Spiced Beer Jelly

This was a bit of a last minute project for "Soupereasy" and myself, after we discovered that making the dandelion jelly from the NY Times was going to require a much higher tolerance for the tedious job of harvesting dandelion blooms than either of us possessed.

But popping open a few bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale, pouring it over cups and cups of sugar, and adding apples, orange zest and lemon juice, and spices (cinnamon and a smidgen of ground cardamom) -- that was well within our neophyte jelly-making capabilities.

This is a non-pectin jelly that relies on the natural pectin in the apples for the set. According to the directions in the book, jams and jellies need to reach 221 on a candy thermometer to achieve the set. Well -- both with this jelly and the kumquat, apple and grapefruit jam we made a few weeks ago -- we just could not get the temperature of this mixture up past about 219. So this jelly thickened considerably but never set.

We finally went ahead and processed it and then set it aside not to be moved for the first 24 hours. Meeting for another project this week, we finally opened a jar, spread some on a piece of bread, tasted it, looked at each other, and said "Honey ... we made honey."