Hoist a Harpoon

Saratoga Beer Week, a whole event to celebrate beer and encourage people to come out to Saratoga Springs.  I appreciate the effort, but the selection wasn’t spectacular (boy, I am becoming a snob) and I couldn’t see fighting the crowds for beer that I could get any other day of the week at any beer bar.  But Longfellows was offering a special, a beer dinner with Harpoon, that intrigued me.  And with Jenn out of town with the kids, and my beer buddy Christopher being a foodie and LOVING Harpoon, I was glad that he was interested in checking it out.

We met one of the brewers from Boston, and the new area distributor from Syracuse, and boy are they trained to sing the praises of Harpoon.  Our appetizer was homemade potato chips with horseradish dip, accompanying the Harpoon cider.  The cider is crisp but not over powering.  We got the menu for the evening, listened to more speeches, and then were brought our soup with the Harpoon Celtic ale.  The soup was a Tuscan minestrone, with shaved parmesan, a basil pesto and a pancetta crisp.  The beer is a spring favorite, and complimented the soup (my, you’re awfully tasty today) extremely well.  This was a foreshadow of things to come, the beer working real well with the food offered, it was almost like they planned it.

Next was the salad, and the salad was awesome.  They called it a Pancenella salad, made with toasted Italian bread, crisp veggies and a red wine vinaigrette.  It was delicious, and something that I would love to learn to make at home.  The beer was the UFO, Harpoon’s white beer, and probably the most mundane beer offering of the night.  No matter, it did go well with the salad and the brewer offered us a second bottle (if you paid one price, is that second beer a free beer?).  Next was our favorite Harpoon regular, the Harpoon IPA, with Duck and Mustard Green wontons in a spicy mustard sauce.  Makes sense, IPAs go great with spicy food.  We were getting stuff and we hadn’t even had the main course yet.

Harpoon has their 100 Barrel Series, and their current offering is their Black IPA, bitter and malty at the same time.  It has a bold flavor, and to go with it we had a pork shank over a beef based risotto, with mushrooms and tomatoes.  The meal was delicious, but so filling, I ended up taking most of it home for the next day lunch.  The dessert was my favorite, Lindemans framboise over a marscapone ice cream and fresh berries.  It was so sweet and savory, it was fantastic.  The Harpoon beer was from their Leviathan series (so bold that it could swallow you whole), their Barleywine and it weighed in at 10% ABV.  The Barleywine was good by itself, but it tasted so different when sipped after the dessert.  We finished our food, and got our souvenir glass, and called it an evening.  Pricier than I would have typically payed, it was still a fun evening.

I thought about going back to Saratoga on Saturday, but chose to go to my neighborhood bar (although I don’t live in that neighborhood) Mahar’s.  I was glad I did, laid back and quite, potluck dinner, and Dogfish Head World Wide Stout on tap.  We had a great weekend, and if you have the opportunity to check out a local beer fest, find an event that appeals to you and go for it.  5984/12009

“Beer will always have a definite role in the diet of an individual and can be considered a cog in the wheel of nutritional foods.” – Bruce Carlton