Soured Beers and Savoured Tastes: January 2014 Beer Dinner at The Crest

As I continue to settle into living in Columbus, one of my more consistent weekly routines is participating in Excesss Trivia every Monday night (beginning around 8.45pm) at The Crest Gastropub. In addition to four rounds of fast-paced and often-intense Jeopardy-style friendly competition on topics from football coaches to kitchen tools and indie bands to African geography (perhaps you can guess which side of the spectrum my strengths are in), The Crest offers $4 Ohio drafts, $5 Ohio liquors, and half-off selected appetizers (the sliders are an especially great deal). I share this info not only as a plug for The Crest's weekly specials, but as a contextual opportunity to say it was during a previous Trivia Night that Brittany, who I first met when she waited on our anthropology department's happy hour back in September (and have since seen nearly every week along with the rest of The Crest's friendly staff on Mondays), told me about a then-upcoming beer dinner. Just as had been the case with previous beer dinners, such as the one I attended last August, drink pairer Braden worked with executive chef Dustin to create another enjoyable and mouthwatering menu inspired by an eclectic range of flavour profiles. This time around, they worked with the folks of Dexter's (Michigan) Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales; and as I'm guessing Brianne can attest, I had many a food moment throughout the evening.

August Beer Dinner at The Crest Gastropub

Barely a connoisseur of wine, I was both intrigued by--and eager to learn from--the proposition of a beer dinner. The dinner, my notes from which I'd like to share below, was prepared at the transparent and philosophically- and intellectually-charged Clintonville staple The Crest Gastropub. Rooted and inspired by the triple bottom line of sustainability ("environmental, economic, social," also defined as "people, planet, profit", [2]), which I also included in my initial review of The Crest, the entire team continues to gradually teach the general public about this approach to cooking, eating, and business management, without complicating the menu or throwing it in their faces. This third beer dinner, paired with beers brewed locally by Seventh Son Brewing Co., was another perfect example of how we can all do our best as we strive for the sustainable, and certainly tasty, ideal.