Sierra Nevada beer and food pairing

Saturday night the Canadian and I went to an IPA and food pairing dinner at Sierra Nevada Brewery. We've done a couple of food and beer pairings before, but only at Feather Falls Casino. Doors opened at 6:00 pm so we got there at 5:15 pm since we learned previously that people like to line up early. Or not. Apparently nobody cares about beer dinners because we were the only ones there until about 5:45 pm. Oops.

Once we got in and were (thankfully) seated at a two-top table, staff got busy delivering the beginning of our 5 course dinner.

Their head chef is a very nice Canadian gentleman who introduced each plate followed by the head brewer who told us something about the accompanying beer. First up was a ham and mushroom tartlet made with Llano Seco ham and oyster mushrooms coated in a maple syrup glaze in a brewer's grain crust topped with Pale Ale estate tomato jam. It was served with a small sample of Pale Ale, their flagship beer. Soooo good!

Next was lobster broth made with saffron, blood orange pearls, honey malt gnocchi, Snow Wit IPA, and topped with estate micro greens and served with a Snow Wit IPA. Also incredibly good.

Eggplant Bocadillo - hop smoked eggplant minced and placed between two thin slices of buttered and toasted sourdough. On the side was a kale salad topped with oyster mushrooms caramelized in the new Nooner Session IPA with a Nooner vinaigrette. Served with what else but a Nooner Session IPA. The eggplant filling was so smokey and tasted so good. We liked the side salad just fine, but we could tell by the plates the servers were picking up, other people were not as convinced as us to try kale.

The main entree was filet mignon topped with a chili-almond crust and served with a sweet potato souffle and roasted cauliflower topped with yogurt and mint and served with a Torpedo Extra IPA. This was the boy's favorite dish, while it was my least favorite. It was okay, and yes it was a very tender cut of meat, but I wasn't impressed with the flavor of anything. Meh.

To top it all off, we finished with a flourless chocolate cake with a side of caramel and hopped meringue in the shape of Bigfoot feet (for their Bigfoot barley wine) served with a Blindfold Black IPA. This was the only beer the boy didn't finish. And of course I just took a courtesy sip of each of mine and then passed them to Chris to finish. So much good food and some pretty good beer too (according to the boy).