There are foods that I relent to making from scratch, taking hours to carve a meal out of whole ingredients. Hours spend on homemade pasta, breads, pie dough and sauces. The extra time is more than worth it for real food, feed to those I love from the earth, to my hands to the table.… Read More
I’ve noticed something about you. You seem to have no interest in healthy beer recipes. You want your beer recipes to be a flagrant indulgence of full-flavored stimulation. You want chocolate and bacon and sugar and whatever else I can manage to squeeze into your meal. I like that about you. No “semi-homemade” or “skinny”… Read More
Remember the Beer Cooking Scale I told you about last month, the one I want to invent? The one that would let you know the approximate level of Beeryness the final product has? This recipe is at both ends of that yet-to-be-invented scale’s spectrum. The beer butter has a kick you in the mouth beer flavor… Read More
As summer heats up, so does my longing to add beer to everything I consume. I linger on the idea of changing classic recipes into beer recipes far longer than my busy day should allow. How would I add beer to a Tarte Tatin? What about an Blueberry pie? Or Eggs benedict? What beer would… Read More
Summer is almost here. Barbecues, lazy afternoons on the porch swing, long days at the beach, music and card games on the patio until dawn. I realize that a fridge full of craft beer doesn’t always please the masses, but I do want to impart those flavors that are so beautiful anyone can enjoy them,… Read More
There’s a good chance that when you think about cooking with beer, a meat recipe comes to mind. Your Dad’s beer marinated ribs? Beer can chicken? Beer braised pork? There’s a good reason for that. Not just for the spectacular flavors that craft beer can impart on the meat, but because beer, especially high acid… Read More
Why do I cook with beer? What is it about this fantastic beverage that drives me to create recipe after recipe with beer as a star ingredients? Flavor. Beautiful and complex flavors that take months, even years to perfect by brewers. Aside from that, beer is a natural meat tenderizer, making it the perfect choice… Read More
I’m in the process of developing a beer scale for the recipes I write. A scale that lets you know how much beer flavor comes through upon the final result. From the low end being, “Mild Hints of Beer Flavors” to the high end of “Strong Bold Forward Beer Taste.” Some people want to be… Read More
Beer people are so often missunderstood and stereotyped. Don’t mistake our inherent low maintenance for a lack of opinion. Don’t think that our love of indulgence translates to a lack of self-control. Just because we have a adoration for a high calorie beverage, doesn’t mean that we aren’t concerned with healthy living. And our love… Read More
If you have ever had the opportunity to talk to a brewmaster, you have seen it. You’ve seen that look that lets you know that there is an art and a respect for what they do that goes far past what most Americans experience at their day jobs. The look that tells you that the… Read More
The past few weeks I’ve been craving summer. I live in Los Angeles, so feel free to laugh at my inability to cope with a mild seasonal chill. It isn’t so much the weather of the Summer months that I miss, but the culture of the season. Backyard barbecues, a slower life pace, vacations and… Read More
There are always exception to even the most powerful rules. This leaves a movement and an honestly to the lives we live, without the guilt of hypocrisy. The rule I am adding an addendum to is my strong allegiance to West Coast beers. Although great beer can be found nearly everywhere in the world these… Read More
Risotto is the first recipe that I ever mastered. To this day, I count this among my favorite comfort food, downing giant bowls whenever the opportunity arises. The classic recipe is made with white wine, but the substitution of a citrusy, medium-bodied craft beer only adds to the profile of flavors. I used another California… Read More
I could get really cheesy about this. I could even call it CranBEERy sauce. But I’m not going to do that, because, that would be lame. And I respect you too much for obvious puns. Drunken cranberry sauce? Boozy? All of those overused descriptors miss the point, and the fact that high heat burns off… Read More
Napa SmithWheat is a perfect baking beer. It has crisp, clean flavors, sweetness and bold tones that hold up to the oven. A smooth wheat beer with citrus and peach notes. I enjoyed this beer, the baking, the drinking, the flavors. It was an easy beer to enjoy and gave me a sense of the… Read More
I came across Albion Amber Ale, from Marin Brewing Co this week. It isn’t a traditional Amber, but the flavors are bright and complex. One taste of this brown ale, and a caramel sauce immediately came to mind. The rich toffee and nut flavors paired beautifully with this recipe and the strong caramel and malt… Read More
Beer bread is simple. A few ingredients creates a soft, but dense bread. The basic principle is to use the beer as the yeast. Although beer is great in this capacity, adding a leavening agent like baking soda, or self rising flour, is important to help keep the bread from becoming too dense. The simple… Read More
This is the ultimate comfort food, combining three great comfort food players: Beer, Cheese, Warm Soup. Add to that a flaky pastry crust and you pretty much have pot pie perfection. I use Mission Street Blonde Ale for this, from the Mission Brewery out of San Diego. A really beautiful blend with the mild cheddar… Read More