Tag Archives: George

Thanksgiving Part II: Everything else!

Kris:Thanksgiving would be incomplete without lots of side dishes. Scotty and Caroline (the 2 Americans) find cranberry sauce especially essential.

Scotty and Kates’s Hefeweizen Cranberry Sauce

500g of dried cranberries

330ml hefeweizen

Method

Soak the cranberries in the hefeweizen for 1 1/2 hours

Simmer in a saucepan for 15 minutes before serving

Kris : It was amazing that the cranberries started fermenting in the beer for the first half an hour. The main thing is that the recipe worked. The fruity/estery taste of the Hefe and the sweet/tart flavour of the cranberries tasted great with the turkey.

Caroline’s Sweet Potato Casserole

Insides
200g softened butter (salted or unsalted, but salted adds a nice contrast to sugar in my opinion)
2 large sweet potatoes peeled, boiled and mashed
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
1/3 cup brown sugar (to taste)
Crumbly Top
100g softened butter
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup raw sugar
crushed pecans

Method

Preheat oven to 350F  or 170C

Mix casserole ingredients and pour into casserole dish.

Mix crumble ingredients and pour on top of sweet potato mixture.

Bake for 45 minutes.

My Pumpkin Pie

2 sheets of good quality short crust pastry (or if you have time make your own)

700g cooked pumpkin (cooled)

3 Tbs honey or golden syrup

2 large free range eggs

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup cream

1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

butter for greasing the cake pan

Method

Preheat oven to 180C

Grease a cake pan with butter

Place the pastry in the pan and trim the edges

Line the pastry with baking paper

Fill with dried beans or rice

Blind bake for 15-20 minutes

While this is baking, cream the eggs, brown sugar, honey and spices with electric mixer

Add the pumpkin and beat for a couple more minutes

Fold through the cream

Remove the pastry from the oven and take out the baking paper

Allow it to cool and then spoon in the pumpkin mixture

Bake at 180 C for 1 hour

Allow to cool before serving

Kris: I am a sucker for Barley Wines, and pumpkin pie and Barley Wine is a match to die for. I would go for an English style Barley Wine that is more focussed on the malt sweetness, as opposed to a dry hopped American style which is more hop driven. Anytime is a good time for Barley Wine. We drank a flying Dog Horn Dog Barley Wine from Frederick, Maryland and Widmer Brothers’ Reserve Galaxy Hopped Barley Wine from Portland, Oregon.

Caroline: I must admit I was very skeptical about this dish, back home you can pretty much buy pumpkin pie in a can. I wasn’t sure about making it from scratch with actual pumpkin…

Kris converted me! This pie was AWESOME. and even better with the barley wine (which I am not usually a fan of) but the spices in the pie totally mellowed it out..delicious match!
Caroline: LOOK! You know who else loves Thanksgiving? GEORGE! Well, maybe it wasn’t so much Thanksgiving as it was all the beer boxes we had around the house for him to make forts with…patriotic nonetheless George, well done.

Kris:The two Barley Wines were amazing! I think that the Flying Dog, being more an English style, was the better match with pumpkin pie, but I did love the citrus/fruit hop character of the Widmer Brosthers reserve, and it’s toffee/caramel malt backbone.

Caroline: Can you tell we are all in a turkey and beer induced coma? It lasted about 2 days, totally worth it though…yum yum yum

 

Moo Brew Stout Tasting

We had some friends over a few weeks ago to have a side by side tasting of the Moo Brew Oak Aged Imperial Stouts from 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.

Scotty is a brewer for Moo Brew and Kate is a chef; both love to eat and drink so we get along very well.

It was on the 4th of July so for Caroline and Scotty (also American) I made pulled pork, potato salad, and Bruny Island wallaby kranskys. Kate and Scotty brought over an awesome mexican street salad and some NorthCoast IPA from California.

I fell in love with pulled pork whilst visiting the U.S. American BBQ is awesome and is a classic beer food too. It tasted really good with NorthCoast Pale Ale, which is a malty English style Ale.

2007: This was still drinking really well. It had a rum and raisin character and a great subtle amount of vanilla and coconut from the oak.

2008: Unfortunately, this bottle was oxidized, so we had to tip it down the drain. (It had gone sour and lost all carbonation)

2009: This one was still tasting pretty good with a lot of the same characteristics as the 2007. Our bottle was over-carbonated, but this doesn’t necessarily mean others would be .

2010: This is going to be awesome in a year or two. It is really rich and has a massive amount of oak character. I can’t wait to try it when its been cellared a bit more; this beer will age really well. It has just been released, so if you can get your hands on some I recommend it.

My Pick? 2007. It really shows how well this beer can age. I wouldn’t age it much more then 3-4 years. Imperial Stouts, and all of these stouts, would go really well with a rich dessert, something chocolatey, sticky date pudding, or rum balls.

George's Pick

George’s Pick?

2007! We’ve trained him well.