Food porn from La Vecchia's craft beer night with Craft Reno
Craft Wine & Beer's owner Ty Martin imported craft beer directly from Italy for last night's beer dinner at La Vecchia Italian Ristorante
- La Vecchia Owner Alberto Gazzola said he enjoyed prepping the dinner quite a bit. Since the bottles Ty provided traveled directly from Italy, Alberto made up the menu without getting a chance to try any beers and Ty had to find the right pairings to go with the menu. Both of them did a great job putting the two together for the first time."I've never heard of these beers," he said. "It's like wine really...the beer flavors have enough presence to cut through food. You can't do that with Heineken."Alberto realizes there's a craft movement happening in Midtown and Downtown Reno and wants to be a part of that movement. Alberto said he wants to do a wine or beer dinner every month, if possible.The hope is to make these beers or other Italian beers available at Craft Reno in the near future.
- The beer dinner seated 24 people in a small dining room, a good size for a craft beer dinner. The dinner brought in a good mix of people of different ages and interests, exactly what La Vecchia hoped to do with the dinner.
- -Ty took great care of the six bottles visiting from Italy, explaining that the larger format (1.5L and 3L especially) bottle-conditioned beers drink "fresher" than their smaller siblings due to the higher proportion of yeast left in the bottle. Like all bottle conditioned beverages, they must be delicately cared for and protected from light ad temperature extremes.
Prosecco starts our first course tonight. pic.twitter.com/cxFHx6Vso3Starting the night with sparkling Prosecco to cleanse the palette. This struck me as a fascinating choice for a beer dinner but made total sense once the food started coming out.
@dogfishhead hoppy beer collaboration with #italian brewery to make My Antonia. Rare in America… http://instagram.com/p/mT4fW5BCLg/Birra del Borgo joined forces with Dogfish Head to create this Italian Imperial Pilsener using Sam Calagione's continuous hopping method. My Antonia is the result of that collaboration and it represents a far more nuanced and light approach to hoppy (70 IBUs) beers than any American Imperial Pilsener or American IPA because of it's malty, sweet, yeasty backbone. Leaving the cloudy yeast in the bottle instead of clarifying it, truly changes the flavor of the hops.
This is how you pour a #magnum beer into tiny glasses. #italiancraftdinner @ La Vecchia http://instagram.com/p/mT5q6WhCNa/Birra del Borgo's Re Ale in 1.5L bottle.The 3L bottle of Berrificio le Baladin Elixir Strong Ale from 2007 is bigger than Ty's head and uses whiskey yeast to survive the high alcohol. This was my table's least favorite beer largely because it tended to toward the sweeter side. And by "least favorite" we mean it was really good but we enjoyed the others more. But despite that, the pairing with tender Ossobuco worked very well.The final course paired an Outlaw Milk Stout Gelato with baked pear and Grado Plato Chocarrubica Oatmeal Stout. Fantastic all around. This was Alberto and many others favorite beer. A very chocolatey, velvety beer.
