The Thanksgiving Beer guide...of sorts

Thanksgiving. Personally speaking this is my favorite holiday. It incorporates things that I love all into one day. It’s a bunch of F words but not my usual one of choice. Family, friends, food, football, fun. If you notice on that list, nowhere do I say sleeping in front of a Best Buy for days or shopping at any number of big box stores for shit I don’t need, or is 6 months out of date tech wise. Back on track that is a rant for another day and another blog.

  Ok to the beer and food part. I love cooking planning, and the overall vibe of Thanksgiving food. I am a traditionalist with the bird and the dressing. Pretty much the standard sage dressing, butter and herb rubbed turkey. Have I deep fried a turkey? Sure have, hell for a Stone Brewing beer pairing dinner for the holidays in Vegas, I even deep fried a turducken (don’t try this at home unless you have a restaurant grade pressure fryer).  For the record I don’t stuff the turkey it’s a 3 fold problem in my eyes. It dries out the turkey, it’s for all intents and purposes not a good food safety practice, and it takes way too fucking long to cook. I want to eat it but not have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to put it in the oven in hopes that it will be done by dinner time. This may seem like me rehashing things from the past, but just hang on while I give an overview. Sides are all over the board on this day, and to many folks out there the best part. Mashed Potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, all kinds of weird casseroles that you just see on Thanksgiving. The general theme and feel of all if not most is that they are earthy in flavor. There are a lot of root vegetables, starches, mushrooms, herbs like sage and rosemary. What I am saying in a nutshell is that the food mainly hits one note so it’s more than easy to pair it up if you know your beers.      So where does that leave us for beer pairing? I made a style guide that can help you out or just confuse the crap out of you because there are so many directions you can go. I hope it’s the former not the later but here it is.

 

This is a good look at where I go as far as the pairings. One type that I didn’t get into is the winter seasonals. As far as this post I am not going to break them all down just because there are hundreds of them and they all have different vibes from white IPAs to flavored stouts. The vast majority are spiced up winter warmer type ales, with lots of nutmeg and cinnamon. Save most, if not all for desert or for an after dinner drink. One thing to remember is that these beers that I have recommended do have a higher alcohol content than some of you may be used to. Don’t start throwing them back like a cheap can of Natty Light or you will be “that guy (or girl)” at Dinner, you never want to be that guy or girl. My PSA is done, so I am going to throw all of you a curveball.

Soooooo you want to do a near historic account of Thanksgiving dinner. Not the one where the dog cooks toast, popcorn, and serves jelly beans for the lesbian couple, the bird, and that weird kid with the blanket and his sister. The Pilgrims and Indians one. Scrap the food first off. It sucked. Venison jerky, squash and some sort of shot bird while tasty, is not going to cut it today. That leaves us with one thing, Let’s drink like the Pilgrims! First, throw out that Washington Pinot you bought, and then all the beer I recommended. At that moment in History they had one thing in the Plymouth colony, hard cider. What, you say the hop head is talking about cider? Yup. I am not going into nuances of cider here, but I am going to give you some craft ciders to try, and yes they exists, so throw out the shit with the rodent on it, and the Red fruit “ale” as well. My favorite for a Thanksgiving feast is the Crispin Honey Crisp Artisanal Reserve. It has a great apple flavor, a nice bit of honey in there. They don’t use the honey crisp apple, but it’s more of a play on words, in any respect it’s great. Another great one is the Cidre Bouche by Domanie DuPont from Normandy in France. It’s pretty much and orchard in a bottle, very tasty. There are many, many more that are great. Here is a site to find them if you want to dive into them go to http://unitedstatesofcider.com, there’s a good deal of info on theme there. This can be fun and a different experience for you to try.

I just want to say to everyone reading: Just have fun with Thanksgiving. Don’t stress about the food, the menu is more or less the same as it has been for over a century minus certain family twists, which may or may not be good. Get some different good beers, get together with family and friends and celebrate. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!