MY PORTLAND TIS OF THEE, SWEET LAND OF BEER FOR FREE, part 2

the food and the beer were, as expected, delicious at the lucky labrador beer hall brewer's dinner held at wildwood restaurant and bar last night, but the pleasure of the event for me was of another order, as the other guests had made the erroneous but uncorrected assumption that i was lucky labrador beer hall brewer casey lyons' boyfriend. the night's menu was developed by lyons and paul kasten, wildwood sous chef and craft beer aficionado, and featured six courses, each of them carefully paired with a beer from the lucky labrador. despite my questionable ability to verbalize the sensations of my palate, i was graciously allowed to participate in scrutinizing the product of the pair's ingenuity as lyons' guest, and was seated next to him at one of four tightly seated tables in a private dining room at the rear of the restaurant. before each course, as the servers went around the dining room pouring, lyons was responsible for describing each beer before kasten explained the reasons why the beer had been paired with the food about to be served. even before the first pour, lyons confessed to the seven others at our table to having been anxious over his part in the staging of the event since that morning, and my encouragement, which, with each new glassful from the servers, became increasingly tactile (as lyons' explanations also became more relaxed), must have seemed particularly doting.

lyons' description of the zingerbier, which accompanied the salad course, was brief and cutely halting. the guests, among them a contributor to the times, could probably have determined for themselves that the beer was a brown ale infused with ginger, and when lyons sat back next to me the woman sitting to my right asked him if he wouldn't say a bit more about the next one. she was in marketing -- and she was right about the salad bringing out the ginger in the beer, which had only a subtle zing out of combination with the asparagus and carmelized garlic vinaigrette. she wanted to know alcohol contents, too, and unlike her i hadn't brought a pen and so don't have those numbers marked on my menu, but i will allow myself to claim incapacitation as justification for not articulating the strengths and weaknesses of every course for my knowledge that with each one the alcohol by volume in the beers increased.

i do remember taking notice of the sherry notes in the 5-ton strong lager, which was paired with a farro and garlic stuffed porchetta, after i was given the words by kasten in his description of course three. i also took a moment to aprpeciate the floral qualities of the super dog ipa for the first time after lyons explained the effects of dry hopping before course two, and explanation he reprised in more detail for me when he rejoined the table. the woman to my right also liked hops (she had them in gold cast on her necklace and earrings), but she didn't like that the squid and chiles were deep fried.

the couple to lyons' left looked to be the youngest in the room and were particularly portland: an intel worker in flip flops with a striking and well poised lady companion. in the course of the table's conversation we found out that she was half italian -- her first generation father distills grappa back in chicago -- and her delicate toga dress, which tied loosely over her right shoulder, very much suited her roman features and willowy frame. if her boyfriend (although i should probably permit them the possibility of having been just friends) could have benefited from a more careful styling, then at least she had done her best to compensate through attention to her own. or so i thought until i suspected the couple to be discussing my relationship with the brewer behind cupped hands, at which point i gave myself over to my disappointment at the woman's hair, which, above a discreetly made up face, was held in place by a now glaringly shoddy hairpin. and she didn't seem to like beer.

the woman two seats to my right, however, did. she was a friend of the woman directly next to me, and in their opening conversation i overheard the farther one mention her book project, regarding which she'd recently had a meeting with her publisher. she was to be responsible for writing amusing, state by state anecdotes for a book on liquor laws throughout the country, and the project, would, she said, involve a significant amount of internet research, but she could get some of that done on her upcoming trip to germany, spain and morocco with her husband, another intel employee, him about to go on his second triennial sabbatical, who sat to the right of his wife, almost directly across the table from me, largely unaddressed.

after courses four and five, paired with the 2010 stumpy jack bourbon barrel aged imperial porter and the 2010 old yeller barleywine, respectively, i'd had enough that i finally threw in my two cents, which i'd felt somewhat obliged to pay from the beginning for not being asked to pay for my seat. (meanwhile, the woman to my right had complemented lyons for delivering an anecdote about the naming of barleywines in his explanation of the old yeller.) it was not, in fact, possible to distinguish the coffee bitterness from that of the hops in the coffee imperial porter served with desert, and the woman with the book deal was quick to correct me, confirming with the brewer, passing over the man who for all she knew was his simpleton lover, that porter didn't have a detectable hoppiness at all. i respected her pluck, and i won't buy her book but am sure that's how she got her deal. we arranged a passive detente by agreeing to the woman between us that we didn't care for the cocoa braised cured bacon. after the stupefacient richness of the blue cheese butter that accompanied the roasted ribeye filet, course five, i could have gone without desert anyway.

the dining room cleared quickly after dinner, beginning with the quick exit of the young couple from our table. there was a half pitcher of the coffee porter left, and i joined kasten's wife nicole, who was wearing a super dog t-shirt with her black suit, in another glass. only two gallons of the beer had been made, and specially for the event, so it seemed a shame to let it go unfinished, even if the combined punch of the caffeine and extra alcohol might have been ill advised at eleven o'clock after four hours of steady drinking. but isn't that always when the good stuff comes out?

nicole gave me the early edition summary from the press table. apparently the times writer had thought the food portions too large. i couldn't help thinking that he'd just needed some sour grapes to mash knowing that someone else was going to leave with the man of the hour, who after course four got up the courage to make a smiling round of greetings at all the tables. and who could blame him. lyons was definitely looking good in those pants.