Mad River Brewing - Steelhead Extra Stout in Shepard's Pie

Happy St. Patrick's day!!!  Tis the day of green beer, drunk businessmen, and over consumption of Guinness draught stout and corned beef with cabbage.  Yay for turning an Irish holiday into a marketing ploy beer companies.. Congratulations!  I cant say that I haven't played into it.  I love the holiday.  It gives me an excuse to show up to work with green stained lips!  It also gives me an excuse to cook some delicious food with stout beer.  And that brings us to tonights post.  A deviation of a traditional Shepard's pie slow cooked with Mad River's extra stout.  Lets start with how we made tonights delicious concoction.

From what I understand, Shepard's pie is normally made with chopped lamb.  Well since we are poor, and I listen to everything the internet tells me, we decided to go with ground beef instead of lamb.  This morning we busted out the crock pot and threw in a pound of 96/4 ground beef, coined carrots, minced shallots, frozen peas, garlic, rosemary, Italian seasoning, beef stock and a 12 oz bottle of stout.  After work, instead of coming directly home to tend to the deliciousness simmering in the crock pot, we decided to partake in some Jameson and green beer.  Huzzah!  After some high fives and Prost's, we came back home and added the final touches.  Mashed potatos were layered on top of the ingredients simmered in the crock pot along with a nice hefty layer of low fat, skim mozzarella (the healthy portion of tonights meal).  Throw that under the broiler for 10 minutes and you get this...

Kinda looks like poo but its so good!

Oh baby!  So delicious.  Creamy potatos and cheese mixed with tender ground beef, carrots, peas and onions.  You get a slight hint of roast with the stout base along with a strong beef flavor to blend everything together.  This meal is a dream for any meat and potatos guy.  I could eat the whole damn pot!  Now, of course I decided to crack open another bottle of the beer used within the meal to compare the flavors.  Lets see how this brew stands on its own.

Deep black with a dark tan/brown head.  A roasty, bittersweet chocolate aroma is present after letting it sit for a few minutes.  A mild, underlying waft of dark fruits make themselves known as I take my first drink.  Generally roasty, bitter and nicely balanced.  A slight sweetness comes through as the beer finishes.  No alcohol to be found and a medium carbonation brings the mouthfeel right in line with what you would expect from a run of the mill extra stout.

Overall, Delicious - This meal was awesome.  I loved every bite of it.  I think you could have used any stout with this recipe but a dryer, less sweet stout would accentuate the flavors of the Shepards pie the best.  Something sweet would drown out the more subtle flavors of the meal.  As for the beer, its a solid brew.  Something that I would drink again when I'm in the mood for a roasty, semi-sweet and easy to drink stout.  Nothing memorable but something that I could go back to given the opportunity.