Taking a backseat

Actually, it's always the passenger seat for me, but what I’m getting at is a metaphorical backseat when it comes to cooking with beer. As much as I like experimenting with beer in the kitchen, what I really like is having someone else do the beer cookery. You know, someone who actually knows what they're doing. Recently I've been to a few of the places that do great things with beer and food, and I felt like sharing (and raving) about them. I guess this is a bit of a personal journey story for me too, as I revisit some of the places that inspired me to try my hand at cooking with beer.

Holgate Brewery – Woodend

It all started for me at the Keatings Hotel in Woodend, home of the Holgate Brewery. This as the first brewery that the husband and I visited and we both had epiphanies of different sorts. His was about the beer, or more accurate a beer, a beer called Big Reg - a Vienna lager, which was once bottled, but is now only a seasonal release (but will hopefully be bottled again!). My light bulb moment was more about the food. The menu is full of items that use the brewery’s own beers (and occasionally the by-products), and it goes way beyond the old standard of beer-battered fish.

Since that first time, we’ve tried to get back there to eat and drink whenever possible. It’s a bit of a drive, which does make the drinking part difficult for at least one person. However, we recently discovered it only takes an hour on the train and you can drink as much as you like, as long as you can stumble back to the train station.

Such is our love for this place and its warm pub atmosphere, fantastic brews and beery food, we decided to spend our first wedding anniversary there. Oh, did I not mention that you can actually stay there, right above the pub and brewery? You can’t beat that for convenience!

We had our anniversary dinner in the dining room, and I think all the dishes we ordered used beer in some way. We started with some beer bread to share, made with the wonderful Temptress Chocolate Porter. This is not the yeasty style bread (like the type I blogged about right at the start), but the quick and easy beer bread. It’s less elastic and more crumbly,  like a savory cake really. However it is still incredibly delicious, especially when served warm with the porter butter. On this occasion the bread had also been made using the spent grain from the day’s brew.

For my main, I chose from the specials board, as I could not go past a risotto made with squid ink and the Big Reg lager. The waitress made sure she warned me that it was black – I guess not everyone might realize that squid ink is really…inky. It came topped with basa goujons (that's food speak for 'fish bites' I think). The risotto itself was just right, with that little extra flavor that I find beer lends a dish, and the goujons were possibly the crispiest fish bites I have ever have. I swear you could have heard the crunch across the room.
The husband treated himself to the kangaroo marinated in ESB, which came on a tasty bed of salad. Now is confession time for me – it looked and smelled so good, I had to take a bite outta skippy. It would seem that after a few pints of Big Reg and ESB I am open to the concept of eating our national emblem. It was actually not as bloody as I expected – I found the flavor quite subtle although the texture was a little chewy.

As it was a special occasion, we both ordered desserts. Mine was the porter fruitcake, I think with crème anglaise (things are getting hazy by now), while the husband went with the chocolate beetroot cake with ganache. They were both decadent, without being too much. The perfect end to the meal.

Red Hill Brewery – Red Hill

The next chapter in my beer-food journey concerns Red Hill Brewery. Sitting about two hours out of Melbourne, with no public transport and limited accommodation options in the immediate area, it's almost impossible to get there without a designated driver. However, it’s well worth the journey for the food alone. It has more of a restaurant / café feeling, with a light airy bar area and a huge outdoor deck nestled among the trees. While I’ve had a multitude of fantastic meals there, there is one thing I always order without fail – the Welsh Rarebit.

This is a classic beer-food dish and on paper is not really that special – just fancy cheese on toast, right? Yeah, but the cheese, it has beer in it. Let me just make that clear for you….it’s CHEESE with BEER in it. There is more than beer – there’s mustard and paprika and leeks too. To top if off (or more accurately, bottom it off…but no one says that) they use fantastic local baked bread. This would have to be my ultimate comfort food. The cheese sauce is creamy and packed with tangy flavor and a little spicy bite. I think I raved about it so much on one visit that the lovely Karen Golding actually gave me the recipe. I have made it at home, but its not the same really. Maybe it’s something about sitting out on the big deck with a beer, relaxing with that feeling of ‘all is well in the world’.

The Local Taphouse – St Kilda

As far as both Holgate and Red Hill are, I think we have visited them both more than this iconic beer pub located in St Kilda. To get there either involves an hour on a tram, or someone willing to battle with traffic on Punt Road. It’s a shame though, because they put a lot of thought and beer into the food they serve. I only really discovered this when we attended an excellent Good Beer Week event there, and not only did every single course contain beer (and some amazing beers too), but they really bent over backwards to look after this non-red-meat eater (that was before the skippy incident, okay?). I was pretty blown away by it and was lucky enough to bend the ear of one of the owners. I discovered they are very passionate about beer food and educating their kitchen staff in the use of beer in cooking, and yet they don’t make an issue out of it.

A great example of their work is a dessert we were served at the most recent Barley’s Angels meeting. It was a stout panna cotta, with strawberries macerated in Framboise and a barley malt brittle. It was A-MAZ-ING. Every element was seriously good. I expected the panna cotta to have a heavy, bitter flavor to it, but there was no bitterness at all. The sweetness was off-set by the slight sourness of the strawberries…and the barley malt brittle? It was just plain good – crunchy caramelized sugar coated barley good.

