Beer Cheese...

Tomorrow I am going to whomp up a generous recipe of one of my favorite guilty pleasures: "Kentucky Beer Cheese". Or,  "Snappy Cheese" as we used to call it in college days. There are few things in life better to eat than this.

So, to treat my readers to a simple, but other-worldly  feast, I share this secret recipe.

Our cousin Caroline Stout, from Carrolton, sent me the recipe and says that this, the original, came from The Cabbage Patch Cookbook, published in Louisville in 1952. If she says so, I'll believe it, but it may have been around the Bluegrass state long before that. In Kentucky great foods are like great stories. They just are. It has the feel of authenticity about it.

Here's the recipe:

2 lbs. good quality Cheddar Cheese.
2 cloves Garlic - minced
1 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp. Tabasco Sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1 bottle stale beer

Grind together the cheese, garlic and onion in a blender.

Mix in the Worcestershire, the Tabasco, the Cayenne, salt and beer until soft and well blended.

Put the Beer Cheese into small crocks and refrigerate, tightly covered, until ready to serve.

Carolyn has made up pounds and pounds of this for local functions. She has 1/2 onion in her recipe, which I omitted.

We like it on crackers with an appropriate beverage. Others swear by celery, radish or carrot sticks.

Comments

[Bob Woessner]

Your lifestyle is all wrong if you have stale beer.

[+ Alan]

Now, I think you have to be from Kentucky to actually use and mean the word "whomp" and make it sound right. I love it! ha! Thanks for this recipe. I may whomp me up a batch this week too.

[Beverly Swetnam]

You have no idea how excited I was to find this recipe. I too remember this from college days. I can still see my friends and I at Hall's Restaurant down on the river enjoying this while we waited for our lamb fries or catfish. Hall's always served theirs with celery, radish or carrots. This is the real deal.

Thank you so much.

[V R Fuson]

Thanks for the snappy cheese recipe-I've been looking for one.

Sometime ago c.1948, a merry band of malingerers and I would repair to the Mainspring Bar(corner of Main and Spring) in Lexington to enjoy this refreshing repast with stunning(pun intended)numbers of beers.

Ah! The dear dead days----

[halls on the river]

i have worked at halls for many years and i can tell you that only about 10 know how to make our beer cheese, and this is not the way to do it