Those recipes I promised (Part I)

So, it took a day or two, but I've managed to round up the recipes I promised you in Wednesday's column. They get a little long, so I'll divide them up among three posts spread over a few days. The first one is Star multimedia director Justin Thurman's Porter Chili. I haven't tasted it yet, but he's threatening to make another batch soon to share with the newsroom. Above the recipe is a note from Justin.

I feel that the porter brings heartiness to the chili that I don't get from other liquids. I use the porter much like someone would use a beef or chicken stock in a recipe. I drain all ingredients so that the beer is the main liquid in the chili. I love porters, I have used many different ones but Abita Turbo Dog is my favorite. This really worked out well with a chili that I made with venison as the meat.

I remembered a few years ago a man in my home town winning a chili cook-off and he said his secret was beer. Being a beer lover, I thought I would try this but I wanted to use the kind of beers that I drank. Turbo Dog was the first beer that I tried this with and it is still my favorite today. 

• 1 large red onion diced
• 1 red pepper diced
• 1 yellow pepper diced
• 2 pablano peppers diced
• 2 jalapeno peppers diced
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce diced
• 1 pound of ground venison (beef and bison work as well)
• 1 pound of bacon
• The remaining adobo sauce from the chipotle peppers
• 2 cans red kidney beans drained
• 2 can black beans drained
• 1 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes drained
• 2 garlic cloves minced
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon of crushed red pepper
• 2 bottles of your favorite porter.
• Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onions and peppers in olive oil until translucent and add to crock pot. Cook bacon in pan until done, leaving bacon grease in pan. Cook the venison in the bacon grease. Chop bacon and add it and venison to crock pot. Add remaining ingredients and cook on low overnight.

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:Hey, porter: Rich, dark brew is a sweet winter classic

11-19-2008

Since porter derived its name from an early popularity with people who carried things for a living, it's sort of fitting that many people now think of it as a winter beer.

After all, it's this time of year that people are toting loaded shopping bags, hefting big dishes to the feast table and hauling the family off to visit relatives for the holidays.

Or maybe it's that the deep-dark colored ale, with its malty-rich flavor tastes so good alongside all those holiday dishes that tend to appear only near the end of the year — slow-roasted turkey, brown-sugar-encrusted sweet potatoes, any number of sinful deserts.

Porter is said to have taken its name from the hard-working laborers around London where the beer was born in the 18th century. The characteristic dark brown or even black color comes from the special varieties of malted barley, the grain that is the bedrock of most beer. As with all brews, first the barley is soaked to allow the seeds to germinate, then heated to dry it and promote the conversion of starch to alcohol.

For porters and other darker beers, some or all of the barley is dried at higher temperatures, changing the color and flavors of the resulting malt. Generally speaking, the higher the temperature, the darker the malt and the more complex the flavors. Brewers mix and match malts to achieve their desired tastes. "Chocolate" malt can add caramel or vanilla flavors; patent malt is dried hot enough it turns black and picks up an acrid smokiness. Crystal malt is roasted in a rotating drum before the drying process, and can give the resulting beer an extra sweetness.

Porters, like their cousins the stouts, pair well with a number of entrees, and their rich body makes them an excellent base for chili and stew recipes. And all those roasty flavors mean the dark beers are an excellent match for rich deserts, playing much the same role a cup of coffee does alongside a slice of pie or cake. It might sound counter-intuitive, but the next time you pour a glass of porter, hold back just a splash in the bottle and drizzle it over a bowl of vanilla ice cream — you'll never need chocolate syrup again.

Below are a few good porters from American brewers; all can be found either in area restaurant coolers or on local store shelves — at least you won't have to carry them far to get them home.

Sierra Nevada Porter — A good, straight-up basic porter, with a rich taste from chocolate and caramel hops. Naturally for a West-Coast brew (Sierra Nevada is based in Chico, Calif.), bitter hops balance out the sweetness.

Samuel Adams Honey Porter — True to porter's heritage, Boston Beer Co. uses English hops varieties alongside the roasted malts, then sets it all off with a bit of Scottish honey. The brewer suggests trying it alongside glazed ham and roasted vegetables.

Rogue Mocha Porter — This is your dessert beer. With generous doses of chocolate, black and crystal hops, it'll stand up to the richest, gooiest dessert you can serve. Try it with ice cream, as mentioned above; even better with a warm fudge brownie underneath that scoop of vanilla.

World Series of Beer: rounding third

As the World Series moves to the Mile-High City, we'll shift our focus to Colorado-brewed beer. This state has a deep brewing bench, so no matter how the baseball series turns out, I've gotta say I favor the Rockies for beer.

First up for Colorado is Flying Dog Ales' Road Dog Scottish Porter. Flying Dog has been around since 1990, brewing a slew of beers and slinging attitude at the same time. Their porter has a deep, rich taste, and the dark color matches the Rockies' jersey's well.

As I write this, the Red Sox are up 9-5 in the eighth. The way things are going, tomorrow night's could be our last beer of the series. Let's hope not; there's still a lot of great beer from both states left to cover.

My eyes aren't Irish, but they're smiling

I hit the road after work today for the beautiful white beaches of the Gulf Coast. Made it to the shore in time to have dinner in Pensacola at McGuire's Irish Pub & Brewery. Way back in the day when I was stationed at Eglin AFB, I was a regular visitor to McGuire's Destin location. Since the Mrs. and I were just as far from P'cola as Destin on this trip, we decided to head for the original and less familiar location.

I wasn't disappointed. McGuires was one of the places I learned to enjoy hand-crafted beer, and it's just as good drinking on Pensacola Bay as it is on Choctawhachee Bay. This location gets just as much business as Destin's: too much. The place is always packed. This is the first time I've been back to McGuire's since I started the column, so I'm glad to get the chance to share a few words about their brews.

I started with one I'd not tried before, the Old Fashioned Ale. The menu listed it as something found in every pub in Ireland, but I don't know about that. It's a very light-bodied, pale-colored ale. This one certainly doesn't jump out of the glass at you. The flavor is nice and balanced, with just a hint of ale fruitiness and a hint of hops to remind you you're not drinking a mass-market American lager. Not bad, but not why I came.

After that I had a porter. The sweet maltiness was very welcome after the Old Fashioned. Very smooth, and it went well with the massive steak I ordered.

Then came the stout. This is the beer I come to McQuire's for. Pitch-black, creamy, smooth, dry and coffee-ish. Perfect for desert. That's it pictured at right.

White-sand beaches and the green hills of Ireland don't have much to do with eachother, but if you're ever down here on the coast, you'd be doing yourself a disservice to skip a trip to McGuire's.