There are a growing number of places who are using beer and by-products in their dishes now, popping up all over Australia. I can highly recommend all the places I’ve mentioned, but there are plenty of places still on my to do list as well. If you are into beer and food, you should definitely pay a visit to these or any of the other establishments who are exploring the uses of beer in the kitchen.

Gardeners Pie (No Shepherds required)

Yes, this is another vegetarian recipe. Don’t act surprised, and before the carnivores all walk out in a huff I should point out that I actually had a request for more Vegetarian recipes. I am always both shocked and amazed when I discovered that someone has actually read the blog and taken the time to give me feedback, so I am more than happy to take their requests on board. It is certainly no problem for me to cook more vegetarian food. The good news for lovers of all things meaty is that once again you can use meat if you really want to.


Shepherds pie is made with lamb and cottage pie is made with beef, right? I’m going to call this ‘Gardeners Pie’ since its chock full of vegetable good ness. There was a suggestion it could be called ‘Brewers’ Pie’ as well, because I ended up using two different styles of beer in the finished product. Next time I might try for three.


This is one of the easiest pies in the world to make, due to the lack of pastry. You could put it in a pastry shell if you want, but it’s not necessary. It’s just a case of making the delicious savoury filling, covering it with delicious mashed potato and baking it the oven until delicious. I upped the delicious ante on this one by using Sean ‘Homebrew Chef’ Paxton’s roasted garlic IPA mash on top. This magic mash converted my mash-hating husband into a mash-lover, thus is the power of beer.

As it seems to be the case in most of my recipes, I just happened to have an appropriate bottle of beer in my cupboard - the Bridge Road Robust Porter. Porters are fantastic for cooking savoury dishes of both the vegetarian and meaty kinds, as they have the dark roasty flavour without being overly bitter. For the mash I used a Lobethal India Pale Al, but have made the same mash successfully with other IPAs. Only a small amount is used in the mash, so bitterness isn’t an issue. The hoppier the better though.


What to plant in your pie:

1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup diced shallots (or 1 medium brown onion, diced finely)
3 cloves garlic, diced finely
1 large carrot, grated
2 stalks celery, diced
½ cup frozen peas
½ cup frozen corn
1 bag quorn mince (or the equivalent amount of minced meat)
1 can brown lentils
1 bottle of porter
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon thyme*
1 tablespoon rosemary*
1 tbsp cornflour, mixed to a paste in 1 tbsp cold water
Salt & pepper

*I just happened to have these herbs on hand. You could sub them out for others – sage, bay leaf, parsley. Again its up to what you like or what you have.


The Mash Mulch (based on the Homebrew Chef recipe):

450g potatoes
1 head of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 sprigs thyme
Salt & pepper
½ cup butter
½ cup heavy cream
2-4 tablespoons IPA

Start by preparing the garlic for the mash. Preheat your oven to 150C.  Remove as much of the papery outside skin from the head of garlic as you can, then cut enough of the top of the head off in order to expose the tops of each clove.  Place it in the middle of a square of aluminium foil and drizzle olive oil over the top. Add a sprig of thyme and season with a little salt and pepper before wrapping up in a nice little parcel. Put on a baking tray and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

While the garlic is cooking, chop up your potatoes and place them in a pot, covered with cold water. Place on a high heat and bring to the boil. Cook until they are soft enough to pierce easily. Drain well and mash until smooth. (Or if you are fancy enough to have a ricer, put them through that.)

By now the garlic should be done (the original recipe says you know when it done, because the aroma will fill your entire house. It really does, and it is awesome!). Take it out of the oven, open the foil and allow to cool for five minutes.  Squeeze the cloves out of their skins and into a bowl, then mash with a fork until smooth.

In a small saucepan, place the butter, cream and 2 sprigs of thyme on to medium heat.  Bring to a boil, then turn down to low and simmer for 10 minutes.  Remove the thyme and add garlic paste and whisk to combine. Simmer another three to five minutes, then remove from the heat and add salt and pepper, and your IPA. Add the garlic cream to the mashed potatoes and fold in.  You might want to add half first, then check the flavour to see if it needs more garlic or IPA. I generally add the whole amount, but I like both garlic and hops.


Cultivating your pie:

Turn your oven to 180 degrees.

Slice and dice all of your vegetables. In a large saucepan, put 1 tablespoon of olive oil on low heat and sauté your onion and garlic until soft. Add the Quorn, breaking it up and cook until defrosted. Add the rest of the vegetables, stirring to combine, and cook for five or so minutes. (If you are using mince meat, add at the same time as you would add the quorn and cook well before adding the vegetables.)

Add the beer, Worcestershire sauce, herbs, tomato paste and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer for about 5 minutes, then add the cornflour paste and stir well. Allow to simmer until the sauce reduces and thickens nicely.

When the filling is ready, take your pie dish (or several small ones) and fill ¾. Top with the garlic IPA mash and ‘rake’ the surface with a fork. Some people might also put cheese on top, but considering the butter and cream in the mash, that could be considered overkill.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until the top has browned and filling is bubbling up around the edges.

You could serve with a green salad if you want even more veggies, or with some warm beer bread rolls if you'd like some extra carbs. As for beer, pair with something along the lines of a brown ale, or more porter - something dark, but not too serious.