Cheddar Pumpin Ale Soup

Unfortunately it’s still winter, so it’s pretty cold and dreary…in good news, it’s still soup season!

This soup  was inspired by a cheddar ale soup I had at a California Food and Wine Festival last year. When I decided to remake it I thought “why not add pumpkin ale?”. Let’s be honest everything in the cold months is better with pumpkin. I also reduced the amount of cream and butter in it to be easier on the stomach, and gave it a tiny kick of heat in the end to really warm things up.

Cheddar Pumpkin Ale Soup

Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 35 minutes

• 1 stick Unsalted butter, 1/2c.
• 1sm. Sweet onion
• 2 Celery sticks
• 1/2c. Flour
• 2c. Chicken stock
• 1 bottle Pumpkin ale, 12oz
• 1c. Heavy cream
• 8oz. Sharp white cheddar
• 1tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2tsp. Cayenne pepper
• Salt and Pepper TT
• 4 slices Bacon, chopped
• 1/4c. Chives, chopped

1. Mise en place. Small dice the onion, chop the celery, shred the cheese.
2. In a large pot over medium-high heat, melt the butter.
3. Sauté the onion and and celery until cooked.
4. Mix in the flour and cook for a few minutes to get out the raw flour taste.
5. Using a whisk slowly stir in the chicken stock, until smooth. Doing this step slowly ensures there won’t be any flour chunks.
6. Stir in the pumpkin ale and heavy cream. Simmer for 20 minutes.
7. Turn off the heat and whisk in the sharp white cheddar until melted.
8. Carefully ladle the soup into a blender, don’t overfill the blender! Doing this step in batches is recommended.
9. Blend until smooth.
10. On the last blender batch add the worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper, mix this batch in with the rest of the soup.
11. Put over low heat, and salt to taste.
12. Top with chopped bacon and chives and serve.

I would highly recommend some good toasted sour dough bread with this soup, enjoy!