The lottery for the NYC Half-Marathon opened yesterday, so I logged on to the New York Road Runners’ web site to sign up. In addition to asking for my estimated finish time, I was asked if I'd be interested in the following: a beer and barbecue bash, a wine and food festival, and wine tastings. Of course I said yes to all three, and then called NYRR to find out more. Ann Crandall, NYRR's senior vice president of business development and marketing, told me, "Most people don't just run. They run and go out for a beer with friends," says Crandall. "We're looking to form partnerships with local restaurants or chefs and create food-driven post-race events." I can't think of a better reason to run.

Writer Christian DeBenedetti reported on San Diego’s craft-beer scene in F&W’s June issue. He recently returned to San Diego to attend the city’s first-ever Beer Week, with 300 events held in 40 bars, 45 restaurants and five hotels. Here, his highlights:

* At Lost Abbey’s Barrel Night, 150 guests gathered to taste 10 rare, uncarbonated ales that had been aging in oak barrels. The ales were paired with beer-friendly foods like seared pork belly on crispy brussels sprouts and mussels steamed in beer.

* Several guest brewmasters were on hand for Q&As and tastings. Colby Chandler of Ballast Point discussed why San Diego has suddenly leaped to the forefront of America’s craft-beer scene. His theory: “Ambitious home brewers in the 1980s and '90s helped spur the rise of commercial brewing in the area, which in turn has inspired a new generation of artisanal producers.”

* At 1500 Ocean, a restaurant at Coronado Island’s historic Hotel Del Coronado, chef Brian Sinnott created dishes to match distinctive local beers from Ballast Point, Lost Abbey and Coronado. Among the most successful pairings: Lost Abbey’s earthy-yet-tangy, orange-hued, 6.5-percent-alcohol, saison-style Carnevale Ale with braised chicken oysters (two small, round pieces of dark meat on the back of a bird, near the thigh) served piccata style.

Last year, I was one of a supersmall group of journalists and brewers invited to the Brewers Association’s first-ever craft-beer dinner at NYC’s Gramercy Tavern. This year's dinner was even more spectacular. Some highlights:

New Glarus Brewing is legendary for its hard-to-obtain beers. Stories circulated around the table about attempts to smuggle them across the Wisconsin/Illinois border. We had the rare chance to try their seasonal Wisconsin Cran-bic. This is exactly what I’d want to pour with my first course at Thanksgiving dinner.

Scott Vaccaro of Captain Lawrence Brewing in Pleasantville, NY, brought his intense, dark, malty, bourbon-barrel-aged Nor’Easter Winter Warmer to pair with our cheese course.

The Twelve XII from Firestone Walker Brewing in Paso Robles, California, is one of the most complex beers I’ve ever tasted. Brewmaster Matt Brynildson enlisted area winemakers to assist in the blending of component beers, some of which spent more than two years aging in a combination of retired bourbon, rye and wine barrels.

I tend to prefer pumpkin in my pie, not my beer. But Lakewood, NY’s Southern Tier Brewing Company has made an extremely drinkable pumpkin beer called Pumking that is meant to be served in a goblet to bring out all of the spicy aromas. It’s full of cinnamon and clove, yet doesn’t have any cloying sweetness, and was brilliant with poached lobster served with turnips, daikon and lobster-squash sauce.

David Katleski, founder of Empire Brewing in Syracuse, NY , surprised us with a growler of what he’s calling White Aphro, a supposedly aphrodisiacal brew made from ginger, lavender and honey. The jury is out on whether it really works.

 

Last night I attended a phenomenal craft-beer dinner at NYC’s Gramercy Tavern (more on that later in a tomorrow's post). The brewers at the table got to talking about the most exciting beer innovations and innovators around the globe. One name that got dropped was England’s Alastair Hook, the founder and brewmaster of Meantime Brewing. I  repeatedly came across this brand on my recent trip to London. Hook recently brewed a limited-edition (2,000+ bottles) Scotch ale especially for the American market; it will be available around the new year. He used a recipe he created at the request of the late beer genius Michael Jackson. A Scotch ale is a style of beer brewed at a lower temperature than an English ale and cask conditioned for six-to-eight weeks to develop a gorgeous, roasty malt flavor. Here’s where to look for Scotch Ale, and Meantime’s other great brews, in the U.S.

El Chaltén is Argentina's youngest city, placed near the Chilean border in 1985 by the government to beat its rival country to the land claim. The place still feels like a frontier town, with packs of wild dogs patrolling the streets, but in one key way it's very urban: La Cervecería. The female brewmaster here crafts two types of beer (bock and pilsner) using traditional Bohemian recipes and techniques. After hiking to nearby Laguna Torre at a grueling pace, we stopped in for celebratory brews. The bock was malty and slightly sweet—light for a bock but still a little heavy for me, post-hike—while the pilsner clearly hit the spot: light and refreshing.

I’m always game to try a funky new beer, but when Maggie Fuller of Beer Ethos called to say she’d scored a bottle of chicha from Delaware's Dogfish Head Brewery, I nearly wimped out. Chicha is a traditional South American brew made from corn. I like to refer to it as “spit beer” because before the brewing process begins, the corn must be chewed and moistened in the brewer’s mouth. The enzymes in the saliva activate the starches, which then break down into fermentable sugars. The beer is ultimately boiled, which leaves it sterile and germ-free. Dogfish Head’s renegade founder, Sam Calagione, created a super-limited amount based on a Peruvian recipe that called for purple maize, yellow maize and pink peppercorns. He also mixed in strawberries, a traditional chicha ingredient that Calgione felt was best to source locally in the U.S.

