What's a girl to do with all this Guinness?

Oh, let me count the ways in which to answer this post's burning question:

Besides the obvious 1. Drink the Guinness as it should be drank and 2. Make a Black and Tan, I had saved up quite a few recipes that had more creative approaches to serving and, dare I say, baking Guinness.

3. Beer Bread
My boyfriend and I decided to try our luck at baking and make ourselves some Beer Bread. In the good hands of a recipe shared by online drinking buddy, Greg, we had a super simple recipe that needed only three ingredients, including the beer! Three ingredients?! I think even I can handle that...

Beer Bread is ready to go in the oven, with another beer poured, rewarding me for all my baking efforts! ;)

Fresh out of the oven Beer Bread.

4. Black Velvet
So I think we're all pretty familiar with the Guinness layered with another beer (Bass, et. al), but I had never thought to combine Guinness and some bubbly! Serious Eats recently had resurrected Paul Clarke's post on the Black Velvet cocktail, a cocktail that actually contains no hard liquor at all!

While Paul's recipe actually says to serve this drink in a Collins glass, there was still something oh so appealing about pouring Guinness into a champagne glass.

I hope these suggestions for using Guinness have come in handy for that 6-pack sitting in your fridge. If you have more suggestions, please feel free to share your comments.

Cheers!
SJ

OVAL Vodka Launch Party

Last week Oval vodka officially kicked off in Georgia with a huge bash at Opera Nightclub in Atlanta. The launch party drew in over 1,000 guests and E! Entertainment Television was there filming for their new show “Wild on VIP,” hosted by Mark Long and Trishelle Cannatella from MTV’s Road Rules and Real World. In one segment, Mark & Trishelle learn how to make an Oval cocktail and get to taste-test the results! The show will air on E! in late November (more updates when I get an exact date).

Also in attendance was Jamal Anderson, former Atlanta Falcons running back, who got the crowd going with a guest spot as emcee. All the bars in the club were stocked with Oval Vodka, and the VIP section featured Oval bottle service and premium cocktails. The club’s several flat screen televisions ran Oval’s distillation animation on loop throughout the night. The party was a great success. Thanks Atlanta, for the southern hospitality!

Beer Cocktails

Great presentation by Stephen Beaumont on beer cocktails. Certainly a category we've heard a lot of talk about but Steve did a great job of presenting the category in an understandable way: they fall into three different types: 1) beer blends (e.g. black and tan which by the way is an American, not Irish invention), 2) Spirits, juice or wine with normal size beer and 3) Beer as flavoring agent in traditional cocktails. Some general guidelines Steve noted are that ales work better than lager in cocktails and bitter beers, especially IPA's take spirits better, especially rum. Lighter beers do well with fruit juice. One of the best combinations is Weissbier and fresh squeezed OJ.Regarding wine cocktails he advised that since hops are naturally tannic, so don't try to pair with highly tannic wines like Cabs. And when mixing spirits and beer, measurement is critical...absolutely do not free pour. One of the recipes we tasted was great, The Green Devil. 1 oz. Martin Miller's Gin, 2 drops Absinthe and one bottle of Duvel (he told us it's pronounced Du' vel)I asked Steve later for a recco with Heineken and he suggested trying something like Chartreuse and also maybe some light fruit juices.