Last year, I was one of a supersmall group of journalists and brewers invited to the Brewers Association’s first-ever craft-beer dinner at NYC’s Gramercy Tavern. This year's dinner was even more spectacular. Some highlights:

New Glarus Brewing is legendary for its hard-to-obtain beers. Stories circulated around the table about attempts to smuggle them across the Wisconsin/Illinois border. We had the rare chance to try their seasonal Wisconsin Cran-bic. This is exactly what I’d want to pour with my first course at Thanksgiving dinner.

Scott Vaccaro of Captain Lawrence Brewing in Pleasantville, NY, brought his intense, dark, malty, bourbon-barrel-aged Nor’Easter Winter Warmer to pair with our cheese course.

The Twelve XII from Firestone Walker Brewing in Paso Robles, California, is one of the most complex beers I’ve ever tasted. Brewmaster Matt Brynildson enlisted area winemakers to assist in the blending of component beers, some of which spent more than two years aging in a combination of retired bourbon, rye and wine barrels.

I tend to prefer pumpkin in my pie, not my beer. But Lakewood, NY’s Southern Tier Brewing Company has made an extremely drinkable pumpkin beer called Pumking that is meant to be served in a goblet to bring out all of the spicy aromas. It’s full of cinnamon and clove, yet doesn’t have any cloying sweetness, and was brilliant with poached lobster served with turnips, daikon and lobster-squash sauce.

David Katleski, founder of Empire Brewing in Syracuse, NY , surprised us with a growler of what he’s calling White Aphro, a supposedly aphrodisiacal brew made from ginger, lavender and honey. The jury is out on whether it really works.

I finally made it to Boston this weekend so that I could grab a stool at Barbara Lynch's newest spots, Sportello and Drink. The dishes at bright, modern Sportello was the sort of homey, upscale comfort food found at all of Lynch's restaurants. A simple salad of thinly shaved fennel and batons of celery was fresh and crisp and all of the pastas were expertly cooked-the highlight of which was the rich, sweet pantacce (a wide, short noodle) with pork cheeks, parsnips and quince.

But the real standout for me was a wine that we had. Our server steered us towards the 1998 Martilde Ghiro d'Inverno Bonarda from northwestern Italy's Lombardia region, and I'm glad we followed her lead. Its black fruit had mellowed nicely thanks to its age, but what was particularly striking was its distinct earthiness—flavors ranging anywhere from soil to mushrooms—which also made it perfect match to a bowl of pasta made with toasty chestnut flour with whole roasted chestnuts strewn throughout.

After dinner, we headed downstairs to Lynch's enormous—and packed—bar, Drink. It was rather astounding to watch three bartenders expeditiously serving excellent cocktails to 90-some thirsty guests. For our part, we probably enjoyed a few too many of the cocktails, but we ended the night off with a liqueur glass of and exceptionally intriguing Chartreuse Milk Punch called Vert Poinçon de Lait, developed by Drink bartender Scott Marshall. Marshall was inspired by a recipe he found in a cocktail book published in 1827 for "Oxford Nightcaps." The original recipe calls for rum and cognac, but Marshall traded those for viscose Batavia-Arrack and spicy green and yellow Chartreuse. Since the drink's complicated to make—and the recipe makes a gallon at a time—it's worth a detour at Drink to try it. It's a terrific digestif, or, as a nightcap, will ensure sweet or possibly surreal dreams.

© Meantime London
Meantime Scotch ale.

Last night I attended a phenomenal craft-beer dinner at NYC’s Gramercy Tavern (more on that later in a tomorrow's post). The brewers at the table got to talking about the most exciting beer innovations and innovators around the globe. One name that got dropped was England’s Alastair Hook, the founder and brewmaster of Meantime Brewing. I  repeatedly came across this brand on my recent trip to London. Hook recently brewed a limited-edition (2,000+ bottles) Scotch ale especially for the American market; it will be available around the new year. He used a recipe he created at the request of the late beer genius Michael Jackson. A Scotch ale is a style of beer brewed at a lower temperature than an English ale and cask conditioned for six-to-eight weeks to develop a gorgeous, roasty malt flavor. Here’s where to look for Scotch Ale, and Meantime’s other great brews, in the U.S.

Interesting article on Yahoo today (by way of AFP) about Diageo Chateau & Estates's apparent decision to get out of the Bordeaux market and what's likely to happen to Bordeaux prices as a result. Necessary reading, if you drink or collect Bordeaux!

I've always thought Mai Tais were kind of campy, something fun to have with roast pork shoulder and pineapple. Now I know better. Recently my friend Joe Raffa, a Hawaiian native, mixed the world's greatest Mai Tai from his extensive rum collection. He calls it the $100 Mai Tai because it would cost $100 to buy bottles of all the necessary ingredients. But the drink itself costs much less. And with last week's news about the growing GDP, it seemed ok to post. Especially because it's just so good: caramelly yet tart, smooth yet bright, perfectly balanced — and supersmart (case in point: instead of Cointreau, Joe uses Rhum Clement Creole Shrubb, an orange liqueur made from rhum agricole instead of neutral spirits. "It keeps the rum with the rum," Joe says. And in place of ordinary simple syrup, he uses Depaz cane syrup, a Caribbean sweetener gives the Mai Tai a richer maple note.) The best part, Joe is José Andrés' chef de cuisine at Oyamel in DC, and has been dropping hints that his boss should open a Hawaiian restaurant in DC serving roast pork and really good Mai Tais. All I can say is, José, please, listen up. Recipe after the jump.

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A group of geologists in Oregon have a few skeptical things to say about the notion of "minerality" in wine, the Southern Oregon Mail Tribute reports. They've got a good point or two—that the amount of actual minerals in wine is below the threshold of human taste and smell, for instance—though they're a bit wobbly on what the French term terroir actually means, which is not just the soil, but the totality of the influence of a specific place on a wine's character.

Terroir takes into account human influence, too, according to Rhône winemaker Michel Chapoutier, who stopped by our office for a quick tasting a few days ago. Chapoutier also made a nice distinction between what he sees as the two broad types of wine in the world: taste-driven wines (where the producer assesses what consumers want, finds appropriate grape sources, and markets a wine that satisfies that demand) and wines of terroir (where the nature of a specific vineyard determines the character of the wine, the winemaker intervenes as little as possible in order to preserve that character, and then the owner hopes that people will buy it).