Does you bird deserve beer this Thanksgiving? How about the pie??

A common misconception is wine is the beverage for Thanksgiving, yet beer pairs better than you might expect with the classic dishes served on the fourth Thursday of November. Here are my picks for fish, fowl & meats, and what others suggest for dessert.

Smoked Salmon: a sprucey & hoppy ale like Saint Rogue Red or a maltier American Amber melds nicely with smoked salmon, capers, eggs yokes, cream cheese and thinly sliced onion. The carbonation helps lift the fattiness of the fish off your palette with each sip.
If you go whole hog and serve California Caviar, try Morimoto Soba Ale with the Hacklebeck Sturgeon.

Turkey: Rogue Juniper Pale Ale or the new JohnJohn Juniper Pale (aged in the Rogue Spirits Sprue Gin casks) pairs with any bird and sides like garlic mashed potatoes, green bean and French's onion rings, baked yams smothered in butter, or a tossed green salad with blue cheese dressing. To brine or not to brine? Here is a recipe.

Pork or Beef: Rogue Hazelnut Brown Ale or the JohnJohn Hazelnut Brown (aged in the Rogue Spirits Hazelnut Rum barrels). Any dish with roasted vegetable (mushrooms, asparagus, beets, chestnuts) pairs beautifully with this beer, as do most cheeses (from chevres to blues to cheddars) and gravy.

Desserts: On CraftBeer.com, Randy Mosher suggests a piece of pecan pie served with a glass of Rogue Chocolate Stout. Icing on this pie would be beer ice cream or gelato, made with the Chocolate Stout (Yo Capogiro!). Here is a recipe easy to adapt for home and using Rogue... The Miami Herald also recommends Rogue Chocolate Stout with your dessert... I love Fred Tasker's headline, Try beer, not wine, for Thanksgiving!

Just save room for dessert ;) Prost!

Craft Beer and Women -- a panel at the Beer Bloggers Conference

I'm preparing for the BeerBloggers Conference in Boulder next weekend and the panel Craft Beer and Women: As Consumers, Industry Members, and Blog Readers. The audience is a mix of traditional and online press, brewery and allied industry who blog about beer.

In preparation for the panel I need to compile a list of 10 Things To Do, and 10 Things Not To Do to attract the attention of the woman beer drinker. These are generalizations, and I have 2/3 of my list written and hit a wall. Here is a start:

10 Top - To do

1. use photos, visuals, include beer & food pairings. use appropriate size for media (web, print, etc.)
2. include recipes, details about how to make it at home / by the reader with short videos or photos.
   
3. keep an open mind, ask for comments, share the responses.
   
4. ask the experts, use local and industry resources.
5. make it portable... easy to share with others and view on various platforms online:
   smart phone, iphone, ipad, and oldschool 80386 pcs running dos 3.1... and dialup.
6. cite your sources, acknowledge and link then

--

10 Top - Not to Do

1. Assume there is only 1 opinion, yours.
2. Language and tone -- Keep it fresh, not dirty. Don't talk down, or generalize.
3. Not cite references.
4. Hide behind an alais. Keep your ID hidden or hard to find.
5. Post long-winded videos with rambling narratives and no thought about location, content, etc.
   
6. Allow pop up ads, use flash and more flash, more pop up ads.

Anyone? (ha, , I can say that, being a Buhler). Send me 3 ideas how to engage and communicate with women about craft beer (or what not to do!) and read about it online next weekend!

In the meantime, I'll reread Ashley's post, "Don't Support the Objectification of Women: Drink Craft Beer" on 10-12-2010 and the comments, and stroll down memory lane and revisit my post about Women Drinking Beer, which may jump start my Halloween candy sugar coated brain.