Golden Road Brewing Elevates Beer-Pairing Meals

(Gerry Furth-Sides) Golden Road Brewing‘s private dining elevated seafood and fish beer-pairing feast created to highlight the talent and creativity of the company’s culinary and brewing teams even inspired an eventname, “La Vida Aquatica.”  The dining room view of the Huntington Harbor and the fresh sea air alone was worth the drive even on a nippy spring evening. (Golden Road Brewing  16390 Pacific Coast Highway, Ste. 100 Huntington Beach, CA 92649,  (562) 588-3880. //www.goldenroad.la)

Beer has been a natural pairing with informal dishes since ancient time. (My own Czech cousins, prominent medical physicians, did not have a meal minus beer, albeit Czech beer is superb). In fact, the classic fish and chips pairing that immediately comes to mind also can use a beer-based batter and beer-based vinegar. Golden Road Brewing‘s in-house Executive Chef Joe Torres‘ popular menu that includes pizza and burgers already fills the restaurant nightly. But the idea of fine dining beer-pairing meals tend to trend in cycles. 

Golden Road Brewing set out to prove that elevated beer- pairing is worth of an exclusive four-course tasting. Elegant, international fish and seafood dishes paired with specially crafted brews. Inspired, talented Executive Chef Joe Torres and Golden Road Brewing’s culinary and brewing teams did the menu. 

The welcome started with specially created Spritzinis, Golden Road Brewing‘s lively, likable take on the Italian Aperol Spritz, minus the apertif. It was one of our favorites for the evening.

First Course! Aguachile De Cameron (shrimp) of marinated shrimp served with cucumber, pickled shallots, avocado mousse, micro cilantro, radish and taro chips. The Beer Pairing that enhanced without overpowering the mild flavors of the dish: Mild Consideration, (ABV: 4.1% Style: Pale mild on nitro) described as: Balanced sweetness, light body. English biscuit & walnut malt; light floral, white pepper, woody hop aromas.

Second course! Lobster Linguine with a Mint Pesto Sauce, Butter Poached Maine Lobster dotted linguine pasta with mint pesto, ricotta cream sauce, fried garlic and micro basil. This Italian dish beer- pairing: In Bocca al Lupo (ABV: 5.4%/ Style: Italian pilsner). The flavor: crisp, clean and hoppy. Moderately bitter & dry, light body. Focaccia-like malt; floral, grassy and spicy hop aromas.

Third course: Pan Seared Scallop Risotto with a Blood Orange butter Sauce, Parmesan cheese, fire-roasted leeks, crispy pancetta and micro greens, paired with Get On Board (ABV: 6.5% Style: Hazy IPA). Flavors and notes to complement the beer’s buttery and tart ingredients: Hoppy, orange citrus punch; soft water cracker malt aromas.

Basque Cheesecake served with a memorable, unique dark chocolate fence and an extraordinary Mark’d Stout caramel sauce, that should be bottled (!), was rightfully served with a full-bodied Mark’d Stout (ABV: 6.9% Style: Golden Stout. Flavors alone in this lovable stout could describe a dessert: coffee, caramel and shortbread. The sweet, full-bodied, nutty, milky, chocolatey and coffee aromas provided a delightful surprise ending to this feast, already satisfying without being overly filling.

Executive Chef Joseph Torres came out to a standing ovation during dessert. He told us how thrilled he was to create the elevated beer-pairing feast with fish and seafood. His passion and pleasure in creating the beautiful balanced, delectable dishes was evident.

Chef is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. Constantly experimenting with new recipes to elevate the brewpub fare, Chef Joe loves bringing his Puerto Rican heritage into dishes whenever possible, such as his “Shrimp Ceviche with Tostones, his take on twice fried plantain cakes.

Golden Road‘s Huntington Harbor Brewing pub has interior viewing windows into a 7-barrel premier stainless system that can brew on average 217 gallons of beer at a time. Since it is a smaller system than other Golden Road Brewpubs, it is used to test new raw materials and recipes for company innovations.

Founder, Meg Gill, one of the few female founders in US craft brewing, opened Golden Road Brewing in 2011. Created as a community craft brewery dedicated to always giving back to its Southern California birthplace, the company has taken inspiration from the 400 different neighborhoods and 224 different languages spoken by the four million people in hometown Los Angeles.

Golden Road Brewing  16390 Pacific Coast Highway, Ste. 100 Huntington Beach, CA 92649,  (562) 588-3880. For more information and other locations in Anaheim, Atwater Village, and Downtown Los Angeles , please check //www.goldenroad.la