Beer Cheese!

Sometimes you just feel like being bad. 

I cook for a lot of reasons--virtue isn't one of them. There are enough (white) people in the world finding their morality through food. You will see them reading Michael Pollan, doing things with blenders and kale, paying more for a story about their bacon's cozy death, forgoing sex for yoga, and not eating beer cheese.
But--
Beer cheese. BEER CHEESE.  As soon as I heard of it, I had to make it. And it is everything I ever dreamed beer cheese could be: it's sharp, creamy, cheesy, hoppy, and utterly, utterly delicious in the worst way. It's like the adult version of that gloppy yellow cheese from a can you used to get on your nachos at the roller rink.
I baked some pretzels to dip into it.
So, so, so good. Just to increase the lack-of-virtue pleasure factor of this amazing snack, I served it for the Bachelorette finale viewing party. Terrible tv, amazingly terrible gooey food--a great night.

Yes.

And it's easy! This can be whipped up in ten minutes.

Ingredients 

1 can or bottle of beer (I use Yella Pils from Oskar Blues)
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
5 tablespoons cream cheese
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
sprinkle of cayenne
sprinkle of mustard powder
sprinkle of smoked paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Beer cheese ingredients

This pre-shredded cheddar is FANCY.

What to do 

Dice the onion and add it to a medium saucepan with a tablespoon of butter. Sweat the onions in the butter until they're translucent, and just barely starting to caramelize, about 7 minutes.
Sprinkle the tablespoon of flour onto the butter and onions. Mix it around to cook the flour for about 3 more minutes.
Pour the beer into the pan. Scrape all around the edges, getting up the burned bits of onion and flour. Bring to a boil.
Get your wire whisk. Turn the heat down to low. Add the cheese, a little at a time, while whisking constantly. The only lumps should be the diced onions and bits of minced garlic.
Sprinkle in the cayenne, mustard, and smoked paprinka (A 1/4 teaspoon of each?) just a small sprinkle. Whisk in.
Cover until using. Serve warm, ideally with soft pretzels, but anything could be yummy to dip in: small hard pretzels, crackers, etc.

This was awesome!
Save virtue for work--pleasure is for home.
Make beer cheese as soon as you can.
Enjoy!