After the resounding success of the Nashville-based Nuit Belge beer festival in its inaugural event in the spring of 2015, the still-young fest is going on the road in 2016. A beer and food-pairing festival with a strong emphasis on Belgian ales and gourmet dining, Nuit Belge is clearly targeting a somewhat more sophisticated market than many of the other large-scale beer festivals, with much more focus on the specific curation of the beer and food. In its first year on the road, the festival will stop in Atlanta (Jan. 23), New Orleans (Feb. 26), Nashville (March 12) and Charleston (April 16), with ticket prices ranging from $99-149. These tickets include entry, tasting glasses, programs and all food/beverage.
Seeing as Paste is based in Atlanta, that particular festival obviously caught our attention, and we will be in attendance to see how the beer and food-pairings shake out. Already, the majority of the menu has been announced, featuring Atlanta-area restaurants such as Bhojanic, Heirloom Market BBQ, Holeman & Finch, Iberian Pig and more. To cite a single one of the typical pairings:
“Bacchus Oud Bruin paired with serrano-braised rabbit empanadas with salsa verde and cumin creme fraiche.”
Or perhaps if you have a sweet tooth:
“St. Bernardus Abt. 12 (2012) paired with white chocolate cranberry ice cream-fig and almond.”
So yeah, these are some adventurous pairings. The Atlanta edition of the festival will be selling 600 tickets, with 750 in New Orleans, 600 in Nashville and 500 in Charleston. Tickets for each of the cities are now available via the main Nuit Belge website. Expect more of an in-depth recap of the Atlanta event after Paste attends.