Maggie had tried real deal chicha on a trip to Peru and didn’t find our tasting at all daunting. I, on the other hand, sipped with caution. The strawberries gave the brew a lovely purplish-pink hue making it look deceptively pretty and innocent for a beer with someone’s spit in it. The nose was pure strawberries and the taste was surprisingly refreshing, dry and a bit spicy. And the flavors became more complex as the beer came to room temperature. The verict: a tasty beer, if you can get past the mental hurdle of how it's made.

 

An estimated 49,000 craft-beer lovers descended upon Denver last week for the 28th Annual Great American Beer Festival, where they had the opportunity to taste some 2,100 beers in 78 styles from 457 American breweries. Writer Christian DeBenedetti, who recently covered the craft-beer scene in San Diego for F&W, was on the scene.” Here, he shares highlights and a few interesting trends: 

“Brett” beers, named for Brettanomyces (bacteria that impart powerful, earthy flavors considered flaws in wine but boons in certain beers), are quickly gaining ground. Standouts at the festival included Odell’s Brett Barrel Brown and New Belgium’s Le Fleur Misseur. Brewers were also collaborating on pairings: Deschutes Brewery’s The Dissident, a sour Flanders brown beer, was amazing with a confit of pork with sage and macerated peaches. Perhaps most surprising was the growing popularity of sour beer styles, which are usually tricky to produce. These beers, such as Berliner weisse, Flanders red and brown ales, lambic and geuze, tend to be an acquired taste due to their acidity. Click here for a list of the festival's award-winners.

 

I'm of the belief that a scoop of vanilla ice cream is a great addition to many types of fizzy beverages-both non-alcoholic and alcoholic alike-beyond the usual (albeit delightful) root beer.

Since summer seems to have returned for an encore in New York this week, I can put down the Oktoberfest drinks and justify sipping fizzy beverages of the blueberry variety-and what goes well with blueberries? Vanilla ice cream. I recently discovered Maine Root's all-natural Blueberry Soda, which tastes just like fresh-picked berries and practically begs for a scoop of vanilla. For an adult float, top off a pint of Bluepoint Brewery's Blueberry Ale. This Long Island brewer adds 132 pounds of blueberries to every batch, giving the ale lots of berry flavor without too much sweetness.

Once summer's gone for good, I will continue my float experimentation with fall's favorite squash. Maine Root's just about to release a new soda flavor: Pumpkin Pie, which sounds like a Thanksgiving treat to me. And Dogfish Head brewery's rich, nutmeggy Punkin Ale might be a great fit for a scoop or two as well.

Yesterday I sat down in the Food & Wine tasting room with Samuel Adams founder and brewer Jim Koch to try some of his latest releases. After two years of tinkering, Koch has perfected the recipe for his new Coastal Wheat. The idea was to bottle the bright taste of a classic Hefewizen-style (meaning unfiltered wheat) beer poured on draft and finished with a squeeze of fresh lemon. He finally achieved perfection with the zest from Eureka and Lisbon lemons that come from just three growing regions in California. Koch also opened the 2009 Utopias, which should be out by the end of the month. This monster of a beer (about 55 proof) is released every odd year and is a blend of cask beers dating back to 1994. The ’09  tastes a little brighter than previous releases, with a bit more fruit and some vanilla and maple flavors. We ended the tasting with a rare bottle, the 1994 Sam Adams Triple Bock. One of the first “extreme” beers, it has 17.5 percent alcohol. “This was the beer equivalent of a lunar landing on the moon. It broke the sound barrier,” Koch says. Aged in oak barrels, it’s full of dark fruit and drinks more like a fine port than a beer. You won't find this beer in stores, but Koch says a few bottles are still floating around for people willing to search.

 

Last night, supertalented chef Bobby Hellen of NYC's Resto teamed up with Phil Leinhart, the brewmaster at Cooperstown, New York’s Ommegang brewery, for a gluttonous, nose-to-tail feast. It was the first of a series of Zagat-sponsored, craft-beer dinners taking place throughout the city this week as part of the second annual New York Craft Beer Week.

Chef Hellen broke down an entire pig and a lamb from Violet Hill Farm and turned them into delicious dishes like crispy pig’s-ear popcorn, porchetta and lamb-topped tomato salad with lamb-heart vinaigrette; to match these dishes, Leinhart poured some never-before-served brews, including a test batch of Adoration, Ommegang’s first-ever winter holiday ale. The dark, Belgian-style brew is made with five spices: coriander, sweet orange peel, grains of paradise, cardamom and mace. I was expecting bold, in-your-face spiciness, but the finish is much more subtle, and despite 10-percent alcohol levels, there was very little alcohol burn—a deceptively potent brew. The beer should be available mid-October.

To go with a plate of excellent house-made charcuterie, Leinhart poured the Ommegang Rouge, a Flemish sour-red ale he made in partnership with Belgium's Brouwerij Bockor brewery. This supertart brew, oak-aged for 18 months at Bockor’s brewery, is one of my favorites. Leinhart broke the news that it’s no longer being produced (Brouwerij Bockor no longer wants to share its yeasts strains). But Ommegang plans to replace it with a brown Flemish-style beer they’re working on with Liefmans brewery in Oudenaarde, Belgium. Leinhart hinted we can also expect many more seasonal beers from Ommegang next year.