Beer Cheese Image Used Under Creative Commons License From southernliving.com
UPDATE on 9/29/20 – I was honored with Kentucky’s highest honor this month, an accolade given by the Governor of the Commonwealth himself! I speak of nothing less than being elected to receive the honorable title of Kentucky Colonel! Learn more about the award, its history and more here.
Citizens! Few things in this life or any other make me happier than a good beer cheese – don’t turn your nose up at this elemental but delicious recipe as it is truly delicious and savory to boot!
Beer cheese is a cheese spread most commonly found in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Similarly named cheese products can be found in other regions of the United States, but the spread itself is not widely distributed.
Despite this fact, the product is nearly ubiquitous in Kentucky. There are a number of different brands that are popular – most are similar in taste and texture. Fans of the snack usually have their favorite brand, and there are many homemade versions which use a wide variety of ingredients to add personalization.
Commercially-produced spread usually consists of a processed cheese base with a sharp cheddar flavor, while homemade varieties almost always start with sharp cheddar cheese.
To this, enough beer is added to provide flavor and texture, as well as garlic and a variety of spices including dry mustard, horseradish and cayenne pepper. Most varieties come in mild and hot versions, but all tend to have a strong garlic flavor. Beer cheese is traditionally served with saltine crackers, though it can be found served with various other crackers and crudités, most often as an appetizer.
While there are conflicting stories about beer cheese’s origins, it appears to have first been served in the 1940s at a restaurant in Clark County, Kentucky known as Johnny Allman’s. The owner of the restaurant, John Allman, credited the invention of the cheese spread to his cousin, Joe Allman, a chef in Phoenix, Arizona. Joe’s Southwestern influence is said by some to explain the spread’s spicy nature.
On February 21, 2013, the Kentucky Legislature decreed Clark County as the birthplace of beer cheese.
A Bluegrass State Institution, and a Cousin to Rarebit
Clark County has leaned all the way into that 2013 legislative designation, and the town of Winchester now hosts an annual Beer Cheese Festival every June, complete with a cook-off between local restaurants and vendors competing for bragging rights on the definitive recipe. That civic pride matters, because beer cheese occupies an unusual place in American regional food culture: it’s beloved and ubiquitous within a fairly narrow geographic footprint (Kentucky and the bordering counties of southern Indiana and Ohio) while remaining almost entirely unknown outside it, unlike more nationally famous regional exports such as Buffalo wings or Philly cheesesteaks.
Structurally, beer cheese belongs to the same broad family as Welsh rarebit and other beer-and-cheese preparations found across the British Isles and Central Europe, where a hard cheese is loosened and flavored with beer to make it spreadable or saucy. What sets the Kentucky version apart is that it’s almost always served cold or at room temperature as a dip rather than melted and poured hot over toast, and its assertive garlic-and-cayenne backbone gives it a sharper, spicier profile than its European rarebit cousins. My own version leans on a wedge of fiore sardo, an aged Sardinian sheep’s milk cheese that isn’t remotely traditional to Kentucky but adds a smoky, salty backbone the standard cheddar base doesn’t have on its own.
My version is updated with better cheeses and seasonings, ideal flavor balance and is a MUST for your Super Bowl party this Sunday! It’s also spectacular on a cheeseburger or used in mac and cheese, BTW.
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