Beerbelly Beer Cheese Soup

Beer cheese soup is one of those dishes I first had when I was in graduate school, and it was ... fine.  I had it at a pub, and it was all right, nothing wrong with it, but it was just ... it was just fine, not earth-shattering or anything.  My partner loves it, though, so I went online and found a Wisconsin native's recipe for the stuff, and after several attempts and tweaks, now have a beer cheese soup that I will fight folks over.  It's just unnecessarily good.

For my own record, this iteration of the recipe originally had 2 carrots and 1 zucchini in it instead of the full dose of carrots because I'm the genius who goes to the store to buy carrots and a bag of sugar and comes home with neither item in my shopping bags.  GO ME.

Beerbelly Beer Cheese Soup

Note:  You need TWO soup-pots for this nonsense, and it's best if one of them is nonstick.

Ingredients
1 Tbsp olive oil
5 carrots, cut into 1/2" coins
1 lb Brussels sprouts, halved
3 stalks celery, plus their greens, chopped
1 large yellow or 2 small red potatoes, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
Dash salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp hot sauce (use Frank's, it's the best)
3 cups vegetable broth

1/3 cup butter (5 1/3 Tbsp)
1/3 cup flour (whole wheat is very nice here, as is white)
4 cups milk (3 cups + 1 cup cream is decadent)
16 oz Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
1 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

12 oz beer (IPAs and lagers work best, though wheats and triples are nice, too)


Instructions

• Locate your two soup-pots.  If you only have one that's non-stick, set it aside and use the other one first.
• Chop up all your veggies (carrots, Brussels sprouts, celery, potato, onion).  You want them to be approximately the same size, and you want that size to be bite-size.
• Heat oil in the pan over medium heat and add the veggies and salt.  Toss them around to coat them in oil, then lid them for around 2-3 minutes so they can cook and steam at the same time.
• Add the garlic and cook another minute, or until the garlic is fragrant.
• Add the hot sauce and broth.  Bring the whole thing to a boil.
• Boil 10-12 minutes, or until the veggies are appropriately softened.

While that's happening, make your cheese sauce.

• Grate your cheese, if you haven't already. You won't have a moment to do so before you need it.  Alternately, you can ask your sous chef (aka the one who gets to eat the soup) to grate it for you while you do the rest of the steps.
• In your nonstick pan, melt the butter over medium-low heat.
• Add the flour and stir with a spatula until it's all smooth in the butter.
• Gradually add the milk, a bit at a time, incorporating it with the spatula as you go.
• Once the milk is all added, bring the whole thing to a boil, stirring constantly.  It will thicken some, which is what we want.  This takes around 5 minutes (I think)
• Once it's boiled and bubbled for a minute, remove it from heat and add the cheese, stirring until it's smooth.
• Add the dijon, dry mustard, and Worcestershire sauce; stir them in, too.

The final step:

• Remove the veggie pot from heat and dump the cheese sauce into it, stirring to mix it all together.
• Pour the beer in and stir it up 'til it's all mixed.  Boom!  Done!

I like to serve mine with a side of beer bread and some roasted Brussels sprouts or roasted okra (made pretty much exactly like the sprouts, just with chopped okra instead of sprouts).  Biggest trouble I have with it, to be honest, is lack of self-control in taking seconds and thirds.  It's just that good.