Have to agree there. I pretty much always default to a wine when I'm out for a meal. I do really like my wine, especially a good red but sometimes I want to match beer with my food. Problem is when you look at the beer list it's pretty much always Monteiths, Steiny, Heiny or the token 'import' Tiger or Kingfisher. It gets boring after a while.
I am a little surprised given the quality of restaurants we have that more chef's don't push a beer match with their meals. Surely chefs must pay a thought to what they want their clientèle to drink with their food? It can only enhance the customer experience at the end of the day which is a lot of what dining out is about. The experience.
I give the ups to Logan Brown. Kicked arse over a certain other restaraunt with a chef at Beervana who doesn't have a beer list AT ALL and suggested it was because the Biman was "hard to source". Whatever...
What the hell is he doing presenting then? That really sucks. And here last year, I was the one saying it wasn't going to be all talk, and I was sure he'd go through with it. Boy do I feel stupid. :(
It all seemed to be available when Neil Miller and I were working out the beer & food matches with Martin the other week. I recon he even got some new ideas of other beers he is keen to add to his list.
I went there on 5 July. There was no beer list, no beer on offer and we had the degustation menu and there were no beers included on it. When we asked about the beer, we were told that the Biman was "hard to source". I tell no lies, just my experience.
I have a meeting with a certain notable Wellington restaurateur next week with the goal of putting together a really smart beerlist. This is a guy who has been in the industry a long time and has identified that having a good beer list will be a real point of difference.
Last time I dined at Logan Brown the beer list was pretty decent but they did misspell Emerson's (Emmersons) all the way through the beer list.
Convincing restaurateurs that quality beer is worth paying for often seems a bigger hurdle than convincing the consumer. Armageddon, and Renaissance M.P.A. fly off the shelves at Regional and yet restaurant buyers seem convinced that $8 should be the celling price point for beer at the table.