Beer Dinner @ Dragonfly in Truckee this June!

Back by popular demand, Dragonfly Restaurant is once again teaming up with Reno’s Buckbean Brewery for another Beer Maker’s dinner on Friday, June 11. This year’s event is made even more enticing with a lodging package, which offers 20 percent off rates at the venerable Truckee Hotel within easy walking distance from Dragonfly.

A flavorful encore, Dragonfly’s Billy McCullough and Buckbean Brewing Company’s Doug Booth and Dan Kahn will again join their forces in presenting the Buckbean Beer Maker’s Dinner on Friday, June 11, at 6 p.m. at the Dragonfly in Truckee.

“I was immediately impressed when I met Doug – the way he spoke about beer was almost like how a chef talks about food,” recalls McCullough. “Dragonfly was the first restaurant to carry Buckbean. Partnering with Buckbean is in keeping with our whole philosophy of local sustainability and supporting local products.”

Brew master Dan Kahn says pairing food and beer is a little different than pairing food and wine.

“With wine you generally look for flavor contrasts, while with beer you generally pair similar flavors, although contrast can also work very well in some cases,” Kahn explains. “Billy understood all this right away.”

Kahn says the vast range of beer flavors and styles makes for great food pairings. West Coast brewers like Buckbean have put the same type of creativity and experimentation into their beer that California chefs, like McCullough, have shown with their food.

“So the two are actually a very natural match,” Kahn adds. “The Original Orange Blossom Ale, in particular, is an excellent match for all of Billy’s Asian dishes. The fragrant complexity of the orange flowers really highlights other bright flavors like cilantro, citrus, ginger and hot pepper.”

Consider some of culinary highlights of the Buckbean Brewery Beer Maker’s Dinner. The savory repast begins with hot and spicy shrimp potstickers paired with Buckbean’s Roler Bock and continues with a grilled Kobe beef slider with Great Hill Farms blue cheese, caramelized onion and IPA infused ketchup paired with Buckbean’s Adaven IPA. The menu’s centerpiece is the Red Ale Chinese five spice braised Muscovy duck with ginger mash potatoes, which is served with Buckbean’s Tule Duck. The sublime dinner is concluded with a Noddy glazed chocolate cake with caramel Chantilly cream paired with Buckbean’s Black Noddy.

Beer Maker’s Dinner participants will also have a chance to meet the affable brew master, learn about the brewing processes, taste the malts, smell the hops and more. The four-course dinner, which includes beer pairings, is priced at $42 per person. Seating is limited and reservations are highly recommended. For dinner reservations call 530-587-0557.

The Beer Maker’s Lodging Package offers guests who wish to spend the night in Truckee a 20 percent discount on any Truckee Hotel room for the evening of June 11 which can be booked by calling 530-587-4444.

Dragonfly is located upstairs at 10118 Donner Pass Road, right in the heart of downtown Truckee. For more information on Dragonfly, visit www.dragonflycuisine.com or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for up-to-the-minute news and updates. Beer lovers can visit the Reno-based brewery’s site, www.buckbeanbeer.com