Chad always seems to be able to surprise me. With every spontaneous date night or special delivery of flowers I always feel so grateful that he is thinking about me. For a few months now the thought of planning a surprise date night always kept popping up in my head. As a new wife its always good to start with good habits right? Here is the issue…Chad is so hard to surprise! His schedule is always changing with client meetings and is never a guarantee on what days he will be home. Thankfully Chads mom (my Mother-in-law) , who he owns the business with, was able to help me out and block out his schedule for a “client meeting”. Genius.
Now to decide on where to take an un-surprisable date. If you haven’t been to Graydon’s Crossing in Grand Rapids, MI then you haven’t been to one of the oldest and best tap house/gastro pub’s the city has to offer. One of the best things about Graydon’s Crossing is their craft beer dinners. Chad and I have taken his family to the Stone dinner last year for their Christmas gift and was a huge it.
Graydon’s Crossing brings a representative from the featured brewery and the chef creates a five course dinner around the beer that the brewery brings. It. Is. Awesome. The brewer and the chef explain each course and pint that they put in front of you and the story of how each was created.
One of the main reasons this beer dinner jumped out at me is because it was their Short’s Brewery dinner.
Short’s Brewery is located in Bellaire, MI and is a MUST see stop on your way up to Traverse City.
Course 1- Savory Cheese Cake paired with Power of Love Shandy: I may or may not have also chosen this beer dinner because I knew that Power of Love was going to be a part of it. This beer is beyond crushable (actual beer term-look it up!). Its such an easy drinking and beyond refreshing brew. Too bad this is a seasonal beer 🙁
Soo, I may have inhaled this savory cheese cake before I remembered to take a picture. Don’t hate me!! It was so tasty though…
Course 2- Jerk Crab Cake Benedict paired with Freedom ’78 IPA: This was an awesome jerk spiced crab cake with a poached quail egg and mango salsa. The mango salsa was my favorite part of the dish.
The IPA was perfect for a seafood dish. I’m not usually a fan of IPA’s but this was a fairly easy drinking one and not too bitter.
Course 3- Barbecue Catfish paired with Soft Parade Fruit Rye Ale: This was the best of two worlds-barbecue and scallion pancake. The dish was plated so perfectly and absolutely delicious. What was even better was the buttermilk strawberry slaw that gave it the perfect acidity to the plate.
And as always the Soft Parade never fails to be delicious and dangerous at 6.5 ABV. Who knew all of these elements came together so great!?
Course 4- “Milk Steak with Jelly Beans” paired with Bourbon Slow Jam Barrel Aged Sweet Stout. The chef came up with this dish from “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. In the show one of the charters gets married and he wanted a milk steak (steak boiled in milk) with jelly beans as the main dish at the reception. Yup, I was nervous to try it as well. His interpretation if it was more edible than the shows version but it in the end was my least favorite dish of the night. He warned that you would hate it or love it. The flavors were overwhelming for me between the jellybean jam, vanilla rutabaga puree and bourbon milk marinated steak. BUT, there were plenty of people around me who loved it. To each their own I suppose.
The Stout was also a little too much for my taste with it being a sour stout as well but Chad seemed to like it for being a sour beer.
Course 5- Ice Cream sandwich paired with Autumn Ale: Chad was REALLY excited about this course. Not only because its dessert but because it was an ice cream sandwich. Yum. The Gingersnap cookie went perfectly with the butternut squash ice cream with orange peel and peppercorn. To make it even better it came with a yummy hopped butterscotch.
I am so excited to get this autumn ale in the store. They brought the FIRST keg they “bottled” so to speak to this dinner so we were the first people to have it. This beer is a great fall beer and perfect to bring to Thanksgiving dinner.
At the end of the night Chad was surprised, we were fed and full of beer. I’m not sure how it can get better than that. The price of these dinners range from $45 to $55 per ticket depending on who is hosting the dinner that month (yes these dinners are once per month!) and comes with a great eating and drinking experience. This wasn’t our first beer dinner and certainly won’t be our last.
What are some date night ideas that are your favorite to do with your significant other?
What are some of the small gestures that you go out of your way to do with your spouse or significant other?
Do you have any traditions that you always do together?
Craft Beers Dinners at Graydon’s Crossing gets 3 out of 3 Cheers!
