Lincoln brewery, restaurant featured in new cookbook of craft beer food pairings

Have you ever wondered which craft beers go best with which foods?

A new cookbook has the answer for you, and it has a bit of a local flair.

“The Craft Brewery Cookbook” by John Holl, which will be released Tuesday, features more than 70 recipes and beer pairings from chefs and brewers across the country, including one from Lincoln.

The Lincoln entry in the book is a spicy shrimp cocktail paired with an American sour ale.

Sam Riggins, owner and brewer at Cosmic Eye Brewing, said he got the inspiration for the recipe after trying different versions of the brewery’s house bloody Mary mix and realizing there was something missing.

“After having a Mexican shrimp cocktail at El Chaparro, the flavors just clicked, and I knew what changes to make to the mix,” Riggins said.

He said that when Holl reached out to him about the book, he contacted Mike Vandenberg, executive chef of Course Restaurant, which is part of the Great Plains Culinary Institute on the Lincoln campus of Southeast Community College, to come up with his own recipe for a Mexican shrimp cocktail.

“It was a no-brainer to get Mike involved,” Riggins said. “He’s a great chef, a good friend, and the restaurant is just down the street from the brewery.”

Vandenberg said he had never made a Mexican shrimp cocktail before but relished the challenge and was pleased with the result.

“I am not only very proud of how this dish turned out but also very humbled to be published in a cookbook with Cosmic Eye and many other talented brewers and chefs,” he said.