Beer help please

Some friends of mine just opened a restaurant. I am kind of a wine geek, but my knowledge of beer is a bit more limited. I know enough to be able to tell that there was very little that looked exciting in the 9 or so beers on their list. I offered to help them select 5 more beers that would appeal to beer lovers. I would greatly appreciate any input on things that the beer drinking community would find exciting. Thanks in advance for your help.

something with mad hops might have appeal, like Dogfish Head 60-minute or 90-minute IPA or Lagunitas Censored.

I really enjoy Capital Brewery's beers, and they're local ... -ish.

Delerium Tremens and Fat Tire are super sweet, but seem to be popular ones to sell.

Pizza DOC has a Julius Echter hefeweissen beer which I think is real good.

Trumer makes a good pilsner.


Those are all beers I love to see on a tap.

deesher wrote:Some friends of mine just opened a restaurant. I am kind of a wine geek, but my knowledge of beer is a bit more limited. I know enough to be able to tell that there was very little that looked exciting in the 9 or so beers on their list. I offered to help them select 5 more beers that would appeal to beer lovers. I would greatly appreciate any input on things that the beer drinking community would find exciting. Thanks in advance for your help.

I think what's most exciting to beer drinkers (at least ones like me) is seasonal variety. I like places like Kuma's that aren't so concerned about having a ton of beers, but having a small number of carefully selected taps.

Having a seasonal tap from local or nearby breweries like Three Floyd's (if available), Two Brothers, or Bell's would keep plenty of people happy. Further afield, I've never been disappointed by a beer from Lagunitas and I'm currently enjoying a couple of the New Belgium beers that are now available (especially "2 Below").

These breweries are common enough that they shouldn't be too hard to keep around, but not so common that they're constant and boring.

But again, the key is seasonality. There's nothing I hate more than a predictable set of taps at the bar, when I know exactly what beers they'll have before I walk in the door.

Best,
Michael

Unfortunately, the restaurant has no basement and very little space and is not able to offer beer on tap. I need to keep it to bottles. Thanks for your replies thus far. Doug.

deesher wrote:Unfortunately, the restaurant has no basement and very little space and is not able to offer beer on tap. I need to keep it to bottles. Thanks for your replies thus far. Doug.

Regardless, my advice stands (just disregard the word "tap"). It should be even easier to get a hold of cases of bottles of seasonal craft beers.

Best,
Michael

What type of food do they serve, and what is the character of the restaurant?

I would classify the food as American Comfort food. There's meatloaf, pot pie, steak and fries, fish and chips, sliders (and a lot more). The menu could accommodate a very wide range of flavors. Hope that helps.

One thing I would recommend is going to www.beeradvocate.com to see there section on suggestions for beer-food pairings. I would also check out Garrett Oliver's A Brewmaster's Table- good source book on different styles and how they pair with different foods.

I would also second EatChicago's suggestions around local, seasonal selections. I will take a dozen well-selected craft beers over a huge list with no forethought. Definitely look to Two Brothers, Goose Island, Three Floyds, New Holland and Great Lakes for good "local" craft selections. You should also make sure the servers think about beer the same way they think about wine - knowing what flavors match well, being able to translate what a customer says he/she likes or dislikes into a beer selection, etc.

Finally, I would have a couple different saisons available. Saison DuPont is the one you most commonly see, but Fantome is excellent and would make any beer person giddy. Saison as a style is the most adaptable to different flavors. It works with pretty much anything.

schenked wrote:
Finally, I would have a couple different saisons available. Saison DuPont is the one you most commonly see, but Fantome is excellent and would make any beer person giddy. Saison as a style is the most adaptable to different flavors. It works with pretty much anything.

I would definitely second a Saison, as Schenked says it pretty much does go with anything. Otherwise I think other posts have pretty much had the right idea. If stuck to 5 or 6 bottles. I would keep one IPA at all times, a Saison, an Amber as it has a broader appeal, and a porter or stout to complement some of those savory meat dishes very nicely. I would dedicate another couple to rotating seasonals/one off beers to offer some higher abv and more unique beers.

