On Tuesday, March 23rd, Dressel’s Public House will be hosting a very special collaborative beer dinner which will feature beers from O’Fallon Brewery and Left Hand Brewery.   Beginning at 7PM, this six course meal will be paired with six different beers from O’Fallon and Left Hand.

The cost of this meal will be $40 per person (tax and gratuity not included) and reservations will be required.  You can make reservations by calling 314-361-1060.

Aperitif
Pate de Lapin
Paired With Left Hand Juju Ginger

1st Course
Rabbit Confit Pappardelle With Proscuitto, Fava Beans & Herb Butter Sauce
Served With Left Hand Polestar Pilsner

2nd Course
Duck Bresaola Salad With Arugula, Mizuna, Shaved Gouda and Walnut Vinagrette
Paired With Left Hand Sawtooth Amber Ale

3rd Course
Leg of Venison With Pancetta & Orange On Butternut-Spinach Hash
Served With O’Fallon Cherry Chocolate Ale

4th Course
Smoked Rack of Rabbit & Pork Belly On a Bed of Boxty Potatoes
Paired With O’Fallon Smoked Porter

Dessert
Left Hand Imperial Stout Float With Chocolate Ice Cream, Stilton Blue, Toasted Pecans and Honey

If you weren’t able to attend the kick-off for O’Fallon Brewery‘s newest year-round release, Hemp Hop Rye, here’s a list of places you may be able to find it around town.  Please note that these are all places that have ordered kegs of Hemp Hop Rye, they may not have them on tap yet.  Call to verify they’re currently being served:

• The Shanti
• Riddle’s Penultimate Caf & Wine Bar
• Dressel’s Pub (CWE)
• Cicero’s
• Hammerstone’s 9th & Russell (Soulard)
• Llywelyn’s Soulard
• Iron Barley (Cask!!!–Only 2 Firkins of it–dry-hopped with Amarillo!!!)

If you made it out to the Duff’s Autumn Beer Dinner in November 2007 or a couple of events when she last visited in 2009, then you had a chance to meet New Belgium Brewer Lauren Salazar.

Well if you didn’t have a chance to meet her, she’s coming back into town this week to kick off the New Belgium’s newest year-round selection, the Ranger IPA.  Here’s a list of events she’ll be attending this week:

Tuesday, Feb. 9th

• STL Hops/New Belgium Party at Mattingly Brewing Co.

Wednesday, Feb. 10th

• Pi Restaurant (Delmar) Ranger IPA/Lips of Faith Tasting with Lauren Salazar 7-8:30 pm
• Ranger IPA/Lips of Faith Tasting at Dressel’s Pub with Lauren Salazar 9-11 pm

Thursday, Feb. 11th

• Ranger IPA/Lips of Faith Tasting at The Stable with Lauren Salazar 6-8 pm
• Ranger IPA/Lips of Faith Tasting at The Bridge 9-11 pm

Lauren is a great brewer and provides plenty of information about New Belgium beers, so make the time to go out and visit one of these events. Here’s Lauren’s bio from NB:

Lauren Salazar, New Belgium Brewing Company

Lauren is the Sensory Specialist and a Quality team member at New Belgium Brewing Company, where she has been employed for over eleven years and sensory-focused for over ten. She developed the sensory program from a basic production check to its present program and is responsible for all facets from design to implementation to re-engineering. Other areas of interest and fun at the brewery include brewery-wide flavor training, new product development, small/esoteric beer production and wood barrel project blender. Lauren is a judge at the World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival, has presented and taught short courses for the CBC, WBC, AHA, ASBC, MBAA and many others.

Salazar received her BSW from the University of Georgia a lifetime ago and holds a Certificate from UC Davis for Applied Sensory Science and Consumer Testing.

A few weeks ago I had to travel to Champaign, IL for business. I’m not a huge fan of traveling for business, but I can usually make the best of it by finding some of the interesting beer stuff in other cities. While in Champaign I made sure to stop and try The Blind Pig as it was rated as one of the top 50 beer bars in the world by RateBeer in 2007. I was not let down. One of the first things I spied was New Holland Existential Hopwine on cask, which got me to wondering, “when do we see a bar in St. Louis that has a rotating cask selection?”

Don’t get me wrong, the addition of Dressel’s Pub to the cask beer scene is extremely welcome and I’d almost kick over my own brother to get a pint of cask 5 Day, but maybe I’m getting a bit greedy. I’d love to see a bar in St. Louis that not only serves cask beer, but serves a rotating selection of it. Now, I realize that this dream may not be as easy to attain as I’d like, because I’m sure there are plenty of logistical challenges. But a man can dream, can’t he?

Maybe the guys at CAMRA have finally gotten to me and programed my brain in my sleep to really believe it, but I’m pretty obsessed with cask beer. The slightly warm, slightly flat that always brings more than a slight smile to my face. One of the problems with cask is that it’s pretty hard to find in St. Louis. For the longest time it was basically available at either the Tap Room or Iron Barley (and from what I gathered Square One on rare occasions.) But now it looks like we have another location for “true” ale:

Dave Johnson from O’Fallon Brewery emailed me to let me know that cask 5-Day IPA is now available at Dressel’s Pub. Cask beer at a Welsh pub? Sounds like a winning combination to me.