Beer and Food Pairing Gains Popularity! - March 2005
For those of you who missed it, the fifth largest brewing company in the world was officially brought to life last month through the finalization of the months-long merger between Coors Brewing of the United States and Canada's Molson. As I have commented previously in World of Beer when such mega-brewery marriages have taken place, ho hum.
Despite the frenzy of media attention that surrounded its announcement -- at one point I was fielding up to five or six calls per week from newspapers and television and radio programs anxious to interview a Canadian "industry expert" -- I fail to see what effect this merger will have on beer drinkers in general, much less aficionados of flavourful beer in particular. Maybe Molson Canadian will make a big foray into the U.S. market? Oh, sorry, they already did that.. Well, then perhaps Molson will start brewing Coors Light in Canada under licence? Oh ya, that's already happened, too. So maybe Killian's will come to Canada and Export will be exported States-side? Whoopee!
No, I can't get too worked up about this deal, no matter how hard I try. Of much greater interest, I think, is something much less likely to have come to your attention last month. It involved yours truly, beer, food and several of the biggest licensed restaurant chains in the United States.
The setting was the Cheers Beverage Conference in Irvine, California, an event to which I had been invited in order to present a seminar on pairing food and beer in a restaurant setting. (Okay, the official title was "Driving Food Sales with Beer, and Vice Versa," but if you're going to communicate with the big boys, you've got to speak their language.) More specifically, I presented the same hour-long seminar twice, first to a group numbering pretty close to 70 or 80, and then to a different crew slightly smaller in size.
But even though I was told that the number of attendees was high for a typical conference seminar, what caught my attention was less how many people where there than how rapt they were. Now, remember, these were the beverage managers and assorted execs from some of the big hotel and restaurant chains, and they were as attentive an audience as I've ever experienced. And afterwards, I was held at the side of the stage answering questions until almost the start of the next seminar.
What this says to me is not only that good beer has now gone mainstream, but that in even the most commercial operations in the United States, the twin ideas of presenting an array of beers of character and offering complementary menu choices for them has won sufficient capital to merit serious consideration at the highest levels. In other words, the fringes aren't so fringe anymore, and the idea of a beer dinner being presented in your local chain restaurant isn't quite as far fetched as it once was.
Who knows? Maybe some day soon Tom Peters and Fergie Carey of Philadelphia's Monk's Café will be asked to take over the restaurant operations of the Hilton Hotel chain? Perhaps T.G.I.Friday's will take on Peter LaFrance, author of 'Cooking and Eating with Beer,' as their full-time menu consultant? Maybe beerbistro will be franchised?!
Or perhaps, just perhaps it will become a whole lot easier to find a flavourful ale or lager in America, no matter where you are.
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