Who doesn't like bacon?

In their mac-n-cheese!?

Being completely obsessed with beer lately, I went down to Munster, IN a few weeks ago and took the Three Floyd's brewery tour. After the tour, I stayed for some tasty beverages and treated myself to their awesome macaroni and cheese. ...and I've been plotting my own attempt ever since.

Seeing as this was my first attempt at making this iconic dish "outside the box" I first took a look at Allrecipes.com and started with their basic instructions and ran off on my own.(I'll definitely use different cheeses next time) I started with:

12oz uncooked egg noodles
2 cups finely shredded, fresh parmesan
1/2 cup finely shredded pepper jack
1/2 cup finely shredded sharp cheddar
3 cups of milk
3/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
oregano
allspice
parsley flakes
1lb of extra thick sliced, hickory smoked bacon

Prepare the noodles as recommended on the package; you can set them aside until everything else is ready.

First, I got the bacon started in one pan. I keep the heat low, and cook the entire pound all at once (use a large enough pan). Cooking bacon like this lets you control the heat for the whole batch, you simply rotate the strips as they start to sizzle. This way, when bacon reaches it's critical cooking point, it goes from uncooked to cooked; instead of uncooked to burnt. For this dish you want the bacon to be firm, but not crispy so that it crumbles.

Next I started by making a roux in a saucepan by melting the butter, and stirring in the flour. I stirred that for a while over low heat to make sure the flour-y taste cooked away. Then I added some spices (no real measurement here) to give some color and aroma to the roux. As the roux thickened, I chopped up the bacon and added it to the saucepan:Add the milk slowly, stirring it as it thickens. Here, I added some more spices because I didn't put in enough the first time (just don't over do it). Finally, add the cheeses and stir until they're melted and the sauce thickens a bit.

Now, I wouldn't be me if I didn't just decide to pour some of my beer into the cheese sauce, would I? (I've been brewing several brown ales, so I'm drink other brown ales to compare them against) Today I've got some Dirty Helen brown ale from Barley Island brewery; Noblesville, IN.

Finally, combine the noodles and cheese sauce in a casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees F for thirty minutes. Serve.

I have to say, I'm impressed that it came out as well as it did. Admittedly, I used three fairly bland cheeses, and the cheese flavor could use some extra kick. The parmesan made the sauce dry out pretty quickly. All in all, it was a tasty dish. I'll thank the bacon for that.