It's really amazing how many great beers there are out there these days to choose from!

This is a really complex question because it all depends on the restaurant. I will say that every restaurant that I've ended up assisting on a beer or cocktail list has ultimately chosen to put some form of budweiser, pbr, or miller beer on their menu as it's a massive profit center, and frankly that's what a lot of people want.

Some beers that I think are overused in the Chicago area: Goose Island 312 and Honkers, all the lagunitas beers, fat tire, I can go on.

Some beers that I tend to really like when eating comfort style food and that my friends tend to drink: Abita Amber (not a microbrew, but strangely not as readily available as I would have thought), Stone Arrogant Bastard (though I'm not sure if it's distributed out here), DeKonick Blonde, Rogue's John's Lockerstock, and Allagash. I've got more but those are the ones that come to mind immediately. Are these so rare that you can't find them? Not really. Are they really great beers that a lot of beer geeks tend to like a lot? Certainly. Most importantly, are they good profit centers? Absolutely.

jpschust wrote:This is a really complex question because it all depends on the restaurant. I will say that every restaurant that I've ended up assisting on a beer or cocktail list has ultimately chosen to put some form of budweiser, pbr, or miller beer on their menu as it's a massive profit center, and frankly that's what a lot of people want.

Some beers that I think are overused in the Chicago area: Goose Island 312 and Honkers, all the lagunitas beers, fat tire, I can go on.

Some beers that I tend to really like when eating comfort style food and that my friends tend to drink: Abita Amber (not a microbrew, but strangely not as readily available as I would have thought), Stone Arrogant Bastard (though I'm not sure if it's distributed out here), DeKonick Blonde, Rogue's John's Lockerstock, and Allagash. I've got more but those are the ones that come to mind immediately. Are these so rare that you can't find them? Not really. Are they really great beers that a lot of beer geeks tend to like a lot? Certainly. Most importantly, are they good profit centers? Absolutely.

Stone unfortunately is not distributed in Illinois, though readily available in Indiana.

There is a brewery in Black River Falls, WI called Sand Creek that makes a very nice series of brews. They are nothing over the top (the IPA is a judicious 60 IBU's), just fine examples of their respective styles. I really like their ESB (I think they call it English Style Ale). The oatmeal stout is tasty also, and they make a good old Wisconsin style lager. Although their beer is available in Chicago, I don't think it is widely available in bars or restaurants, so there is the "I've never tried one of those" appeal. The labeling and branding is very attractive in a prairie school / upper midwest / northwoods way. It may go well with the American comfort food theme.

http://www.sandcreekbrewing.com/beers.php

BTW they also make a "hard lemonade" malt beverage and root beer.

Being an old-school beer veteran (home brewer since '88 and I've working at four brewery/restaurants) I think that all these suggestions are great, and that it's just good to have a variety to please most palates and match much of the menu. Therefore, look around (Beer Advocate is great) and find different styles that are fresh and/or seasonal. You've got pilsners, pale ales, bocks, brown ales, porters & stouts, wheat beers of all sorts, Belgian styles, barley wines, rauch biers, etc etc.

And most importantly, listen to the customers' feedback. If they say "hey, why don't you have a wheat beer?" then your friends can ask back "which do you like?"

A little variety goes a long way. Not sure what's available in Chicago, but here are some recs.

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Franziskaner Hefeweizen
2 Below. New Belgium's winter seasonal.
Fuller's ESB
Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale

Andy's Better Brother wrote:Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale

Unfortunately we can't get any of the Deschutes products in Chicago, but I highly recommend this beer (along with the brewery's other creations) to anyone who is somewhere it is available. The brewery in Bend Oregon is also worth a visit if you are in the area.

http://www.deschutesbrewery.com/BrewPub/OnTap