Hosts: Ken Beattie & Tyler Dawson
This was a great seminar with two hosts who guided us through a tour of craft beers and wines that shared a lot of common flavors and histories together. Ken and Tyler were exceptionally involved and knowledgeable about both fields and paired off each of their ten carefully-selected beverages for us to try.
Or first pairing was a wonderful Miraval Rose, a rose with a bold flavor, which was followed a Fuggles & Warlock Pixel Pilsner, an old favorite of mine, that offered itself as a crisp palate cleanser.
Following that, we tried a wild-yeast fermented Haywire Free Form White, a wine with flavours one can’t find outside of wild yeast. It was a very funky trip, which was followed with Driftwoods ‘Cry Me A River’ Gose, a tart, citrus beer that held up against the Haywire Free Form well.
Our third pairing started with a beautiful ruby-colored rose, Bella Gamay Pet-nat, which was bottled right out of fermentation, lending itself to be very dry and very carbonated. This was paired with my favorite beer of the evening; Dogwood Brewery’s French Ginger Saison. I’m normally not a huge fan of the often-tart saison style of beers, but I found this ginger saison to be bursting with fresh ginger flavor and almost no lingering sweet or sour l often dislike about saisons.
The second to last pairing started with the orange wine, Au Naturel, a gewurztraminer by Dirty Laundry. Much like the wild-yeast fermented Free Form, Au Naturel had a distinct outdoor flavouring, and had a lingering taste of marmalade. It was paired with Four Winds Dry Hopped Sour, which followed the orange wine with more bold citrus mouthfuls.
The last pairing was an older orange wine, Clos du Soleil Juniper Pinot Gris, which was a peaty, strong wine. The 33 Acres Fluffy Cloud Hazy IPA finished the seminar, a big mouthy beer that cleaned up the palette nicely.
