That place that serves fresh salads with al fresco dining is your favorite warm weather restaurant. And that other one, where you sit beside a roaring fire while noshing through comforting cuisine is perfect for colder months. But Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant is just my go to spot for every season. They truly offer it all and this early December I wanted nothing more than to sink into their cozy oversized booths, relax amidst the soft lighting and tackle a five course Holiday Brewmaster’s Dinner, complete with hearty helpings of both beer and cuisine.
The evening started off just as I expected. My date and I sunk into the last booth on the right and boggled at the menu laying in front of us. Mid marvel, the servers presented us with a welcome beer to get things started. The experience felt similar to eating appetizers before Thanksgiving and I justified my consumption, before the five wintry beers to come, by staying in that mind set. The event was craft-focused from the start, right down to the simple centerpiece of hops and barley spread on a tea plate with a dainty white candle resting next to them.
Just as the seasons don’t rapidly change from one to the other, the meal didn’t dive directly into a world of wintry offerings. The flavors of late Fall kicked things off in the form of a Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Creme Fraiche. Their Oatmeal-Milk Stout was a well chosen pairing to slowly blend into the holiday helpings to come. It wasn’t too heavy so as to battle with the thickness of Chef Timothy Andrew’s from-scratch pumpkin soup, but rather washed the thick appetizer down in a soothing, unfilling way. Thankfully so, since four courses still remained.
I moved on to the second dish in jolly spirits after scraping every last bit of pumpkin soup from the bottom of my bowl. Chef Andrew’s interpretation of Braised Lamb Shoulder was up next. They presented the tender, melt in your mouth meat with a porcini latke, smoked onion-applesauce and red grape reduction, all of which were prepared to perfection. The flavors of each element, plus the Scotch Ale, danced together without missing a beat but if I had to choose one star, it was the porcini latke. I welcomed the twist on this traditional Hanukkah treat and would have happily consumed more helpings had it not been for three more courses looming in the near future.
One of those courses immediately following was the Turducken Roulade stuffed with a house sausage of venison and foie gras, then paired with roasted root vegetables, green bean casserole and cider beurre blanc. The pour chosen for pairing was a rich Oktoberfest, flirting once again with another season outside of winter. Chef Andrew admitted this was his first time making turducken but, first or one thousandth, the dish was dynamite so I had to inquire further about his technique when it comes to pairing cuisine with craft beer.
“It’s not a decision that I make alone and then let the brewers match things up. We work back and forth and sometimes have special tastings to make sure all the components are right. I might ask them to make a certain beer and they might tell me something isn’t going to work. It’s just a lot of “research.” He smiled, confirming my next question about how delicious this “research” is before I could even ask it, then he headed back to the kitchen to pump out another course.
The result of Chef Andrew’s return to the kitchen was an extraordinary House Cured Ham served up with a delicious pineapple bread pudding, braised kale and truffled honey. This course screamed Christmas as Iron Hill’s Tripel rounded out the offering with it’s flavors of plum, spice and everything nice! There was even a hint of bananas that led my date and I gracefully into the final course, full bellies and all!
Thankfully Chef Andrew’s Layered Fruit Cake was like none I ever had before. Perhaps it was the blood orange jam, buttercream icing and eggnog semifreddo that completed the dish. Paired with a rich Russian Imperial Stout, the perfectly sweetened slice had hints of citrus when you wanted them but never overpowered my palate. Even as the final item of a hefty five-courser, it was an easy task to take down the thin blankets of sweetness stacked neatly for my enjoyment.
My date and I lingered on the last course, not because our bellies were too full but because we knew what it meant once we exited the booth – Iron Hill’s Holiday Beer Dinner would be over. We reminded ourselves that these events unfold nearly every month and we lived only a few blocks away. Everything was going to be okay. In fact, for that time being everything was absolutely fabulous as I trekked home with my stomach full of the ultimate holiday cheer!
