Barbareño Teams with Ojai Valley Brewery for Pairing Dinner

Upon opening nearly a decade ago, Barbareño’s founders Julian Martinez and Jesse Gaddy aimed to celebrate Central Coast cuisine, a style of direct sourcing and live fire cooking more than 200 years in the making that’s only now getting the broader attention it deserves. Their menu elevates regionally rooted dishes like Santa Maria tri-tip and Egg McMuffins while incorporating indigenous ingredients such as acorn, wild onion, and black cod.

So when the West Canon Perdido Street restaurant started serving native-plant-flavored beers from Ojai Valley Brewery (OVB) earlier this year, maître d’ Nathaniel Tyson recognized a kindred spirit. “They’re very particular about who they work with, but we have a similar ethos,” said Tyson of the brewery’s very limited distribution. “When our paths crossed, it seemed like we just had to create something together.”

Coincidentally, just last month, the restaurant purchased its first catering truck and grill trailer in order to expand service into weddings, festivals, and other events. That provided the opportunity to bring Barbareño south, and the September 23 four-course “Autumnal Equinox Beer Dinner” was born. 

“We are big fans of their operation,” said OVB’s cofounder and CEO Jeremy Haffner. “They are culinary risk takers that marry seemingly foreign flavors into a palate that is at once surprising yet familiar, as well as having an exceptional attention to local ingredients.” 

The night will be an edible expression of OVB’s mission. “We started eight years ago as a project specifically to reintroduce a traditional sense of place to beer that has been missing from the ethos of the American craft-beer industry since its inception,” said Haffner. “For thousands of years, beer was a highly regional beverage which utilized surplus grain and local indigenous botanicals for flavor and bittering, which created a unique picture of its natural surroundings.” To replicate that today, OVB relies on resinous chaparral herbs such as sage in place of (or in addition to) hops as well as Ojai-grown fruits and spices.

“We do this with a specific attention to how they will pair with and enhance food,” explained Haffner, noting that all of OVB’s brewers are former chefs, himself included. “We are the only brewery in California doing this at this scale.” 

The evening’s menu includes halibut ceviche in a nopales/prickly pear/fennel aguachile, paired with the prickly pear– and hibiscus-flavored East End Tart Ale; the Chaparral Sage Amber with acorn tamales with mushrooms in a nasturtium-pistachio mole verde topped with toasted chia seeds; the Sugarbush Sumac Pale Ale with oak-smoked rabbit in an elderberry glaze; and, for dessert, pinyon cake with pine-needle cream and candied pine nuts alongside the White Gruit, which uses yarrow and mugwort instead of hops. 

For those seeking the full experience, herb expert Lanny Kaufer is leading a walk at Cluff Vista Park beforehand, finishing at the brewery just in time for the 6:30 p.m. dinner. Seating is limited to 50 people. 

The Autumnal Equinox Beer Dinner is September 23, 6:30 p.m., at Ojai Valley Brewery (307 Bryant St., Ojai). Click here for tickets. To add a walk with Lanny Kaufer, click here.