Thank you DuClaw Brewing for sponsoring this post and sending me the DuClaw Devil Made Me Do It. All opinions and the brownie recipe are my own.

Welcome to another edition of “Cooking with Beer”! Each month DuClaw Brewing sends me a beer and a friend and I create a recipe. It’s a fun time to think outside the box and try a new beer and new food. This month’s beer is “Devil Made Me Do It”, a sour beer that was aged in bourbon barrels that had previously held DuClaw’s Hell On Wood Barleywine. I confess that while I don’t actually like bourbon (I blame college football games LOL), I LOVE bourbon aged beers. Add in my new love of sour beers and I was quite intrigued by this selection.

I found that DuClaw’s Devil Made Me Do It was more sour than bourbon, but there was enough of the bourbon smell and taste to balance the sourness. My friend likened it to a whiskey sour, but I’ve never actually had one of those LOL. As part of the recipe, we soaked dried tart cherries from Trader Joes in a beer overnight. I gotta tell you – those cherries were TASTY! They were perfect in the brownies, but I also ate every last one of the cherries that didn’t go into the brownie batter.

DuClaw Devil Made Me Do It Bourbon Brownies

Ingredients

4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
8 oz package of dried tart cherries
1 bottle DuClaw Devil Made Me Do It
1 tsp. bourbon
3/4 C butter
1/2 C light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 1/2 C + 1/4 C granulated sugar
4 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 C + 2 TBS flour
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened

Instructions

Soak cherries in bottle of DuClaw Devil Made Me Do It overnight.
Drain cherries, reserving beer.
Preheat oven to 350*.
Grease a 9" square pan or cover pan in aluminum foil.
Melt chocolate and butter in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds, until smooth.
Whisk in 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar.
Whisk in 3 eggs until just blended.
Whisk in bourbon, salt, and 1 cup flour.
Stir in approximately 1 Cup (or half the bag) of the beer soaked cherries.
Pour half of the batter in the pan.
Beat cream cheese, 2 T flour, and 1/4 cup sugar until smooth.
Add 1 egg and 1/4 cup of reserved beer from soaking the cherries and continue beating until smooth.
Spread evenly over batter in the pan.
Spread the remaining brownie batter over the cream cheese.
Bake for approximately 40 minutes.
Brownies are done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.