Fat Tire bagels

I opened a Fat Tire after work yesterday.

I wanted a beer, and i had never tried Fat Tire. I only started seeing it this year. And one had come home with Kurt from a job, something left from an affair they did the lighting for.

I didn’t know it was a dark, bitter beer. I tried to be a good sport, but halfway through, I decided this would best be used in baking.

When I was young, a bagel tasted only like a bagel. I lived in an urban area, and schoolchildren walked home together each day. If we had the change (it was 7¢ for a plain bagel, 8¢ for any other kind of bagel), we often stopped off and got bagels, which we munched on the walk home. I opted for plain, until I discovered poppyseed.

You did not find bagels in most parts of the south. Even in cities like Raleigh, as late as the early 80s, the only bagels were Lenders frozen ones, from the grocery store.

Gradually bagels spread across the land. First, there were small shops owned by people who escaped places like the Bronx and Brooklyn, opened in areas with universities and international companies. Chains like Manhattan, Bruegers and Big Apple spread across the suburban landscape. Suddenly, bagels were everywhere and nowhere, because none of these were really bagels. They were rolls with holes.

Manhattan seemed to be the best, and we contracted with them when we opened our coffeehouse. I once asked why they didn’t make real NY bagels, and was told that southerners didn’t understand a real bagel. They thought hard meant stale.

A real bagel is tough on the outside and soft on the inside, and has a unique flavor. I looked at recipes, but they all seemed complicated, and required a special oven. Then, my daughter taught me to make bagels.

She reminds me so much of myself at her age, wanting to try everything to do with cooking and crafts. She even makes soap. Most of all, she spreads good bagelry around, making wonderful bagels for people and then teaching them how.

Which brings us back to the Fat Tire. The unique bagel dough taste is malt, also found in beer. I’m giving you a basic bagel recipe, but you can replace the water with beer. Warm it first, as you would water.

Bagels

425˚, 20 min. 8 bagels

1 1/2 c warm water

2 t yeast

3 T sugar

4 1/4 c bread flour

2 t salt

Dissolve yeast in warm water. I use a mixer with a dough hook, so I put this directly in the mixer bowl. If not, use a bowl big enough to allow you to knead the dough. Water should be comfortably warm, not hot.

Add sugar and 3 cups of flour. Mix.

Add salt. Work in rest of flour. The dough should not be sticky. If not all the flour will get in there, that’s okay. Flour has different amounts of moisture, so the flour in a bread recipe is an estimation (unless you do it by weight). Work it in until you have a stiff bread dough. Knead for 5-10 minutes.

Pull out the dough and oil the bowl. Put the dough back and turn it over. This is how you oil a bread dough. Cover. Let it sit until doubled, one hour for water, longer for beer. Turn out on a clean counter. Divide dough into eighths. Form into rounds. Press finger thru the center of each round and swing around to stretch the hole. Walls should be 1” thick, hole is 2 “.

Boil a big pot of water, and preheat oven. Lightly oil a baking sheet. Boil each bagel one to two minutes. Turn, boil the other side. Don’t crowd them, even if you have to do them in stages. I use a slotted spoon to get them out. Place on the baking sheet (sprinkle with toppings, opt.) and bake 25 min.

You may never buy bagels again.