The last time that I drank beer regularly was for a quarter a cup in frat basements. Cold, damp and often leaving the white laces of my shoes tea-stained in spilled Natty Light. I drank from a red plastic cup that my boyfriend had been ashing his Pall Mall in; I didn't drink beer for three years after that.
Somewhere down the line of being back in Pennsylvania, I began to drink a beer with my father. Once by the pool deck on the Fourth of July, then weekly at a local restaurant. For years, we didn't talk much; we racked it up to not a lot in common. But slowly I opened up to him and slowly he listened more than I thought he would. He likes Coors Light. I buy him two and I stuck with Blue Moon, which runs about $2 during Happy Hour in my hometown.
My mother started coming out with us. She always had a story to tell about a relative I thought had died a long time ago. If you stop talking about people in my family, it's because they either wronged you in some arbitrary way or they died a few years ago, going unnoticed by my adolescent caprice. We liked to order spaghetti with extra garlic. I always bought the drinks. She had what I was having and one summer my father had to drive us home, we were both so drunk from Happy Hour and hearing the news of my brother's wife's pregnancy.
I moved back out of my parents' place after a year there and I miss those weekly traditions. They had to cancel their trip out next Tuesday, afraid of a snowstorm and my dad can't see very well at night. I planned on making this bread for them, but I'll hold off a week until I know they're coming, to surprise them and let them know that I wasn't unhappy the year I spent with them, I just readjusted myself a little harder to the world I grew up in.
Blue Moon Beer Bread
Recipe adapted from here, though the ratios are similar to many others out there. I think this is possibly the easiest quick bread in the world. Make sure to try out other beers as well, but I would omit the orange, cinnamon, and use white instead of brown sugar.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour
- 3 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- A pinch of cinnamon
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 1 bottle Blue Moon
- 8 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
- Orange or clementine, sliced for garnish
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375*F and prepare a loaf pan with butter and parchment
- Sift together flour, soda, cornstarch, cinnamon, and sugar
- Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon
- Pour your beer into the center of the well and stir
- Add butter
- Mix well and pour into your loaf pan
- Top with slices of orange and bake for 1 hour
- Remove and allow to cool before eating (you don't have to eat the oranges--they're just garnish!)
