Beer Cheese! Beer Cheese is a snack-spread that goes great on crackers, celery, carrots, and other dippable snacks. Recipes for beer cheese vary from maker to maker but the base ingredients tend to be cheddar cheese, garlic, salt, chili powder, and stale beer - and now you know why it's called "beer cheese."
Legend has it that beer cheese first appeared in the 1940's in a now long gone restaurant near Boonesboro, KT named Allman's. From there it spread (no pun intended) into the Kentucky consciousness, yet the truth of the popular spread's origin remains clouded. Some say the closest you can come to that original recipe would be at Hall's On The River in Winchester, KY) - while others wait each year for the Beer Cheese Festival - the main event of which is a competition to discover who's making the best beer cheese of the moment!
Kentucky's Beer Cheese Festival competition has two divisions - commercial and amateur - allowing everyone a chance to enter their beer cheese concoction to be judged by both appointed judges as well as vying for the coveted "People's Choice" award. Winners in the first three places are given cash prizes (not to mention numerous requests for seconds of their amazing beer cheese).
Attendees of Winchester, Kentucky's Beer Cheese Festival can expect excited crowds, live music, an opportunity to peruse the arts and crafts at the Kentucky Proud booths, and, of course, numerous chances to sample, vote for, and purchase for home consumption lots and lots of beer cheese!
If you're the festival type, check out Kentucky's other famous events like the
Kentucky Bourbon Festival and the
Bluegrass Festival!
