Category Archives: Beer

How to Make a Beer Advent Calendar

Every year people flock to the store to pick up their annual advent calendar that is usually decorated in a cute holiday theme and filled with sub-par chocolates. Instead of spending money on another cardboard calendar this year I decided to take it up a notch and learn how to make a beer advent calendar for the Englishman. Not only is this calendar easy to make, it is also the perfect gift for the beer aficionado in your life. But if you’re someone who doesn’t want to buy beer at all, and make some on your own, you could head to BrewInMind.

The important thing when making a beer advent calendar is to know your audience. Do you want to make one with a bunch of cans of beer? (please say no), or how about a winter beer theme? Or maybe a bunch of specialty beers from Belgium? For the Englishman’s calendar I decided to go with a variety of different beers from around the world that I know the Englishman would love.

Once you have decided on your beers it’s time to go shopping. For OC locals, I highly recommend Hi-Time Wine Cellars for all of your beer needs, but BevMo also has a decent selection as well. Be sure to purchase 24 beers to ensure your calendar lasts the whole season!

The next step is procuring a box to house all your beers. Some of the websites I looked at used cut up tubes for each beer, but since I was going with all bottles of different shapes and sizes, I needed a box. Lucky for me the kind folks at Hi-Time had an extra box with 24 slots in it that was just waiting to be filled.

Fill your box with the beer and label them 1, 2, 3 and so on. Then wrap your box and mark your wrapping paper with the number that corresponds with each beer bottle. I wrapped the box and then cut out individual squares to cover each beer slot.

Now your calendar is ready to go! Each morning open the number slot that corresponds with that day and enjoy your beer. Since we have just started our beer advent calendar I won’t post all the beers, but here are some of the beers the Englishman has opened so far. Once he has opened all the beers I’ll do a follow-up post with the big reveal.

Pip wanted the beer for himself. Too bad he’s too young to drink.

And that’s how to make a beer advent calendar! Now maybe I need to make a wine one..

Potato Bacon and Beer Soup

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Lately I’ve had this fascination with cooking with beer. First it was the pumpkin beer bread, and now it’s a potato bacon and beer soup.

I call this a healthier potato bacon and beer soup because while there is still bacon and beer, there’s also potatoes, carrots, celery and leeks. There’s no cream or cheese, just lots of bacon and beer flavor.

When it came to selecting the right beer for this soup, I decided to go with Anchor Steam beer for a variety of reasons. First off, this beer is corn-free which automatically makes it awesome in my book and second, it has a nice flavor that is strong but not too overpowering. If you want a beer that doesn’t have as strong of a flavor, I would recommend a lighter wheat beer or pale ale. Just no Coors or Bud Light please and thank you.

If you don’t like bacon, just leave it out! And if you don’t like beer, well, I can’t help you there, but I’m sure a dry white wine would go nice with this recipe as well. I’ve used wine in soup before and it is always fantastic.

Another thing that makes this soup great? Some warm crusty bread served on the side slathered with some butter. Just saying.

Potato Bacon and Beer Soup

Ingredients:

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup diced celery

1 cup diced leek

4-6 slices of bacon

3-4 red potatoes, chopped

1 sweet potato

1 bottle Anchor Steam Beer

4 cups water

1 tsp fresh thyme

1 tsp fresh rosemary

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350F. Place your strips of bacon in the oven and cook for 20 minutes (depending on how crispy you want your bacon).

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add your carrots and celery and cook for 15-20 minutes. Add your leek and potatoes to the pot and continue to boil until potatoes, leek, celery and carrots are soft. Add your salt and pepper, thyme, rosemary and beer.

Chop up your bacon slices and add to the soup pot. Continue to let the soup simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Ladle into bowls, and serve with some crumbled bacon on top. I also added some broccoli and green beans for a few extra veggies.

Super easy to make and quite delicious. The perfect soup for fall.

What’s your favorite fall soup?

I KNOW. It’s more pumpkin. What can I say? I’m addicted and rolling with it all through fall. Fortunately pumpkin is full of good things like beta-carotene, fiber and vitamin K, which is all the more reason to enjoy this vegetable in all sorts of forms. Lately my new favorite way to enjoy pumpkin is in the form of pumpkin beer bread.

I made pumpkin beer bread a couple of years ago using Smuttynose Pumpkin Beer, and this time around I wanted to make the beer bread using canned pumpkin. I ended up using a German wheat beer since it was what we had on hand and I didn’t have time to get a proper pumpkin ale. I also decided to use sorghum and brown rice flour instead of all-purpose.

With all these little tweaks, I honestly wasn’t quite sure how this bread would turn out, but it came out delicious! You can definitely taste the beer in this bread, so if you want to reduce that beer taste I recommend using a little more sugar or reducing the amount of beer.

This bread is ridiculously easy to make and was promptly devoured in a matter of days. Let the pumpkin obsession reign supreme!

Pumpkin Beer Bread

Ingredients:

1 bottle of beer of your choice (I prefer a wheat beer)

2 cups sorghum flour

1 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup pumpkin

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 tsp baking powder

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350F. In a large mixing bowl combine your flours, salt, cinnamon and baking powder.

Slowly pour your beer into the flour mixture and blend well. Add your pumpkin, maple syrup and coconut oil and continue to mix until well combined.

Pour your bread mixture into a loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes. The bread should turn a nice golden color when it’s done.

Cool and enjoy!

I definitely want to try this bread again with a pumpkin beer. I’ve heard Dogfish Head’s Punkin’ Ale is quite delicious, but are there any other pumpkin beers I should try?