​Beer and Bacon Dinner at Luna

Five courses of bacon paired with five craft beers. When I was asked to cover this dinner I asked myself as a chef, “What would I make if I was cooking it?” It’s a normal reaction for chefs. When we watch shows like “Top Chef” and “Chopped” we wonder what we would do. Knowing that chef Ryan Nitschke of Luna was putting this together made complete sense.

Nitschke is the consummate modern American chef right down to the tats, love for everything pig and hand-crafted local beer. I dropped by to chat with Nitschke prior to the dinner for some insight on his approach to tackling the pairing of bacon and beer.

He is probably one of the most laid back chefs I have known. He is calm, quiet and confident in a modest way, all while remaining very focused on his craft. He takes the time to advance his work, to develop and establish relationships with growers and suppliers. The pairing process for this dinner started with the beer and the brewers. Chef Nitschke then works through the complexities of flavors to find the best way to showcase both the beer and the bacon.

These days craft beers have become a mainstay of our beverage diet and have so many little tricky almost cutesy flavor profiles, it’s hard to think of them as beer. This is the flannel and beard generation of brewing — no button downs, khakis or pocket protectors for these folks. They brew with very few boundaries and with the same integrity and passion displayed by chefs.

As an example, a craft beer maker in London is making a beer with leftover bread from sandwich shops. As bread bears similar components to beer (grain, wheat, yeast and water), it makes sense. The beer is aptly called Toast.

There is a pocket of young American chefs who have broken the mold on what was once considered the norm. Short-sleeved shirts or just a tee shirt, lots of tats and piercings, along with a commitment to quality locally-sourced ingredients, integrity and innovation. In the past few years all things pig became forefront in a lot of American culinary circles; maple bacon, bacon jam, bacon weaves, it was and still is the buzz. So pairing it with the incredible uptake of handcrafted regional beers seems a logical decision.

When it comes to bacon most folks would say, “I’ll have mine with two eggs over easy, hash browns, toast and coffee.” There is a whole new respect for what was once just considered breakfast fodder along with the traditional ham for Easter. How about throwing a spicy Korean condiment called gochujang into the mix and we all love ice cream, so why not bacon it up? Well they were both players, one to the start off the dinner and the other to conclude it.

Most of us think of bacon as a warm item so the first course of Honey Gochujang Bacon served at room temperature over a chilled salad of finely julienned daikon was a refreshing take on bacon. The heat in the dish came from the spice of the gochujang tempered by the honey and the lime in the salad. The very crisp bacon offset by the soft salad. Bismarck’s Laughing Sun’s Huff Hill’s IPA would be the only light beer of the night and the 20 percent rye brought out a unique flavor profile and the lightness worked well with the dish.

Chef Nitschke’s playful take on bacon and eggs, with the addition of Rogue Creamery’s Smokey Blue cheese, was another cold dish. A perfectly boiled duck egg was perched on top of a rich, fatty mound of pork belly. I struggle to find the word to describe it further than that. It was soft and rich in the mouth but I didn’t get the blue cheese. Perhaps the fattiness of the pork masked my palette. A crisp piece of focaccia provided the needed crunch to counter the softness of the other components. Kilstone’s Carl’s Cascadian Dark Ale brought in another rich element with a bitter edge not unlike a strong bitter coffee.

Stepping up the game and pushing the edges a bit. Ryan paired thin slices of fresh sea scallops with a crunchy, thick piece of bacon. Wrapping the bacon in the raw slices of scallop and mildly cooking them with a warm dashi broth splashed with black vinegar. The bacon, crunchy on the outside, yet soft inside was a perfect foil for the tender scallops. This was a bold dish paired with Drekker Brewing Company’s Hickory Smoked Hell Bent Brown Ale. Irish in style, this collaboration balanced toffee overtones with some bitterness.

Staying with another warm dish, pork sausage made an appearance along with bacon and in everyone’s favorite form, barbecue. Sweet potato puree formed a base for the lightly sweet and caramelized pork. Junkyard brought along their Coal Miner’s Daughter Imperial Stout which also had strong caramel tones and nine percent alcohol content. The representative remarked that he felt beer was a better beverage to pair with food than wine, which I found interesting. I imagine from his viewpoint that made sense.

I think both have their place but wine has one distinct advantage, acidity. Some of these fatty dishes could have used an acidotic wine to cut through that fat, lightening it or perhaps a bright lager or pilsner-styled beer could be considered. The complexity of the craft beers almost compete with the complex flavors of the food instead of bringing out and enhancing it.

Which brings us to the closing act, bacon ice cream along with a perfect baba au bourbon, maple pecans and salted date butter. A complex pairing and the bacon did not overshadow the other ingredients. The cake was superb. Fargo Brewing Company’s Ol’ King Clancy Maple Old Ale paired up well with its maple syrup infusion and a touch of smoky malt.

I must congratulate Chef Nitschke and his team for a job well done. Watching them put out each course from the rather tiny kitchen was a treat. Everyone knew what to do and they executed it perfectly. The service staff also did a stellar job of keeping on top of not only serving the food but pairing up the beers as well. It was good a evening and I’m sure enjoyed by all.