theLABkitchen

I know this sounds crazy, but beer soaked apple pie is really good, well so long as you like beer and apple pie, and I really like beer and apple pie!

This recipe was invented when beer appreciation night was combined with pie night. Yes, I have awesome friends and we hold such events. So I thought let’s combine beer and pie, that seems like it can only make things better and being me, I challenged myself to combine beer into a sweet pie because clearly a savoury beer pie was just too easy. And hence, beer soaked apple pie was born.

What a good looking pie!

There are a few tricks to getting this to work, the most important of which is to get a beer that suits. I know they say you should always cook with your best wine, but let’s be honest, you usually use cheap plonk and drink the good stuff, but it is imperative for beer soaked apple pie to get the right beer. Surprisingly the beer is not a cider (that might work, I haven’t tried it, but it would have been cheating for beer appreciation night).

My preference is Moo Brew Pale Ale, I have made this pie twice with Moo Brew with spectacular results and this time I made it with 4 Pines Pale Ale which was a bit stronger in the final pie but still a cracking good dessert. What you are looking for is a good quality beer (something that is made with good ingredients), that has a clean taste, is a little hoppy, so a pale ale seems to work well.

The beer is not actually cooked into the final pie, the chopped apple just rests in the beer for a few hours to take on the flavours and characteristics of the beer. So your final pie doesn’t taste much like beer, but it is a little yeasty, a little hoppy and a little malty. So it really is almost like using the beer like a bouquet garni for apple pie.
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