Beer Cheese Soup with Garlic Butter Crostini

One of my favorite soups is beer cheese soup. I pretty much order it anytime I find it on a menu. I remember the first time I had it at Tampa Bay Brewing Company. The concoction was a delicious combination of fantastic cheese with a tasty underlying punch of beer. It quickly became one of my favorites.

I was enjoying getting back into the kitchen while we were at the ranch. I decided to make beer cheese soup. I looked at several recipes. The first was complicated and used ingredients that were expensive and not readily available. I found another recipe from Jeff Mauro on the Food Network website. It was more straightforward, and most of the ingredients I already had on hand.

Beer Cheese Soup

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 carrots, finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, finely diced
½ teaspoon dry mustard powder
Pinch cayenne pepper
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken stock
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 bottle Pabst Blue Ribbon
2 cups shredded sharp yellow cheddar
1 cup shredded gruyere
½ cup half-and-half

Garlic Butter Crostini

½ baguette, sliced into 12 thin slices on the diagonal
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Kosher salt
1 clove garlic

The first night I attempted the soup was a no-go. I was happy I read through the recipe before starting. It required an immersion blender, which I did not have. It would have been horrible to get halfway through cooking the soup to realize I couldn’t finish it. (Handy tip: Always read through the entire recipe before you start cooking.)

The next day Cousin Chris was able to access a regular blender. I chopped up my vegetables, shredded the cheeses, and started cooking.

I melted the butter in a stockpot on medium heat. I added the carrots, celery, onions, mustard powder, and cayenne and sprinkled the vegetables with salt and pepper. I cooked the vegetables, continually stirring, for about 15 minutes until they were tender.  I added the garlic at the last minute.

I sprinkled the flour over the vegetables and continued to cook them for another minute, continuing to stir them. I poured the stock in and added the mustard and Worcestershire. I let the mixture simmer for about 15 minutes until the vegetables were very soft. I poured the beer in and continued to simmer for about five minutes.

The recipe calls for using an immersion blender to puree the soup until it is smooth. Using a regular blender is a little different. Anytime you add hot liquids to a blender, you risk an explosion when you start the blender. To prevent this, I added a bit of the soup at a time. I also made sure to hold the lid on the blender with a towel.

When the soup was smooth, I returned it to the stockpot and added the cheeses and half-and-half. I stirred it together until the cheese was melted and smooth. I adjusted the level of salt and pepper to taste.

Once the soup was ready, I made garlic butter crostini. The recipe calls for a grill pan, which I did not have. Instead, I used a cast-iron frying pan. I brushed the baguette slices with butter on both sides and sprinkled them with salt. I toasted both sides of the bread until they were golden brown, which only took a few minutes on each side. I rubbed the bread with garlic and served the soup topped with the crostini.

The soup has a rich, creamy texture with a lovely hint of beer flavor. It has 500 calories, 42 grams of carbs, 2 grams of fiber, 20 grams of protein, and 34 grams of fat per serving.