It is time. Time to start making plans and reservations. I’m talking about
Beer vs. Wine IV! OK, no it isn’t an actual competition to see which is better intravenously (beer or wine), but it is 5 gourmet courses each paired with a wine by a sommelier and a beer by someone pulling
cicerone duty. It was epic last year. For those of you who haven’t bothered to do the math, that is 5 glasses of wine + 5 glasses of beer + 5 courses of amazing food = 1 awesome night (and there might be a couple more glasses).
We did it last year, and we have been eagerly awaiting details so we could plan on being there this year. The one thing we learned…
get a room. You won’t want to go far afterwards. The hotel staff has been amazingly pleasant to deal with, and the restaurant has said we can increase our reservation so we could all be at one table (if you want to dine with us). Space is limited for this event and historically, this has been the restaurant’s most popular event every year.
Want to know more. OK, here is a little bit more.
The premise is simple: A multi-course fine-dining dinner served with a specially selected wine to go with each course, as well as a specially selected beer. Everyone gets a score card to mark their votes for each course - either the beer or the wine. At the end of the dinner, the results are tallied and the one winner is announced based on the total number of votes for the evening. It has historically been VERY close (recounted twice last year), so you can be assured that they are bringing the good stuff.
“Wine” has been represented by Sommelier and Certified Wine Educator Barry Wiss of
Napa’s Trinchero Family Estates. Barry has flown down from Napa each year to participate in the challenge. Beer has been represented by
Stone Brewing of nearby San Diego. Neither Greg (nor
Dr. Bill) nor Barry had any say in the creation of the menu. Each year the menu has been presented to them with a “Gentlemen, here you go…do your best!” Did I mention that
chef Ryan Grant was named best new chef 2010? True this is a new chef from last year, but
El Bizcocho was recently named the
Critic's Choice for "Best of the Best" by San Diego Magazine and
voted the city's "Highest-Rated Restaurant" by the Zagat Survey, so this is likely to not suck.