Beers - A Very Beery Christmas wrap

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas...as ours was indeed delightful, full of delicious Australian craft beers.

All praise and love goes to my wife (our first Christmas together as a married couple!) who had the original thought some time back to create a Christmas Day menu focused around cooking with beer. And then...she did all the real work to research, prepare and cook the beery food.

Our Very Beery Christmas Lunch started with a Welsh Rarebit on beer bread. Inspired by the Red Hill Brewery rarebit with their masterstroke of including leek in the ingredients (thanks again for the recipe, Karen!), the beer used in the rarebit sauce was the 2 Brothers "Growler" Brown Ale.

Toasted under a grill on slices of wholemeal home-made beer bread, which used a full bottle of Bridge Road Brewers Beechworth Pale Ale in the dough mixture, the result was just excellent and enjoyed with Red Hill Brewery Bohemian Pilsner.

The main course of the day was a barbeque beer can chicken. A 2/3rd full can of Anderson Valley Brewing Company Poleeko Gold Pale Ale was placed inside a seasoned chicken and cooked on a closed bbq for a little under 2 hours. (Can not express my gratitude enough to Biero Bar for supplying the AVBC can!)

It was our first attempt at a beer can chicken, which we were initially concerned about due to the small size of our bbq. However, it worked beautifully in the end, with the help of the Bar-B-Chef Beer Can Chicken Roaster that we picked up at Barbeques Galore a few weeks back. A very helpful tool! I probably cooked the chicken a little too long overall, drying it out a little, but the result was still delicious...and I look forward to doing it again with an even better result.

Complimenting the chicken roast was my wife's sensational Scotch Ale Potatoes, which used the Red Hill Brewery Scotch Ale...

Balancing the meal was a Beet, Fennel, Rocket & Nut salad with a Blond Ale Vinaigrette. Half a cup of the Red Duck "Black Heart" Belgian Blond Strong Ale was used in the vinaigrette.

Finally, dessert was the Chris Badenoch inspired Beeramisu, using the forever awesome Holgate Brewhouse "Temptress" Chocolate Porter.

We thoroughly enjoyed dessert with the spectacular Red Hill Brewery Double Barrel Aged Christmas Ale (as well as the regular Christmas Ale), which formed my final 12beersofxmas blog that you can read here...!

Throughout the day we mainly drank the Red Hill Brewery Bohemian Pilsner, which suited the weather and food perfectly. However, we also enjoyed some Stone & Wood Pacific Ale and Holgate Big Reg. A great day all round.

Cheers and see you in 2011!

Beers - A Very Beery Christmas update

A quick update on the wife and my plan for A Very Beery Christmas, which I posted about recently.

Thanks to Ray, Bar Manager of Biero Bar, I now have a can of beautiful CRAFT BEER for our BBQ Beer Can Chicken...

Craft beer in a can...the Anderson Valley Poleeko Gold Pale Ale (imported by Innspire)

After expecting to submit ourselves to a can of VB, we can now keep the full cooking and drinking menu to pure quality craft beer, thanks to the addition of this American Pale Ale, the Poleeko Gold Pale Ale from Anderson Valley Brewing Company.

Hopefully this can will actually last until Christmas Day...because I am awfully tempted to crack it so I can finally try craft beer in a can. But yes, THANKS RAY! Biero once again proves a treasure trove of good beer.

Also, last weekend the wife baked a trial run of Welsh Rarebit for our Christmas Lunch starter. Inspired by the rarebit found on the Red Hill Brewery menu, she first baked bread from scratch using the Bridge Road Brewers Beechworth Pale Ale and the sauce using the Jamieson Brown Ale. It all worked beautifully...

 Bread baked with Bridge Road Brewers Beechy Pale Ale.

Welsh Rarebit, cooked using the Jamieson Brown Ale.

In other Christmas beery news - I picked up an early Christmas present for myself from Slowbeer today:

The "Phoenix" Imperial Red Ale by Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company.

I am not normally one to splash out on such an expensive or high-end beer without really knowing anything about it...but I respect the recommendation of The Crafty Pint who notes "...we don't do reviews at Crafty, so we'll just say no self-respecting beer lover should miss this: Hargreaves Hill Phoenix"

"...there’s only 350 individually numbered, wax-sealed 750ml champagne bottles available and you really, really don’t want to miss out."

This very limited Imperial Red Ale has been brewed to mark the one year anniversary of Hargreaves Hill's return to brewing following the destruction of the original brewery in the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009.

I scored bottle No 45 of 350. They will not last long at all. So if you're keen to buy one...get along to the good beer shops very very soon! I think this particular bottle will do nicely to see in the new year.

And if you can not afford the Phoenix or miss out...then I highly recommend the latest Rare Breed offering from Mountain Goat, who have come full circle with their 4th release of their speciality seasonal brew. When they released their first Rare Breed just under a year ago, Mountain Goat started with an India Pale Ale, which is now back and just as deliciously brilliant as before. For only $10 a bottle, it is a special beer worth enjoying during these cooler Summer days!

The Mountain Goat Rare Breed India Pale Ale, December 2010 version. Fantastic!