There's a Beer in my Wine.....

...Magazine. Imagine my suprise this month, when flipping through my copy of Food and Wine Magazine I found an article on beer. Titled The Keg Vs the Cork it focuses on Chef Sang Yoon of The Father's Office in Sonoma California. Its quite a good article taken from the point of the great beer finds in this top end wine country. Chef Yoon has 36 taps in his restaurant and even has a couple in his home! To me its a very well written article accept for the prerequisite wine snobbery dig at beer lovers. This comes when talking about the fact that the sign that hangs outside of Lagunitas Brewing has been stolen four times in the past:

Typicall wine afficianados do not rip winery signs out of the ground and transport them back to their homes (or dorm rooms).

While this dig is unnecessary and cheap it shouldn't take away from an otherwise very beer friendly article. The author and Chef take a beer tour through Sonoma going to Lagunitas, Russian River, Beer Republic, and Anderson Valley. All amazing breweries. The Chef is allowed to make some really great points about how food friendly beer is. Some of my favorite quotes revolve around Chef Yoon telling his Sommelier friends to put down the Riesling and pick up on of the great beers from Sonoma. As with many people Chef Yoon grew up hating beer, because his only reference was cheap industrial swill. However while working for Joel Robochon in Paris he came upon the great Delirium Tremens and fell in love with beer. By the time he came back to the states the Craft Beer movement was getting in full swing and he found out great beer and food parings. These pairings is where the article really shines through for me. Taking some pretty complex food dishes, such as Rack Of Lamb with Arugula pest and paring it with a Belgian Dark Ale, to Sichuan Peppercorn shrimp paired with a White Ale like Allagash, he is able to show to a much wider, much more apprehensive audience the diversity of beer. Of course Chef Yoon does lose some points when he disses Texas BBQ Brisket, but that may be a small price to pay for good Beer coverage in a Wine Magazine.