Oregon Chocolate Festival: 1st Ever Beer & Chocolate Pairing
Mar 5, 2012 Beer & Food, Celebration Worthy, Education & Training, Events
Women Enjoying Beer presented the first ever Beer & Chocolate pairing session at the 8th Annual Oregon Chocolate Festival held last weekend in Ashland, OR. Our gracious and enthusiastic hosts, lead by the famazing Karolina, made being a presenter and vendor easy and fun.
Thanks to the guests who enjoyed an hour’s worth of lively tasting, conversating and questions. We featured 3 flavorful West coast beers matched with 3 delicious local chocolate makers.
- Standing Stone Brewing Company’s specially made for the festival Chocolate Stout with Dagoba Milk Chocolate (using Zorba’s cocoa nibs)
- Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat with Zorba’s Raw chocolate citrus truffle (sweet orange, coconut milk, palm sugar, cardamom, vanilla, and ginger). The texture on this truffle was particularly spectacular in pairing it with beer.
- Southern Oregon Brewing’s Porter with Lillie Belle Farms‘ Perfect Illusion (raspberry characteristics made with white beans)
Judging by the enthusiasm of the attendees I’d say we had a big success on our taste buds.
Many thanks to the generous supply of beer from the brewers and Lark’s Restaurant in the Hotel as well as the chocolate companies. The Hotel staff and volunteers from SOU were a big help as well.
Tags: Ashland Springs Hotel, Beer & chocolate pairing, Dagoba Chocolate, Lillie Belle Farms, Lost Coast Brewing, Oregon Chocolate Festival, Southern Oregon Brewing, Standing Stone Brewing, Zorba's Raw Chocolate
2 WEB menus
Dec 13, 2011 Beer & Food, Celebration Worthy, Events, Women and Beer
Last week was full of great beer and food shared by superb company. Here are two menus accordingly. Use them and share them as you wish.
tis the season for beer & food together
Swig & Stitch inaugural Beer event menu at 38 Central:
- Bayern Brewing Pilsner paired with Pilsner marinated sesame crusted chicken drizzled with Dijon aioli
- Southern Oregon Brewing Porter paired with grilled eggplant stuffed with sausage and porter Balsamic glaze
- Ninkasi Total Domination IPA paired with seafood stuffed mushroom braised in IPA with toasted panko
WEB Annual Hoppy Holidays menu:
- Lindeman’s Gueuze Lamic Cuvee Rene with whole milk Monterey Jack, Blue, Muenster and mozzarella cheeses, fresh Challah and Ciabatta breads
- Sierra Nevada & New Clairvaux Abbey Ovila Dubbel with peppered salame, sopressata, and Cajun sausages
- Samuel Smith’s Organic Strawberry fruit ale with fresh winter fruit salad (persimmon, pomegranates, oranges, apples, pears, bananas)
- Young’s Double Chocolate Stout with fresh mild chocolate brownie topped with frozen vanilla and chocolate yogurt
Tags: 38 Central, annual hoppy holidays event, Bayern, Lindeman's, New Clairvaux, Ninkasi, Oliva, Samuel Smith, Sierra Nevada, Southern Oregon Brewing, Swig & Stitch, Young's
American Craft Brewers like to Collaborate
May 23, 2011 Beer, Celebration Worthy, Good People, Something To Think About
Here’s an example of collaboration: Guest tap of a neighboring brewery during American Craft Beer Week (just finished May 16 – 22).
Larry (l) and Scott (r) salute ACBW with collaboration
Larry Chase, Standing Stone, and Scott Saulsbury, Southern Oregon Brewing, enjoy a good beer together. And not just during ACBW.
They are comrades, as are many brewers. This is a snapshot from this past Saturday during ACBW. Larry invited a few guest brewers to join them at SSBC and share their beer for the benefit of the SSBC guests and beer enthusiasts. Corey of Klamath Basin was another brewer Larry engaged.
See, when collaboration happens, then it’s better for the whole community. Collaboration = communication = common goals = fun = success.
Support your local brewery collaborations. Look for them off-sale (in stores) and on-site (on draught). There’s no more creative group of thinkers than American craft brewers.
Here’s another example of collaborating in the beer community.
