German Beer Cheese Sauce
A German Style Beer Cheese Sauce, using and highlighting German style ales & lagers, with different Eastern European style cheeses.
| Servings | Prep Time |
| 4cup | 10minute |
| Cook Time |
| 30minute |
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Ingredients
- 6tablespoon butter, unsalted or fat, rendered,such as bacon fat, duck fat or pork fat
- 3each bay leavespreferably fresh
- 1teaspoon caraway, seedswhole
- 1cup onions, yellow or shallots,peeled and diced
- 6tablespoon flour, all-purpose
- 3cup beer, German Style,such as Roggenbier, Weizenbock, Märzen | Oktoberfest or Bock
- 2cup cream, heavy or whippingpreferably organic and not ultra pasteurized
- 10each peppercorns, blackwhole
- 6each cloveswhole
- 1/2teaspoon nutmeg,freshly grated
- 2cup cheese, gratedsuch as Comte, Emmentaler, Gouda, aged Cheddar, beer cheese or a mix | blend of cheeses
Instructions
- Melt the butter or fat in a heavy bottom saucepan over medium heat. Add the bay leaf, caraway seeds and the prepped onion or shallots, sautéing for 5 – 6 minutes until the onion is transparent. Add a pinch of salt, then dust the onions with the flour, stirring to make a roux. Cook the roux for 3 – 4 minutes, stirring continuously to prevent the flour from burning. Switching to a whisk, slowly pour in the beer, followed by the cream. Whisk to combine, making sure there are no lumps of roux. Bring the mixture to a simmer and adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Add the peppercorns, cloves and nutmeg. Whisk occasionally over the next 30 minutes as the flour flavor cooks out of the sauce.
- Strain the sauce through a sieve into a clean pot, removing the bay leaf, caraway seeds, cloves and peppercorns from the sauce. With the sauce off the heat, slowly whisk in the grated cheese. Adjust the seasoning to taste. This sauce can be made with virtually any German beer style (lower IBU styles work better). Depending on the final use, adjust the beer flavor with different types of cheese to highlight both elements, much like a beer and cheese pairing.