Will You Bean Mine
Featuring Unfiltered Sculpin
Brewery: Ballast Point
ABV: 7.0%
IBU: 68
Style: India Pale Ale
Serve with: Corn Bread
The Saturated Sauna
I love beans. What do I mean by that? I mean I love this dish that my mother used to make which is just beans simmering in a pool of water all day with some pig pieces. I guess it is a bean soup. I just called it beans. I still refer to it as just beans. Every time someone mentions beans, I picture these beans.
What makes these beans so good is the abundance of fat. This dish was usually cooked after a big Christmas ham dinner or any time leftover ham was around. The ham provides the right amount of salt and a little fat, but the extra addition ham hock or pork knuckle opens up your gluttonous fat chakras and takes it to another level.
Unfiltered Fish
Ballast Point’s Unfiltered Sculpin provides you with all the wonders that you’d expect from this beer after all these years. An IPA that serves as a reminder for my curiosity towards craft beer (let’s not debate if BP is still considered craft here). So why not invite the hops into our saturated sauna.
Ingredients:
- 1 pound of the beans of your choosing (I used a 10 bean medley)
- 1 onion (chopped)
- 3 garlic cloves (minced)
- 1/2 cup Unfiltered Sculpin
- 4 1/2 cups of water
- Ham hock
- 1/2 inch slice of your favorite ham (cubed)
Directions:
- Soak your beans in water overnight if possible. Filter out the water and place soaked beans into a slow cooker along with your onions and garlic. Pour water into the slow cooker and let cook for 1 hour.
- Place your pig parts into the slow cooker and pour in your Sculpin. Cook in the slow cooker on low for an additional 7 hours. If you like, you can occasionally pepper your beans.
Forgotten Fat
Sculpin added its unique hops to the flavor thereby taking away from the fat. If I had to attempt to look at this objectively, I would say that the hops leveled out the greasiness that comes with the fat to provide a balance. But that isn’t me. I’m emotional. And I want my fat back. The addition to the Sculpin took away from the original Will you Be Mine recipe. I should probably give it its own name considering the change in flavor. Delicious! But nowhere near my childhood dish that I use as portal to the past.
