“Tell the story about your dad fermenting Scuppernong in the garage!” someone yells from a distant dining table.
Last night was the first night of our Into the Wild tour in Austin, Texas, with New Belgium Brewing, where we explore the ever-growing versatility of sour beers. Night one brought us to The Brewer’s Table, a small restaurant and brewery housed in a 70-year old decommissioned Quonset hut. The night featured a five-course meal, and each course was accompanied by two beers—one from New Belgium, and one from The Brewer’s Table.
“This is a professional dream come true,” says Brewer’s Table founder Jake Maddux. Maddux worked with Anchor Brewing in San Francisco and briefly as a packaging assistant inside New Belgium before moving to Austin and opening The Brewer’s Table. “I got a back way in,” he says, describing how he went through a temp labor agency to land a position, which were hard to come by through conventional means. “They’d get 300 applications for every job there. They’re all dream jobs.”
Every course was designed by Jason White, an ex-Noma fermentation expert who connected with Maddux serendipitously through social media, having both grown up in Texas and finding a common bond. He’s been working with the team at The Brewer’s Table to reinvent and expand their menu and find ways to weave fermentation into their offerings for something of a re-launch of the restaurant side of the operation.
The first course started light—melon with lardo, hoja santa (a Mexican herb whose flavor is notoriously difficult to compare but has been likened to root beer and licorice), and koji oil, which was made by inoculating rice. As Maddux introduced the dish, he discussed fermentation through the lens of sustainability—preparation requires passive labor, and waste is minimal. He goes further on the idea of sustainability than most, finding multiple uses for ingredients, thinking about how to tie his food with beer and vice versa. “It’s closing the loop.”
As Maddux introduced the dishes, servers placed two beers in front of guests. The first, brewed in-house, was a cucumber lager called Pepino Please. Next to it was the exact opposite—La Folie from New Belgium, a cherry-like, savory sour beer that still sets the bar for maybe American brewers and drinkers.
Throughout the night, Maddux traded the microphone with Lauren Limbach, New Belgium’s wood cellar director and blender. Depending on who you are, the first line she opens with could either be read as ominous or exciting and promising: “Folks, this is going to be a weird experience.” As folks laughed, she exclaimed, “get weird—we’re in Austin!”
The double beer pairings traded off between contrast and compliment. With such a delicate dish like the second course, a shiso leaf taco with fermented peaches and Hamachi, light, refreshing beers like The Brewer’s Table Peach Amazake Lager brought out the freshness of the fish and the sweetness of the stone fruit. On the other hand, New Belgium’s, Gooseberry Sour called L’amour en Cage, let the fermented peaches shine, and created a stunning contrast between the fermented ingredients and the fresh.
Along with encouraging folks to open their senses via food, DJ Jazz Cabbage (who is also a carpenter and designed many of the tables, including the eponymous Brewer’s Table that sits on the second floor) created sounds for each course, and a projector screened video sequences of fermentation on the walls.
As Limbach introduced La Folie—a sour brown ale she describes as embodying a “foolish financial endeavor”—she also encouraged folks to talk with their friends. “Talking is part of the sensory experience,” she says. So towards the end, it’s no wonder that the crowd loosens up, walking between tables and finding old friends in the crowd. For the folks that know Limbach, they’re eager to hear certain stories, including the one about her grandfather in the garage—and you’ll have to listen to our upcoming podcast to hear it. It involves old Baptist men in a garage, how she learned to lie in the face of indisputable evidence, and Southern Vine, a new sumac and Scuppernong grape must sour beer, inspired by her childhood in North Carolina.
If you’re antsy for stories and tales told over beer, you can listen to our recap of the last Into the Wild event we hosted in the Bay Area. If you missed us at The Brewer’s Table dinner, you can catch us at the Sour Beer Dance Party tonight, hosted by Brew & Brew. We’ll also be at the Draft House Friday night for a Food Truck dinner, but that’s sold out!
Words and photos by GBH in collaboration with New Belgium