Last night, I crashed The Grill at Torrey Pines for Ballast Point’s beer dinner. The dinner, a result of long interaction between Ballast Point’s Colby Chandler & The Grill’s Stephen Kurpinsky and Kyle Bergman, was a showcase of Ballast Point’s specially brewed chili beers paired with The Grill’s culinary talent.
San Diego Beer was heavily represented, with brewers and employees from 11 in ’11 members Ballast Point, Karl Strauss, and AleSmith in attendance. The President of the San Diego Brewers Guild, Adam Carbonell, sat alongside Luca Banafi of Tendergreens. Also present were Scot & Karen Blair, owner and senior manager of Eleven, Small Bar, and Hamilton’s, along with much of Evans Hotels upper-management. At over 60 people, the event was oversold, but The Grill had tables for everyone.
So how was the pairing?
Thai spiced blackened shrimp skewers paired with Ballast Point’s Bloody Mary Mix & Abandon Ship Smoked Lager came together for a spicy and smokey starter. The crispy roasted quail along with Dried Guajillo Pepper Calico Amber Ale pairing was more cozy than spicy, but delicious. The warm trout salad combined with a Roasted Serrano Green Pepper Yellowtail Ale; the trout salad served as a launching pad for the Yellowtail picante, in which you could nearly taste the skins of the serrano peppers. My mouth aflame, the curry spiced pork loin went along with Smokin’ Hot Habanero Sculpin IPA to create the apex of the event which further ignited my very public love affair with Sculpin as well as my palate. The fire extinguisher pairing was mexican chocolate cake paired with Smoked Chipotle, Cocoa Nib Black Marlin Porter.
As I was crashing (and working), I played wallflower for most of the night. Kyle Bergman poked his head out of the kitchen to check on me, and Scot Blair found us both. To Kyle, Scot stated: “This is the best beer and food event in San Diego. Ever.” Stunning praise, coming from the owner of the 3 hottest beer bars in town and also one of a handful Cicerone certified people in the country. For a beer pairing that was very experimental, it was exciting to see such creativity & risk work so well together.
Erica says
Solid publication, I am looking forward to all that West Coaster will contribute to our community
Mike Shess says
hey Erica - thanks for the kind words, driving down to see us, and coming to the party 🙂
Anonymous Coward says
This publication is a joke. Gossip junkies and high-fiving PR cronies for TapHunter. San Diego beer culture will continue to thrive with or without WC’s empty commentary.
Mike Shess says
Thanks for the criticism. We are not cronies for TapHunter. We are publicly friends, and we put them on the cover because they’re working hard on something cool - but there is no business affiliation whatsoever between TapHunter and West Coaster.
We want to grow the San Diego Craft Beer Community, and we’re a small publication trying to help out as best we can.
If you like, I’d love to hear you out. It’s tough when you make it anonymous, but I’ll buy you a beer. We’d like to make our little publication better. It’s far from perfect.
However, by taking anonymous pot shots on the internet I can infer that you’ are probably not interested in a conversation.
mike@westcoastersd.com
-Mike