Quaffing Tips from the World's Skinniest Beerman

Make learning fun, that's what they always say, and what could be more fun than a crowd of chef's, restaurant reps and Cherokee  beer distributor employees cozy inside La Costa for a five-course meal (five, count 'em, five) accompanied by a beer tasting?

Ryan Johnson, one of that rare breed of Master Beer Sommelier (that's a Cicerone, to those of us in the know) led us through five full beers, one with each course, and I've got to say, he knew his stuff, which he ought to, coming from Chicago.

Here, for fun, are just a few of the tips I absorbed from him that can apply to most any brews, not just the Blue Moon and Leinenkugel varieties that he favors, being a representative of Miller/Coors.

+ Use a dedicated beer glass at home. You don't want the OCD polishing with a bar towel--the beer does not work well with remnants of soap or fiber--and dishwasher soap is another big no. Instead, get a beer glass and use it for beer and water only, washing it by hand and air drying in between uses.

+ Just pour the beer into the glass. Foam is good, and it will eventually go down.

+ (Now I'm quoting directly from his cheat sheet): "Match the intensity of the beer to the intensity of the food. Pair less hoppy or less bitter beers with mild-flavored food like broiled fish or baked chicken."

+ "Complement a chocolate dessert with a dark lager or stout that has chocolate notes; a chocolate dessert with a berry lager for complementary sweetness; a light flavored fish normally with a splash of lemon and a citrus lager."

Now I was already feeling like this was a guy I could trust, because he went through the formality of passing around shakers of ingredients for us to sniff instead of skipping straight to the chugging, and (even though Miller sells one), openly admitting N/A beer was fairly useless. My feeling of "listen to him" was amplified when the Rising Moon Spring Ale positively slid down with its lime accents as we munched on tilapia fish tacos with a lime-kissed pico de gallo of their own, but was I just being taken in because this was my first exposure to a person with both "beer" and "sommelier" in their job title?

Any lingering doubts were annihilated towards the end, as we were diving into vanilla-rum cake with raspberry sorbet and taking leisurely gulps of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat.

That's when one of my tablemates, Martha Boggs, aka the chef at the Bistro at the Bijou, made her final pronouncement. "This guy is great," she said. "And he's the skinniest beer guy I've ever seen."