Tags: ACBW, American Craft Beer Week, collaboration, community, Larry Chase, Scott Saulsbury, Southern Oregon Brewing, Standing Stone Brewing
Bottling Beer At SOB
Aug 25, 2010 Beer & Food, Education & Training
Bottling beer at SOB
I had the distinct pleasurable opportunity to get to be a volunteer bottler at Southern Oregon Brewing last week. What a great way to get out from computer work and meet (more) fun beer people.
SOB is already a familiar brewery to me and the people there are friends. They’ve been good to WEB – we had a monthly meet up there where we featured their beers and paired them with cheeses. Mmmmmmmm! So getting to participate at the brewery in a process I don’t know much about was very welcome.
Acacia, Larry’s intern at SSBC, and I headed over around 830 am last Thursday. She’d done it before so was a helpful colleague to have there. There were 4 other volunteers in addition to Scott, Brewer, and the Green Bottling team – Jack, Gavin, and Mike.
Lee and Acacia on the line at SOB
It’s a pretty straightforward process, really, with some very specific equipment customized to take on the road to service breweries in bottling their beers. What a great solution!
Grossly Oversimplified: Beer ready in tanks, equipment set up, bottles loaded, filled, packed into boxes, palleted, and stored. And of course, enjoyed at their end point of some one’s mouth down the road.
Bottling and canning lines are an investment that – when it’s right – are smart. It’s another smart way to serve the breweries and end enthusiasts per beer by the bottle.
Green Bottling truck
SOB bottles 22 ounce bottles and we ended up helping that luscious beer into those bombers for the better part of the day. They’d also bottled the night before (Nice Rack IPA). Thursday we bottled Pin-up Porter, Gold Digger, and Woodshed Red.
Scott already knows my hand is the air for future bottling. Can’t wait! The refreshing beers on-site and camaraderie that is so intrinsic to the craft beer community was in perfect form that day. Thanks to Scott, Tom, Jack, Gavin, Mike, Acacia, Lee, Greg, Jeff, and Buddy – what a fabulously beery day!
Tags: bottling beer, bottling process, Green Bottling, Southern Oregon Brewing
Bottling Beer
Aug 19, 2010 Beer, Beer & Food, Education & Training
Bottling line at New Glarus
Today is a new experience waiting to happen – I get to participate and observe in bottling beer. Southern Oregon Brewing is willing to have me volunteer to come out and be of any assistance.
Surely they have their routine down. Nonetheless I’m geared up because, while I’ve seen operational bottling lines and resting bottling lines on site at many breweries, this is the first time I get to actively be involved.
I’ll report back when the effort is complete.
Beer & Salsa Event Last Night
Aug 13, 2010 Celebration Worthy, Events
Beer and food. Food and beer. Mmmmmmm...raise your hand if you think that’s a great combination??
Beer & Salsa Event
Last night we had a fantastically tasty 5 course Beer & Salsa Event.
YES! Great midsummer theme – met with success by the energetic and fun lovers who joined us. We extended the theme from the lovely room inside Lithia Springs Resort to one of their outside areas where we proceeded to beat the candy out of a custom Pinata.
The grounds also has hops growing on it so Robin and Kathy took extra special care of us by putting some cutting in the floral arrangements on the tables – very nice touch and great for people to see hops up close, cones on the vine.
Here’s the menu and recipe ingredients – Cheers!
Monteith’s Pilsner Style Beer and White Bean & Corn Salsa with Melba Rounds
White beans, corn, green onions, olive oil, salt & pepper
Monteith’s Black Ale and Olive Black Bean Tapenade with fresh French Bread
Black olives, black beans, capers, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper
Russian River Consecration and Fresh Melon Salsa with lemon and orange cookies
Honeydew, cantaloupe, canary melons, sweet yellow onion, mint
Southern Oregon Brewing Pin-up Porter and Heirloom Tomato Balsamic Vinegar Salsa with blue tortilla chips
Heirloom tomatoes, diced canned tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper
Ninkasi Total Domination IPA and Spicy Pineapple Pepper Salsa with baked tortilla corn chips
Fresh pineapple, jalapeno, poblano, Anaheim peppers, cilantro, salt and pepper
Hungry yet??
Tags: beer and salsa event, Lithia Springs Resort, Monteith's, Ninkasi, pinata, Russian River, Southern Oregon Brewing
Southern Oregon Brewing Hospitality
May 17, 2010 Beer & Food, Celebration Worthy, Education & Training, Events
Many Thanks to Scott, Justin, Kristen, and Tom for Thursday night’s success.
