Like beer? Like eggnog? Then you’ll like this: beer nog!
Don’t knock it ’til you try it. I’ve shared this with many people. Everyone thinks it sounds terrible–and everyone has actually liked it a lot. And even if you don’t like it, well, just leave out the beer, the homemade eggnog is tasty on its own too.
It’s not my recipe, I got it from my dad, who got it from a beer magazine.
Beer nog
4 large eggs, separated
1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. milk
1 c. heavy (whipping) cream
nutmeg, vanilla
Brown ale, like Newcastle. Other English- and Scottish-style ales will work. But nothing too hoppy. Not sure if a stout or porter would work. Lagers, wheat beers, fruit beers, etc. really would be terrible.
Rum (optional)
Preparation
Whip the cream. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and milk into the cream until smooth. Season with dash nutmeg, dash vanilla. Beat egg whites, fold into eggnog.
Fill a 6-8 oz glass 1/4 full with beer. (Optional: add 1/2 oz. rum; don’t go overboard as you don’t want to overwhelm the beer) Fill glass with eggnog.
Notes
This eggnog is sweeter than the store bought stuff. I think that’s what makes it work with the beer, they balance one another. I’ve tried this with store bought eggnog and it doesn’t really work.
Dynamic Ecology 
This sounds a bit like ale posset, which certain ecologists in Santa Barbara in the late 90’s may remember from a party of mine. I believe Eric Seabloom now has a “No Posset” rule for accepting invitations from me. (Caveat: the recipe I was using was vague. This sounds much more likely to be successful.)
Maybe if you call it “beer nog” instead of “ale posset” you can trick Eric into drinking some. Might help to give him a few regular ales first. 🙂
I’d never heard of ale posset and had to look it up. I am now preemptively adopting Eric’s rule: No Posset! Hot milk curdled with beer? That sounds absolutely disgusting!
Very good post indeed! A group of us have been doing the beernog thing for some time now, and you’re right, it really is quite good. One short note: if you’re short on any of the ingredients, you can substitute beer for them reasonably well, to little noticeable effect, at least in the short term. We have however, the damnedest habit of being short of a number of the ingredients more often than might be expected by chance, but it works out alright.
In the limit, your version becomes Bob and Doug Mackenzie’s version in the video.
Haven’t watched it (slow connection) but looking forward to it. I wonder if Red Green has anything to say about this? 🙂
To be honest, the idea of drinking anything with raw eggs in it is not high on my “to do” list.
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