A Dinner with Dogfish Head

Last night I actually did something blog worthy. I had a meet the brewer dinner with Sam Calagione the Brewer from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. Sam wrote a book Brewing up a Business and kicked off the book tour in Pittsburgh last night.The dinner was at the Harris Grill in Shadyside. When we got there they took us to the back deck for the dinner. The beers were selected to match the courses of the dinner. We started with the 60 Minute IPA as the 'welcome' beer something to drink while we waited for all of the guests to arrive. The appetizer was hummus and pita wedges and the complementing beer was the Shelter Pale Ale. It was a rough transition from the 60 Minute to the Shelter, I wonder if they considered that or if they just planned the food and beer pairings and the beers during the greeting wasn't part of the planning.The salad was tossed greens with balsamic vinaigrette and the companion beer was the Indian Brown Ale. It was a great match and the best that the IBA has ever tasted to me.Dinner was BBQ chicken over rice cooked with ApriHop, and cornbread. The companion beer was of course ApriHop. It was a pretty good match.Desert was a brownie with vanilla ice-cream and its companion beer was the World Wide Stout. It was the best pairing of the evening, but how can you not like chocolate, and a great imperial stout.Throughout the dinner Sam was talking to the people at the different tables. I got to ask him a few questions. I asked him why they made last years World Wide Stout 23% ABV and this years 18% ABV. His answer was that they thought that he 23% stout was too over the top, too alcoholic. They had brewed it at 18% previous years and liked it a lot more so they decided to dial down the alcohol to 18% again. After having the 18% with desert I agree whole heartedly, it was a lot better than I remember last years being.Sam read a few passages from his book during dinner, and we all received an advanced copy of the book along with a Dogfish Head snifter glass.It was a fun evening, nothing like having dinner with a room full of beer geeks. Well, I'm sure Heather might argue differently.