Brewmaster's Dinner at Great Lakes Brewery

For the record, I love Columbus Day. Thanks to this very special Italian-American holiday and my MWF teaching schedule, I'm at the tail end of a lovely 5-day weekend.

Also for the record, I think Great Lakes Brewery just might love me, as they scheduled their penultimate Brewmaster dinner of 2007 to coincide with the end of my very own long weekend.

So, after yet another day of lounging around the Vaughn Lounge (the new name for my apartment, courtesy Jose), trading places on the sofa with Ellie and making even more questionable movie-viewing choices (today it was "Rookie of the Year" and "Hellraiser: Bloodline"), I took Ellie on her post-dinner walk and then headed over to the Great Lakes Brewery, which is literally right next door.

OK, full disclosure it is not "literally" literally right next door, rather about 1/2 block down, but the point is, it is close.

So, I headed over to the brewery, popped in the gift shop area around 6:45 and picked up a magic coupon. This magic coupon entitled me to 1 free tour of the brewery's premises, led by a charming and hilarious man (who's name I forget) that I really hope was of Irish ancestry (cause if he wasn't, someone needs to have a talk with the staff there about a little thing called racism. Or would it be nationalism? Whichever. He was still really funny, especially with the bit about the time he tried to explain to the cop who had pulled him over that the two pints he was holding were really just "Irish hand-cuffs." Or the one where he said to tell the cop that beer is 90% water, so you aren't really drunk.).

But I digress. Again.

So after the tour, during which I found out that I am neighbors with Grady Sizemore, we reconvened in this incredibly difficult to find upper room and enjoyed a 5-course pairing dinner. There were some hits (i.e., the stuffed figs and the bisque) and misses (the hyper-dry pork and the idiotic idea to create a beer ice-cream float), but all in all, it was an enjoyable evening. The menu is below.

AMUSE BOUCHE
Fig stuffed with Smoked Hungarian Sausage and Fontina Cheese (served with the GLB Glockenspiel)

SALAD
Cucumber and Tomato Salad with Burning River Vinaigrette (served with the GLB Burning River Pale Ale)

SOUP
Butternut Squash Bisque (served with the GLB Eliot Ness Amber Lager)

ENTREE
Porkloin stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes and gorgonzola cheese (served with the GLB Nosferatu)

DESSERT
Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream Float in the GLB Edmund Fitzgerald Porter with a side shot of Navan Vanilla Cognac)