Cold Winter Nights

Deep dark malty winter warmers

Brew: Seeing as how Pinky wrote about her wonderful weather and the beers she's enjoying with it, I thought I'd talk about the deep, dark, malty stouts, porters and ales that I'm surrounding myself with, to keep warm, heading into winter.


There's definitely something that comes along with the cold weather that screams for smooth rich dark malty ales, as well as a good pie. So at the risk of this blog being overwhelmed by cupcakes, I figured I'd also take the opportunity to balance this out with a recipe for one of the best uses of beer in a recipe I've come across, Steak and Oatmeal Stout pies, and a matching beer from one of my favourite breweries.

Steak, Onion & Oatmeal Stout pies w. XS Imperial Porter - Rogue - USA - 8.2%

I'm going to make this brief so I can get back to talking about the important stuff: beer. But don't let my impatience take away from the magnitude of these pies, because they're truly amazing.

You'll need:

• 800g sliced steak
• 750ml Oatmeal Stout
• 2 diced onions
• 2 stock cubes
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• shortcrust pastry
• flour

Brown the diced onions and steak in vegetable oil. Add the beer and stock cubes and reduce down for 45 minutes to 1 hour, add a few tablespoons of flour to help thicken it up if you need to. Cut the pastry into circles for the pie bases and lids. Put the bases in a lightly greased pie tray. Add the pie filling, and brush the top of the pastry edges with the whisked egg to seal the lids to the bases. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C until the pies brown, approx 10-15 minutes.

Did I mention how short I was going to make this? Yep. Good. Now I can get back to talking about beer.