Home brew at Blue Velvet

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Brew pubs have been around since the ‘80s, and the idea of pairing food with beer instead of wine has been nudging its way into the mainstream. The stylish downtown/Westlake restaurant Blue Velvet is just taking these concepts to their logical conclusion: brewing its own beers designed for its seasonal menus. Last night it trotted out the three beers of its first batch for a six-course tasting menu.

Three beers, six courses? Yes, they had to stretch out their own brews with a couple of other beers, all either wheat beers or Belgian ales, since this was a wheat/Belgian-oriented menu. And this is a wheat/Belgian-oriented beer age, come to think of it.

After an aperitif English bitter ale (quite bitter, in the West Coast style, almost an IPA), they produced seared scallops in a sauce subtly flavored with the herbal tea chamomile (a surprisingly nice flavor combination) paired with their saison, a Belgian farmhouse-style ale. The saison had a tangy note of wild yeast that stood up to the bits of grapefruit on the plate. And it was flavored with chamomile too; cool idea.

The third beer was a Christmas ale dosed with cherries and juniper as well as the conventional nutmeg and cloves. It made a very convincing foil for a course of rich seared foie gras (accompanied by toasted barley, almonds and dried fruit-lime marmalade; Blue Velvet does like to put little unexpected tastes on the plate).

Altogether, very good for a maiden effort (and a small one; they’d made only 5 gallons of each beer). Who knows what they’ll brew next?

-- Charles Perry