Advent Calendar Day 1: Boulevard Beer dinner!

It is December 1st and that means Christmas carols and decorations, snow, family and loved ones, snow, and of course beer. Being raised as I was in a Catholic family, we were well versed in the advent season. We would light the candles in anticipation of the season. With each candle we knew that Christmas was drawing near.

I don't know if you have noticed or not but I may have a thing for good beer. When I heard about a beer Advent calendar, I knew I had to do it! I am going to share with you at least one beer a day for the rest of December up until Christmas.

I do like to go big so my first iteration of this year's Advent calendar is actually a beer dinner!

Boulevard teamed up with a local BBQ place called Summit Hickory Pit put on a four course meal, with each course paired with a beer. The dinner was local and it wasn't expensive like some many beer dinners can be! Also beer and BBQ go so well together that you couldn't go wrong.

We were started off with my go to beer. Tank 7 is a beer that I can drink anytime and is my "go-to" beer. Tank 7 is light and crisp. I think Tank 7 is the benchmark for good beer. The beer was paired with some amazing sausage and smokey delicious BBQ baked beans.

The second course was a couple meaty ribs paired with Boulevards new Backroads series Last Splash. A wet hopped IPA that had a nice malt characteristic. It went really well with the juicy ribs. Wet hopping by the way is the technique of putting fresh picked hops into a brew within hours of being picked, in this case less than 36 hours.

The third course was amazing. The servers bring out huge plates with a mound of brisket, next to a pile of rice, broccoli, and cheesy roll. When I say mound of brisket, I am not saying a few slices of brisket. I am talking about each plate had two chunks of brisket, each chunk weighing 5 or 6 ounces! This lovely dish was pair very nicely with a Double-wide IPA. The hop and malt balance of the beer really brought out the flavors of char and smoke.

 The final course for the dinner was a delicious apple crisp bread pudding thing with ice cream. The dessert was paired with Sixth Glass, a Quadrupel Ale which is a Belgian style dark ale. This beer really brought out the succulent flavors of the apple. It also made me want to go home and get out some Bourbon Barrel Quad which Sixth glass is the base of.

Overall I really enjoyed myself and had great company. Some beer dinners leave you wanting to go to McDonald's because there wasn't enough food. This one I felt like I had gotten up from Thanksgiving dinner again! I got to eat some really good food with some great beers. The people at Boulevard really have a passion to share quality beer.

I feel this is a great start to the Advent season and will start us down a path of sharing and good times which is what the holiday season is all about! 1 down... 23 to go!

Beer descriptions by @Jeremy_Danner have included dissecting a frog n high school & a social movement to have uniquely identifying ringtones
— Alex Workman (@scoutingthetaps) December 2, 2014