Beef and beer is the grown-up version of milk and cookies. No nuance, the beef and beer approach is all about big flavors, good beer and approachable food. When Sullivan’s Steak House gets involved, the beef gets the automatic first-class upgrade. Fold in the brainpower behind Evil Genius Beer Company, and the event becomes brag worthy. Under the guidance of Sullivan’s newly minted Exec Chef Caleb Cass, the March 13 beer dinner at the King of Prussia location married serious craft beer with Cass’s culinary prowess.
Kicking off the night, Evil Genius paired a hoppy, gentle Evil Eye PA with Cajun Boudin Balls. The traditional New Orleans pork sausage and rice combination was fried and hit with creole mustard laced with the IPA to endear the dish to the beer.
Next up, Stacy’s Mom. Who’s Stacy’s mom? She lends her name to the Stacy’s Mom Citra India Pale Ale paired with pears poached in the hoppy bath. Cass added candied pecans, a very subtle local goat cheese and field greens to round out the second course. Trevor Hayward, owner of Evil Genius, said of the Citra, “It’s a proprietary hop, with notes of citrus” that married well with the purposely under-sweet pear.
Bread and butter was trumped by beer and cheese as the essential pairing in the comfort food world. Chef Cass married Hop King Imperial India Pale Ale with aged Wisconsin cheddar in a bowl of soup made even more memorable by spiking the golden elixir with a spicy, ancho chile crouton. The genius behind the evil worked, as the soup’s velvet opulence tamed the beer’s punch.
The evening’s main act came in the form of a New York strip made gasp-worthy with an expertly executed bordelaise sauce. The classic sauce got the Evil Genius twist with the addition of I’ll Have What She’s Having Chocolate Hazelnut Imperial Stout. And it worked. Very well. Bordelaise is a rich, marrow-enriched sauce, spiked with shallots and plenty of butter. The added layer of a heavier stout took the dish to a very different place in the culinary stratosphere.
Capping the dinner, a butterscotch blondie closed the evening. Served with Purple Monkey Dishwasher Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter, the beer came into near focus as the focus of the course. Big, amply chocolate and rich, Purple Monkey is not a simple beer. As complex as its name, this Evil Genius species is a course all its own.
Hayward let slip that Evil Genius is “opening a place all our own in Fishtown” in the near future. And Chef Cass is in King of Prussia. Lucky Fishtown and lucky King of Prussia.
Find Sullivan’s Steakhouse at 700 Dekalb Pike, King of Prussia; phone: (610) 878-9025. Dinner, Monday 5–10 p.m.; Tuesday–Friday 5–11:00 p.m.; Saturday 4–11 p.m.; Sunday 4–10 p.m.; Lunch, Monday–Friday 11:30 a.m.–4 p.m.
Photo credits: Jim Berman
