CAMDEN — Forty-five diners enjoyed a five course German meal at Cappy’s Chowder House Tuesday, Jan. 13. Each course was paired with a German beer. Set at two long tables, Beer Garden style, diners enjoyed host, Cappy’s owner David Robichaud and explanations of the food and drink by Cappy’s executive chef Peter Gelman and Paul Taddei of B United International Importers.

“We’ve never done German food here at the restaurant and we’ve never done a beer pairing and tasting,” said Robichaud. “We thought it would draw some interest and German sounded good as our first one. We have a gentleman from the importer who will talk about all the different beers and their histories and origins. A lot of the beers we have tonight are from historical breweries in Germany.”

Robichaud said in all likelihood Cappy’s will do another dinner pairing next month.

“We haven’t nailed down what it will be,” he said. “We want to do Irish and Belgium and we definitely want to do one that is Asian. No wines, just beers tonight. Food and beer tastings are very much in vogue right now, so we had no problem selling out. Wine tastings has slowed, so we thought we would try this it worked out really well.”

The dinner was five courses and each course was paired with a beer.

Peter Gelman, executive chef at Cappy’s Chowder House said: “We’ve been talking for a year about doing some wine tastings or something like it. Beer dinners are really exciting these days and you think German food, you think German beer and Octoberfest. I’ve always been partial to international cuisine and you put two and two together and think, let’s see how it goes.”

Gelman said it really wasn’t hard to come up with dishes to pair with the beers.

“David and I worked together on it and it really came together pretty quick,” said Gelman. “We used to do international days here on Sundays, so my pet area is international cuisines. Hopefully we’ll do more. There are really a lot of good Asian beers out there right now and I thought we could really get outside the box and pair Asian cuisine, which is one of my specialties, with Asian beers.”

Paul Taddei works for B United International, which imports specialty beers for Wicked Wines, in Bangor. He said German beers are popular right now.

“Three of the five beers we’re serving tonight really define the style of the beer itself dating back to the 1800s” said Tappei. “I believe that maybe not the style, but most of the beers we have tonight it will be the first time most of these people have seen them. These distilleries are very small producers, but we have a good representation of them in Maine.”

Tappei said all the beers available at the dinner will be locally available.

“Lilly Lupine and Fern in Camden will carry all five beers in their store,” he said. “We import roughly 70 different imports from all over Europe. We started in 1994 importing the German beers and went to other countries from there. I’m responsible for all of Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and Tennessee. Once a quarter it’s a fun trip to Nashville.”

The first course was a homemade soft pretzel stick with a cheesy beer fondue dip and German sausage. It was paired with a Helles Schlenkeria Lagerbier.

Second course featured a potato barley and beer soup with crispy kale and it was paired with a Uerige Dusseldorf Altbier.

Course three was Terra Optima Farm bratwurst with braised apple and red cabbage. It was paired with a Schneider Wiesen Edel-Weisse.

Fourth course was slow cooked beef brisket with a Porter demi-glaze with Spatzle paired with a Ettaler Curator Dunkler Dopplebock.

The fifth course was a stout and vanilla ice cream float with a chocolate and hazelnut brownie. A Schneider Weisse Adventinus Eisbock finished off the evening.

Dave Robichaud will appear as a guest on WRFR Monday morning with Chris Wolf.