Pumpkin Spice Beer Bread

so, we have a little problem.

Too much beer.

i know, that sounds like an odd problem, right?  but here's the thing.  Jordan?  he's a beer dork.  geek.  snob.  whatever you want to call it, the boy likes his beer.  and over the course of our relationship, he (and the bartenders at Pony Bar and the brewers from Captain Lawrence) has passed some of that on to me...  so when it was time to stock the bar for the wedding, we insisted on having 4 different kinds of beer.  2 of which required approximately 100 miles of driving to acquire.

yes, we have issues.

anyway, turned out that people didnt drink as much beer as we'd predicted so we have a LOT of it left.  More than we could drink.  and here's the kicker...  because we got 'special beers', its easy to get sick of it...  and also, its now winter and all the winter beers are out (winter warmer!  woo!).

and, and, and...

long story short?  we have about 3 or 4 cases of beer in our apartment.  (this is down from the 7 or 8 we had in october, so, SCORE!)

anyway, i was reading another blog the other day and the girl put out a call for recipes that involved beer...  and it got me thinking - if we cant drink all that beer before it goes bad, maybe we can eat it!  So i went searching for ideas...

There are lots of beer breads out there, but this particular beer bread recipe results from the fact that one of those cases of beer is Wolaver's Will Stevens' Pumpkin Ale.  (october wedding + my love of all things pumpkin + the fact that J & I bonded over pumpkin beer on our early dates + the fact that its organic - how could we not have had this one???)  Many of the beer breads out there are savory - calling for herbs, spices or cheese.  but none of those seemed right for a pumpkin ale, so i did some thinking and finally cobbled this one together...

The edges came out a bit chewy, but that might be because i didnt cool it very well...  but the inside is a nice, dense bread - not unlike a banana bread consistency - that makes an excellent snack & benefits nicely from a smear of butter.

1 down, 23 more pumpkin beers to go...  sigh.

---

Pumpkin Spice Beer Bread
courtesy of me

3 c all-purpose flour
1/3 c brown sugar (we used a combo of light & dark - use what you have)
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder
1 scant tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 bottle Wolavers Will Stevens' Pumpkin Ale
1/4 c butter, melted

***

Preheat oven to 375°

Prepare loaf pan by greasing with butter.  be generous but not gross.

In a bowl, mix the first 8 ingredients.  Make sure brown sugar is broken apart & integrated.

Pour in beer and watch it foam up, then mix until just combined.

Transfer to loaf pan.

Pour melted butter over top of the batter.

Bake ~ 45 mins, making sure cake tester (toothpick, knife, fork, whatever) comes out clean.

Transfer to wire rack to cool.


NOTE 1: I suspect that you could substitute 1 tbsp of pumpkin pie spice in for the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger if you so chose...

NOTE 2: You could take those first 8 ingredients and mix them up and then put them in a mason jar or tin-tie bag, put a bow on it, & present it with a bottle of pumpkin beer (and the directions) for a cute little DIY, beer-depleting gift...  (or party favor, which, if i didnt think i'd be made fun of for, i'd totally be doing for J's birthday tonight...)