Food & Beer Friday :: Squirrelly + the Woods.

First, I am over the moon to have Sarah from Exploring Woods co-hosting Food & Beer Friday with me!  Sarah is a fellow beer lover and lives close to Bell's Brewery.  She is the sweetest, and I'm thrilled she agreed to host with me.  This will be an official link-up and will be posted on both of our blogs.  Come and link-up your beer reviews, food reviews, recipes, etc.!  The link-up will be live through the weekend.

New Glarus Brewing is a pretty cool brewery out of Wisconsin.  While they don't distribute down in NC, D has brought back some beers from his visit to the brewery.  The Fat Squirrel is a nut brown ale, and you know I love a brown ale!  Conveniently, I also love nuts {you know the kind that squirrels like}.  The Fat Squirrel is definitely hopped up.  New Glarus has hops from three different countries brewed within this beer.  Hazelnut is their nut of choice.  While the pictures don't accurately depict it, this brew is an amber-brown in color with a caramel head to it.

My first impressions were the hops in Fat Squirrel.  I definitely got a nutty flavor in the aftertaste.  The hops weren't overwhelming though.  This beer isn't as rich as last week's brown ale, and I certainly wouldn't want to pair it with chocolate either.  At 5.5% alcohol, you should pair this beer with a grilled meal on a spring evening!  It won't be too hot for you to reach for the lightest beer you have, and there is just enough backbone to accompany a juicy steak (although my vegetarian side doesn't like to advocate for steaks, so maybe a hearty portobella would do just as well).

While this beer won't have me running to Wisconsin any time soon, it's definitely tasty!  Some of my other New Glarus favorites include the Spotted Cow and Raspberry Tart (maybe for you non-beer drinkers?).  I'm also dying to get someone to pick up the Coffee Stout and Snowshoe Ale for me!

Now don't forget to link your favorite beer or food post from this week and go check out Sarah while you're at it!

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