Beer for Thanksgiving! Beer Dinner November 10, 2008

Give Thanks for Beer!
Everyone knows what’s on the menu for Thanksgiving! This year, why not consider beer to accompany your courses?

It’s been documented in voyage journals that the Mayflower abandoned its voyage and landed in Plymouth due to running out of beer: “our victuals being much spent, especially our beer.” One of the first establishments constructed within the Pilgrim colony was a brewery, and most of its passengers were also separatist farmers, poorly educated and without social or political standing. Given these facts, do you honestly think that they drank wine at the very first Thanksgiving in 1621?

The late Michael Jackson notes, “On this choice between wine and beer, there is a snobbism which is particularly American. In Europe, whether you drink wine or beer with your meal may depend simply upon where you live. Wine is the natural drink in the hedonistic, warm, grape-growing countries of the South, like France, Spain and Italy. The diligent folk of the Protestant North, whence the Pilgrims came – from The Netherlands and England – grow grain and make beer.”

If your tastes run to beer, we have some wonderful ideas for pairings this holiday season. Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery and author of The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food, notes that when people ask, “What wine goes with Thanksgiving dinner,” “The answer is beer.”

Beer Goddess Vicki Weisent presents. We’ve tapped into a great selection of beers, and paired them with a fantastic menu of Thanksgiving-inspired dishes from Grovewood’s award-winning kitchen. A complimentary recipe book of the dishes served (but adapted for the home kitchen) will be presented.

Official Website: http://www.grovewoodtavern.com/beer%20dinner.htm