Dark Starr Stout & Cheddar Soup

Beer, cheese, and crusty bread?  Yes, please!  Most beer-and-cheese soups feature an ale, but using Virginia's own Dark Starr Stout gave this soup a heartier taste and feel.  It features the stout, a sharp smoked cheddar, a few veggies, and some cream cheese to give it a velvety texture.

I made this a few nights ago during the first heavy snowfall in Charlottesville this year (followed, of course, by several oddly warm days).  I can't think of a song to better capture the ambient strangeness of nighttime snowfall that's melted away by springtime temperatures and warm breezes than a song from the Austin-grown "post-rock" favorites, Explosions in the Sky.  So here's "Snow and Lights", a track from their first album, How Strange, Innocence. 

Ingredients:

--1 bottle Dark Starr Stout (you could use any stout, but I wanted to use a local brew)

--8 oz. sharp smoked cheddar, shredded

--4 medium-sized Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and quartered

--1 head broccoli, washed and cut

--1 c. carrots, cut

--1 clove garlic, minced

--1 medium-sized white onion, chopped

--1 tbsp. unsalted butter

--48 oz. chicken broth (this is about 1 1/2 cartons if you buy it)

--1 8 oz. package cream cheese

A note about the vegetables: you'll want the potatoes, carrots, and broccoli to be cut into pieces of approximately the same size so that they'll cook evenly.

In a stockpot, heat butter on low, and sauté onion and garlic.  Increase heat to medium, and add the carrots and potatoes, followed by the Dark Starr Stout and the chicken broth.  Boil until carrots and potatoes have softened.  Add the broccoli, and allow to cook for another 10-15 minutes, until broccoli is soft.  

 (Check out the dark, velvety color of the stout!)

Remove from heat, and add the shredded cheddar and the cream cheese.  Whisk until the cheeses have been combined into the stock mixture.  Next, using an emulsion blender, puree all ingredients until you have a thick, creamy, and velvety soup.  (If you don't have an emulsion blender--this is one of the handheld stick blenders that you can put right in the pot--you can also use a traditional blender, transferring the stockpot mixture into a blender and then into soup bowls).  

I recommend serving warm with a piece of crusty sourdough.