Beer & Bones

The BLT is hands down one of the most perfect sandwiches known to man, elegant in its simplicity, yet full of flavor and open to variation. At its core you have five very simple ingredients, yet within those five ingredients you have limitless possibilities to explore and alter, which is what I decided to do one recent Thursday night while at home in the beer cave.

I’d recently taken delivery of a half pound of Benton’s Hickory Smoked Country Bacon which is regarded by some as the Cadillac of bacons. No Oscar Mayer jive here, this bacon comes in strips over a foot long and is as thick as a stack of post it notes. Not a bad place to start my experimental sandwich. I also wanted to use this occasion to crack open a bottle of New Holland Brewing’s Charkoota Rye smoked doppelbock, which I brought back from a recent Chicago trip and has been waiting for an appropriate time to open that involved pork.

I assembled my basic ingredients, including the aforementioned bacon, a loaf of San Luis Sourdough, an heirloom tomato and some butter lettuce.

For the other basic ingredient, the mayo, I decided to do a variation on a remoulade, starting with about two spoonfuls of mayo, followed by a generous dash of balsamic vinegar and a dime sized dollop of creamed horseradish. The bacon itself is pretty smoky and rich and I felt that the sweetness of the vinegar would play well with it while not being too overpowering. I whisked it up for two minutes and ended up with something that looked halfway pretty.

I fired up the cast iron griddle and let it heat for a good 5 minutes before I slapped four beautiful slabs of bacon onto it, filling the air with the essence of a Tennessee smokehouse. This stuff was thick, so it didn’t cook as quickly as your standard variety of bacon, so I figured 8-10 minutes should do the trick. While the bacon sizzled away, I halved some brussel sprouts and let them cook cut side down in the bacon grease. If you’ve never cooked brussel sprouts in bacon grease, it is one of life’s simple culinary pleasures. While this went on, I diced up the heirloom tomato and butter lettuce that would serve as the “L” and the “T” of the BLT.

As this was going on, I cracked my bomber of Charkoota Rye, figured that I don’t have to be eating to start enjoying this gem of a beer. I poured it into a snifter style glass to accentuate the aromas of this mighty doppelbock, which I liken to putting your head over the fire at a pig roast and inhaling deeply. The beer pours a very dark brown body with a subdued head that quickly disappears, not a lot of initial carbonation here. The flavor is, you guessed it, smokey! It also has a deep malty flavor with hints of wood, bacon, molasses, tobacco and even plum. Starts smooth, smokey and sweet but has a boozy kick towards the end. To some extent the initial flavors remind me a bit of Gouden Caroulis Classic, which while not even in the same family of beers, has strong characteristics of plums and booze and a similar sweet but heavy finish. Apparently for this one, New Holland used rye and four other malts, including barley that has been smoked over cherry wood. I believe it.

After a few sips of the good stuff I pulled the brussel sprouts off the griddle and threw them in a pan, doused them with a hit of Sriracha and some sea salt and set them on the burner. The bacon fat made a nice base for sauteing and the sriracha lent a much needed spice to the richness of the bacon fat.

I also pulled my bacon off, patted it dry and began to assemble the glorious BLT. Excitement and strong beer were in the air. While the bacon was delicious, the sandwich was good but nothing special. Sometimes you just can’t top the simple classics. The Charkoota Rye paired nicely with the bacon and brought out its, well, bacon-iness much better than a more standard beer would have. It truly is a beer meant to be enjoyed while eating part of a pig but it is by all means a heavy beer. I had trouble killing the bomber and would definitely not have more than one of these at a pub. The brussel sprouts were a little too soggy from the fat, but were golden and tasty nonetheless and gave a spicy kick to an otherwise pork coma inducing meal. What did I learn? That sometimes fancier ingredients does not mean better and that sometimes bacon, a perfect food, can even be made better with the right beer pairing.

This entry was posted on August 25, 2011 at 12:29 am and is filed under Beer, Bocks, Food . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.