know that Pint of Origin has been running all week in Melbourne Australia. And this post is about one of the events for that beer Festival.
The Festival see 23 different venues assigned to a region of Australia or the world. My favourite bar (perhaps because it's very close to my house) is called Benchwarmer or Benchies to the locals and it has been representing Japan and Japanese craft beer for Pint of Origin. During this time they have been pouring beers for a number of breweries, and they have had some special events.
This night was one of those special events. A 5 course degustion menu of food (their chef is pretty amazing so this promised a lot) matched with 5 beers all from Offtrail Brewing which is the barrel aged craft beer brand connected to more mainstream Far Yeast brewing.
After being seated we were greeted with a menu, and I have to say it all looked very promising indeed
So onto the Drinking...
First up was the Ebi Toast, which was a real highlight, it was this amazing mix of savoury saltiness with the little explosions of refreshing fishiness from the tobiki, which is orange fish roe on the top. The Beer - Funkphobia and this was almost the best beer of the night so an amazing way to start, it to was fresh and a little salty - the peach and guava absolutely came through.
Our beer was the wonderfully named 'Gimme Those Fairy Wings' which was a Barrel aged cherry sour, smelling it I expected something quite sour and maybe Kriek like, this was reinforced by the deep purple colour, but in fact the taste was really gentle and subtle, another solid beer. The food a Cucumber bites with, and this is the important bit Whipped Tofu, which is one of favourite things this chef does.
Next up what a Beer focused on Blood oranges, and it was very blood orange flavoured, it felt a little bit more like very tart breakfast orange juice, in fact maybe a little too much. Food wise we have moved to the confusing named Tuna Mac - I didn't know what to expect but it wasn't this, it was good, if not a little messy with some strange textures.
Okay so I know that food doesn't look great, but it's essentially a whole bunch of very nice tasting things piled on top of a Corn Tastada, and I can tell you it was amazing. The Beer accompanying it not so much. It was an Apple and Cinnamon sour, I like the flavours of apple and cinnamon, and they shown through, but I'm not sure it's what I want my beer to taste like, maybe a pastry, but not my beer.
And then it was time for the last course, now you may have noticed the food was not substantial in each course so far, but that was about to change, we are about to get a very hearty Beef Rib, which rich decandent sauce, and what goes with something this hearty - Well it's a Bourbon Barrel-aged Imperial Stout, and my lordy it was amazing, it was everything you would expect from a beer like this - 10.5% but not overpowering, warming and layered would be a better description. It was a perfect beer to end what had been a pretty amazing night.
I guess we will have to wait for Pint of Origin next year for the next event like this, but then again there was a whole keg of the Imperial Stout, and they can't have finished it so I might just pop down to Benchies and see if there is any left......