The Backyard Grill

A friend of mine and I attended one of The Backyard Grill's special events this past week--the craft beer dinner.  It was a really good time with some great food and beer pairings.  Here's the kind of thing you can expect if you sign up for one of these:

Note from the start: All the courses are appetizer size, and the beer is about 1/4 of a glass per sample.  But I would say it is good value for the money.  It was hosted by James Simpson from What's On Tap Radio, and he made it fun with a lot of energy and interesting trivia.

We started off with a sample from a test batch of hazy IPA from a local brewer.  Hazy IPA has some depth compared to the regular stuff, which I'm not that fond of.  More later on hazy IPA.  This was paired with a Yuengling ale that included corn in the brew

The first course was a Fred Dog, a hot dog wrapped in bacon and deep fat fried, with coleslaw. This made for great flavor and texture.  It came with pretzel fries--a large pretzel cut into french-fry like slices and baked hard, with a beer cheese dipping sauce.  Crunchy and delicious.

The second course was a pork belly slider speared with a melon ball toothpick.  It was pretty much an extra-fatty BLT, which was quite fine by me--ate it all and loved it.  They paired it with a Southern Pecan brown ale because they couldn't get hold of their preferred one, but it was all good.

The third course was the hit of the evening--Korean BBQ ribs with house-made potato chips.  The ribs were amazing--a very complex, somewhat sharp sauce on falling-off-the-bone tender pork ribs.  They absolutely have to put these on the menu.  Everyone agreed that this was the best item they served.  They paired this with a smoked scotch ale, Smoke on the Bayou.

Next up was a deep-fried cheeseburger.  It was a tasty bite.  Deep frying is interesting but I'm not sure that added much.  Simpson spent some time talking about the pairing on this one.  It was paired with Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA, because the hoppiness cuts through the grease.  They did work together well.

We finished with a kind of deconstructed fruit compote with cookie crumbs.  Nice, not all that special.  But it was paired with Abita Purple Haze IPA, another hazy IPA that really worked well.  I might actually buy an IPA if it's a hazy one.

My Yelp Review