Kentucky Ale Beer Cheese

Yes, dear friends, long and arduous is the gravel road I have traveled, lo, these many years to seek out prime examples of the uniquely Kentuckian tradition known as Beer Cheese.

Many times have I been on safari, deep in the heart of darkest Boonesboro, making my way through a sea of drunken river rats with lunch in their beards, salty women whose hair smelled of Suave conditioner and fried chicken, disreputable hillbilly mechanics in back rooms of garages in parts of Madison County that bear no name, and smoky rural diners with yellowing countertops and teeth. I've nocturally traversed tick-filled weedy farmlands with justified and ancient cornfields, and I've slogged knee-deep in black rotten stinking creek mud to get from Point A to Point Beer Cheese, ever seeking what's around the next corner, the next door, the next tree, the next quantum particle.

And I did it all for you, dear reader; your humble servant am I. Selah.

In the course of these scholarly duties and advanced Appalachian studies, this jaded palate has experienced it all - or so I thought. But Kentucky Ale Beer Cheese is a new taste sensation for me.

It differs from the lowbrow pepperiness of Southern Salads and the steady, stoic blandness of Hall's store-bought spread and the Popeye-muscled horseradish power of River Rat. The synergy of Kentucky Ale with this Beer Cheese somehow gives a downright mustard-like tang. Sure enough, there it is in the ingredients: mustard powder. Beauty!

The texture is grainy, not gloppy, and - this is the mark of a truly worthy Beer Cheese - it makes me wanna ditch the crackers and just eat the damn stuff right oughta the tub with a butter knife.

Funny thing is, I don't even particularly care for Kentucky Ale as a beer. One of the little ironies of life in the commonwealth. (Now, their super-fancy Bourbon-barrel ale is a whole 'nother story. Mmmmm, that's the stuff!)

- - JSH