The Connoisseur Experience & Slow Braised Guinness Beef Cheeks

I have lived in Dublin all my life (bar a few months here and there) and I endlessly thrilled at the discovery of new things to do.

The Guinness Storehouse is one of the top tourist attractions for visitors to the fair city, and with good reason too. Spread over four floors with The Gravity Bar at the top offering pints of the black stuff and exquisite views of Dublin, it’s something I recommend that all visitors and locals experience at least once.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to participate in a special evening of exclusive entertainment there – The Connoisseur Experience.

By the very name, you can tell you’re in for something special. I had never heard a whisper of it before and might not have at all had it not been for a friend who was recently working in the archive department at Guinness. It’s a special experience that’s not advertised because simply, there would be no way to accommodate the numbers if it were. But if you’re a Guinness enthusiast or like me, perpetually in love with your own city, I highly recommend it.

After completing the standard tour of Guinness, we were told to wait on one of the floors at 5:50pm where we would be given further instructions. After our names were taken, our group was led behind a door into a secret bar – a very intimate, classy affair. It all felt rather speakeasy-ish and the room was resplendent in dark wood and old books.

Alan, our barman and host for the evening, took us on a global journey for the next two hours. Four half pint glasses were laid out for each of us at the bar and Alan brought us through the backstory and history or different types of Guinness, showing us how to inhale and savour each one to enjoy it as much as possible.

Now, I have a bit of a confession to make. I’m not a Guinness drinker. Himself was overcome with joy at being able to drink not only his Guinness, but mine too. However, while I didn’t consume more than a few mouthfuls of each drink, I loved it nonetheless. 

There was so much about the ethos of Guinness, it’s early days, the experimentation with flavours and the impact it has overseas that I discovered, that the fact I don’t actually order Guinness when I’m at a bar didn’t really seem to matter. I actually learned that I had been drinking it wrong all my life, only supping at the bitter head and not tasting the full but surprisingly light drink itself. 

For the first time in my life, I tried the Foreign Extra and West Indies Porter and Alan, who is also a foodie, enthralled me with the different food pairings he had tried with different types of Guinness. We swapped stories, me telling him about my Guinness Chocolate Cake and him telling me about his Salted Caramel Popcorn with a chilled pint on the side to compliment.

From beginning to end, the evening was fantastic. Before we went home, Alan showed us all how to pull a perfect pint and allowed us to pick a brew of our choosing to take with us. 

Inspired by new ways to use the drink, I decided to try something new this week: Guinness Beef Cheeks.

It was a bit of a risk given that I hadn’t cooked anything savoury with Guinness in a while and I had never cooked Beef Cheeks before full stop. But boy, it was beautiful.

There is a lengthy cooking time involved here though and while it is possible to do it without a slow cooker (which is what I did), it’s much easier if you have one you can use.

6 hours might seem like a long time to be cooking a piece of meat (combined with the Guinness bath you give it, it goes a very deep black colour – leading those in the house to believe I had cremated something) – but it’s necessary to make the cheeks moist and tender. There is very little prep involved too, so just demonstrate a little patience and you’ll be duly rewarded.

I used a bottle of Foreign Extra for the marinade, but feel free to experiment with other types of Guinness. The Foreign Extra though created a beautiful bark-like crunch around the cheeks, which then broke away to reveal incredible, melt in the mouth meat.

What you then do with the meat is up to you. You can use it to make sliders, topped with a creamy mayo. You can add some water and cornflour to the marinade to serve as a gravy with mashed potatoes, you could even flake some through a Summer Salad – the possibilities are endless. As for what I did with mine? Myself and Himself devoured it with a selection of breads, salads and dips while we watched Stranger Things.

SLOW BRAISED GUINNESS BEEF CHEEKS

600g beef cheeks (room temperature)

1 bottle of Guinness Foreign Extra

2 carrots, chopped

2 shallots, chopped

Sea salt & pepper

2 stalks of fresh rosemary

1.5lr of beef stock

-          Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees celsius. In a large oven dish, put the room temperature beef cheeks in the middle. Pour the bottle of Guinness over and throw in the carrots and shallots. Finish with the herbs and a generous amount of salt and pepper and beef stock and put into the oven uncovered for 3 hours. If using a slow cooker, put it in at 150 for 6 hours.

-          NOTE: for a more intense Guinness flavour, marinate the meat overnight.

-          After three hours remove from oven and flip over. Then cover meat loosely with tin foil. Add more water if there is no liquid left and then cook for another 90 minutes at 160.