Southern Oregon Brewing was our host location for May’s monthly meet up – with resounding success.
Women Enjoying Beer and Cheese
We had 24+ women show up just for the event – most had reserved a spot and we had some more fabulous women come join us to the groups benefit. More truly is merrier! Thanks to everyone who came to enjoy the SOB beer and cheese pairing.
To the patrons who were in the taproom already enjoying beer, wondering what was happening when Anna and I began setting up – cheers! Thanks for being game to let us (unknowingly) interrupt your Thursday night.
Cheese is a classic to pair with beer. Why?
Because like cheese, beer has many complexities that, since it’s a living thing (yeast and all), has infinite possibilities of what flavors may develop. Yes, you can plan some, yet since yeasts and molds are rather independently spirited organisms, in the end it can be a surprise.
The SOB beers and cheeses we paired:
- 1. Gold Ale with Monterrey Jack
- 2. Pale Ale with medium Cheddar
- 3. IPA with Camembert
- 4. Porter with Caved Aged Swiss Gruyere
- 5. Black IPA with Gorgonzola
How’s that sound?
Good beer and food references:
p.s. Happy American Craft Beer Week – May 17th – 23rd – we’ll be at SSBC celebrating tonight from 6 – 8
Tags: American Craft Beer Week, beer and cheese pairing, Lucy Saunders, Randy Mosher, Southern Oregon Brewing
Sweet Lemon
May 5, 2010 Beer & Food, Education & Training, Events
Scott, Brewer, and Anna, WEB, at SOB
A big thanks to Sarah Lemon and the Mail Tribune for this accurate and well written piece. Thanks to Bob for the photo as well.
We still have some seats awaiting for the May 13th Event at Southern Oregon Brewing. Call or email to save your seat for high quality tasty beer paired with yummy cheeses.
Thanks!!
Back in Action
Chicago - CBC
Okay – Whew! What a whirlwind last two weeks. My apologies for being so sporadic. Back on track…
The Craft Brewers Conference – entirely fun, productive, and rewarding. Yes, it’s a beer conference. Yes, it’s still a big investment of time, energy, dollars and mental energy. LOTS to share about the conference – you’ll read about it in the coming months.
Women Enjoying Beer is enjoying a steady increase in attention, patronage and interest. My humble and many thanks to you all – to you all who spread it forward too.
This afternoon Anna and I head out to visit Scott, Southern Oregon Brewing, to case the joint. See the brewery and taproom as we’ll be having the May WEB meet up there. Very interested in getting more people – women specifically - actively engaged in visiting the breweries to really connect way more dots.
So – I jokingly say, when people ask me how I got into doing this – It’s a tough job. Really – it does require diligence, persistence, and a constancy to purpose. Such is Life. Such is business.
And I’m grateful to get to work with so many flat out incredible people in the beer community – brewers, consumers, and everyone in between.
Cheers -
ginger
Tags: Chicago, Craft Brewers Conference, Southern Oregon Brewing
Maui & Southern Oregon Breweries
Apr 5, 2010 Beer, Education & Training, Events
Maui CoCoNut Porter
Many thanks to Maui Brewing and Southern Oregon Brewing for their generous contribution of beer for our meet up last Thursday.
Maui Brewing: Since this was a Beer & Dessert pairing event, Maui’s CoCoNut Porter went sublimely with the Coconut mousse in a crispily delicate phyllo shell. Mmmmmmmmm!
Southern Oregon Brewing/SOB: The custom made Beerimisu paired oh-so-deliciously with the Pin Up Porter. Wow!
All the guests were blown away by, well, beer and dessert. There’s a growing faction of regulars for this group and it’s fun to see to learning and savoring happen simultaneously. Yes, you can see it – in the facial expressions
SOB's Pin Up Porter
and hear it in the low murmur of satisfaction.
The bonus (very planned) is that SOB is made within 15 miles of where we met (low carbon transportation) and Maui’s came in cans (lighter weight = lower carbon per shipping). Both of these sustainability issues are important to women & men.
Cheers to Scott & Aloha to Kim and Anita!
Tags: beer and dessert, Maui Brewing, Southern Oregon Brewing
