Today's column: Keeping warm with bubbling beer

(Recipes coming soon, btw. -Ben)

With the mercury plunging, a good beer or two may warm you up, once the capillaries in your face relax and turn your cheeks rosy. But that serving temperature — cool to ice cold — might just give you the shivers this time of year.

It's never too cold for a beer, really, but if you're looking for another way to warm up with a cold one, why not heat it in a pot? Of course, it's important to add more ingredients than just the beer.

Winter's chill winds make it the right time for savory, slow-cooked stew or a nice, hot chili. And a bowl of either can benefit from cooking with the right beer.

The dark, roasted flavors of porters and stouts are a big part of many stew and chili recipes.

Porters are ales made with barley that's dried at higher temperatures before the brewing begins, yielding a darker malt. Stouts follow the same model, with some of the barley actually roasted and unmalted for a dry, crisp effect.

Those methods tend to result in full-bodied beers with intense flavors. Adding a bit to a stew can lend a bitter complexity, and some recipes even replace the broth outright with a bottle or two.

Countless beef stew recipes classify themselves as Irish with addition of some the Emerald Isle's most famous export, Guinness Stout. A version from Margaret M. Johnson's Irish Pub Cookbook that credits the Guinness brewery's bar calls for a half pint of the thick, black beer. It swirls with the savory flavor of sirloin cubes browned in oil and butter, and the stout mixes well with the slight tang of carrots, parsnips and turnips.

In chili, stouts' and porters' roasted malts, plus the more intense bitterness from hops, can help to balance the spice from hot peppers. One colleague at The Star uses the Turbodog porter from Louisiana's Abita Brewing Co. in place of beef stock, then adds venison or bison meat for a truly unique flavor, though he says beef works just fine, too.

Another Star staffer (we eat a lot of chili here) uses dark lagers such as Samuel Adams Boston Lager or Michelob Amber Bock in place of inky porters or stouts in a lightly spiced chili recipe. Standing in for the dark complexity of roasted malt: bittersweet chocolate, which helps balance that spice even more.

Slow cooking is a favorite method for many of these dishes, in part because of the way it tenderizes chunked meat and allows seasonings to penetrate the other ingredients. Adding a bit of alcohol only intensifies the tenderizing effect, and the malt and hops can really work their magic given a few extra hours.

Using a slow cooker, though, takes time. Perhaps there's no better way to spend that time than sipping whatever beer didn't make it into the pot. At least the kitchen should be warm.

Today's column

Has it been a week already since my last post? Wow, I owe you guys an apology. Here's my latest column, also available at The Star's Web site, here.

Pitcher This: A pint at the museum

09-12-2007

You're standing in a large room, surrounded by priceless works of art and rare relics of history.

There's a Winslow Homer watercolor on one wall. Nearby rests a bronze sculpture by the French master Rodin. And scattered about are pistols, combs, silverware and other objects once held by Napoleon and Hitler, men who nearly had all of Europe in their grasp.

Perhaps the last thing you'd expect to hear the person next to you say is, "Beer me."

OK, so the discourse probably won't be quite so coarse this weekend, but there will be plenty of malted beverages on hand at the Berman Museum of World History.

The museum's hosting its third annual Autumn Suds-Fest on Saturday, from 6-8 p.m.

The event was born when a museum volunteer who'd traveled in Germany wondered if the regular wine-related fundraisers could be translated from grapes to grain, according to Lindie Brown, development director for the Berman and the Anniston Museum of Natural History.

A few grilled bratwurst, some pretzels and many brews later, the Suds-Fest was born.

The idea was conceived as a local version of Oktoberfest, the traditional Bavarian festival in which beer is the star attraction. But the scheduling didn't quite work out for the museum, Brown said, Oktoberfest traditionally taking place as it does for 16 days in September leading up to Oct. 1.

Brown says proceeds from the event in the past have helped pay for renovations to the museum's lobby and elevator. This year, though, the beer should help boost a traveling exhibit headed here in 2009 called "The Working White House." That's another place one wouldn't expect to be asked for a bottle opener.

Two area beer distributors are providing the beer for tasting. Anniston's Hughes Beverage Co. will bring a range of brews including the well-known Dutch lager Grolsch, Anchor Steam Beer from the San Francisco microbrewer of the same name, and Abita Purple Haze, a raspberry-flavored wheat microbrewed product from Louisiana. Bama Budweiser will provide extra special bitter from Seattle-based Redhook Ale Brewery and Michelob Marzen, a big-brewery attempt at a popular Oktoberfest style, among other offerings.

The museum at least won't have to worry about patrons grabbing a rare German stein off the wall to fill it with lager. Collections manager Robert Lindley says there are no beer-related items in the museum's holdings.

But are museum officials worried about their valuable art and artifacts with so many potentially-tipsy patrons on the premises? Brown says participants the last few years have been very well-behaved. Still, she said with a laugh, the galleries will be open for tours before the tasting. Not after.

"We've never had a problem," she said. "But that's why we give them little-bitty beer-tasting cups."

Tickets are $25 for individuals, $45 for couples. Make your reservations in advance by calling the museum at 237-6261.

Pitcher This appears in The Star every two weeks. There's more online at http://pitcherthis.blogspot.com.