Three Floyds. Paul Kahan.
Both names inspire a certain level of frenzy and excitement in beer geeks and foodies, respectively. When Three Floyds and Paul Kahan get together, you can imagine what might happen.
Actually, though, you don’t have to imagine.
You just have to check this out and observe the kinds of special barrel-aged beer they’ve collaborated on (they being the Floyds team and all of One Off Hospitality) that will be pouring at a special beer dinner at The Publican on Feb. 17th.
Each restaurant associated with One Off created a barrel-aged Three Floyds beer and will be pairing it with cuisine created by the chef of each restaurant. The folks who helm the kitchens of some of the city’s best restaurants — avec, Blackbird, Publican and Big Star — are all coming together for one night of barrel-aged beer paired insanity.
Pretty awesome sounding, huh?
In the works since October of 2012, these beers include:
· avec- Saison with bitter orange peel aged in an Evan Williams Single barrel
· Paul Kahan- Saison with harvested spruce tips aged in a chardonnay barrel with brett
· Blackbird – Zombie Dust (pale ale) with chamomile and sumac in a Four Roses barrel
· The Publican – Robert The Bruce (Scotch ale) blended with a little bit of The Publican Lambic, with plums in a Templeton Rye barrel
· Big Star – Alpha King (hoppy pale ale) in an Elijah Craig barrel with vanilla beans, cherries and kola nuts
It’s kinda like a crazy-exclusive one-brewery FoBAB with some awesome food to match. This event is the kickoff of the Floyds & Friends events around Chicago, with a number of special beer releases to follow.
When we talked to then-beer-director Michael McAvena (who recently departed to work with Virtue Cider), he told us this:
About a year ago now, some of the guys from Big Star went down to Louisville to select some bourbon barrels, and they took Lincoln Anderson, who was the Three Floyds rep at the time.
And they were hanging out and they said “Hey, we should do a One Off Hospitality project.” And Lincoln was like, “totally.”
So we made the decision that every restaurant would take it, blend it, spice it, and whatever, then age it in these different bourbon barrels. I mean, we’ve got Elijah Craig, Heaven Hill, Templeton, all this different stuff.
Then we’ll do a dinner like, approximately a year out from it based on all these beers. It’s a small amount — it’s 55 gallons per product, so it’s gonna be pretty limited, but the beers that everyone has done are very unique and unlike anything most people have ever had. Publican’s beer of course is the best. [laughs]
Looks like the plans have finally come together to let these beers see the light of day. We don’t often recommend beer dinners (and we’re certainly not part of the Three Floyds hype machine) but this seems like one that you don’t want to miss.
Per their announcement, tickets are $135pp and reservations can be made by email.