On Sunday night Jim and I were invited to the closing event of Sheffield Beer Week, a beer and food pairing at The Stags Head, with Burning Sky Brewery. And as we both love food and beer, and have a soft spot for Burning Sky, there was no way we were going to turn it down!
The night started with a welcome drink of a cask Plateau, and a chance to catch up with friends who were also there with us! Cask wouldn’t be my first choice of a beer, it’s always too flat for me – but this was really tasty and a really nice start to the night’s drinking.
Then the eating began!
Starter: Mushrooms on Toast – Wild foraged mushrooms sautéed in garlic butter and cream, toasted brioche, a sprig of fresh thyme and topped with a crispy panko quail egg. Paired with: Cuvée 2016
Seafood: Steamed mussels in a white wine velouté sauce, buttered shallots and pan-fried pancetta. Paired with: Arise
So, course 1 and 2 were made up of some of my absolute favourite things. Mushrooms on toast is one of my favourite meals for when I’m feeding myself if Jims out, but I’ll be honest, they aren’t this fancy or tasty! And Moules are my go-to meal whenever I’m in our favourite restaurants in Cornwall, although, to be fair, I’m even a fan of the supermarket packets. This had some awesomely crispy pancetta in it. My only issue with it was there was no more bread to soak up the sauce!
The Cuvée 2016 was absolutely delicious. It’s Burning Sky’s “Saison à la Provision from Foudre no. 1 and from a number of Chardonnay barriques, we then blended in a large portion of Lambic, imported from Belgium that has been ageing at Burning Sky.”
We’ve got a bottle of their most recent release of the Cuvee in our bottle stash that we picked up at Indy Man so I hope that bottle is just as nice!
The Arise that came with the mussels was made as an easy drinking, after work tipple, and whilst it might not be something I’d order over and over in a bar, but it was perfect with the moules because it didn’t overpower the flavours of the sauce!
We’ve got a bottle of their most recent release of the Cuvee in our bottle stash that we picked up at Indy Man so I hope that bottle is just as nice!
The Arise that came with the mussels was made as an easy drinking, after work tipple, and whilst it might not be something I’d order over and over in a bar, but it was perfect with the moules because it didn’t overpower the flavours of the sauce!
Sorbet: Cuvée sorbet
Our next course was a sorbet made from the cuvée – which was way more flavourful than I thought a beer sorbet could be.
And then we moved on to a meat course;
Meat: Lamb rump glazed with rosemary and thyme butter, creamy dauphinoise potatoes, seasonal vegetables and a red wine jus. Paired with: Saison de fête
Both the lamb and the potatoes were amazing. The herb crust on the lamb was so good, but our tables only complaint was that the lamb was a little cold. Delicious, but it could have done with being a little warmer! I’m such a fan of a sour beer so this saison de fête was right up my street. A perfect level of sourness!
Dessert: Warm spiced ginger and treacle tart with clotted cream topped with candied almonds and lemon zest. Paired with: Saison de Pêche
And then, just as I thought I was too full to eat anything else this treacle tart showed up accompanied by a peach Saison, and suddenly, there was room for more! It was so perfectly sweet and I’m pretty sure I could eat clotted cream every day if I had to! The peach saison was really lightly peached, and so drinkable. I definitely could have drunk a lot of it!
All in all, it was an excellent evening and the perfect end to Sheffield Beer Week for us. The beer was, as we knew it would be, excellent. And the food was really good, so we’ll definitely be heading back to The Stag for dinner soon. It’s somewhere we feel like we ought to go to more, it’s a really nice space, and I’ll be honest, somewhere we probably only visit in the summer as it’s really nice sitting outside in their beer garden! But it’s only 10 minutes from our house, so we’ll 100% be back for food soon!
Thank you so much for the invite, Thornbridge, we loved it!
Gifted – We were given this meal in return for sharing the evening. All the views are our own!