Baby Back Ribs with Cherry Beer BBQ Sauce

Rib date: May 27, 2012
Ribsters: Stults family, McDonald family, and Eric Jorgensen as the Beaver

Steven Raichlen's Baby Back Ribs with Cherry Beer BBQ Sauce recipe was simply off the hook. It may have been my favorite thus far on this swine adventure.

The recipe stems from how well pork and fruit go together in general. Add beer and...presto! Perfection. The thing about it is, these ribs were absolutely made for enjoying with red wine. Though I am sure beer would work too. Beer always works.

The ribs marinate in the fridge for four hours. The marinade is...drum roll please...beer! They suggest a Lambic (cherry beer from Belgium) but since my wife is anti-gluten, we made our own with gluten-free beer mixed with cherry juice. There's other stuff in the marinade too. After four hours minimum, toss ribs on smoker, baste with cherry juice every hour or so until they are nearly ready. Then slather them with the killer Cherry Lambic BBQ sauce until they are fall-off-the-bone tender. Disco!

The key to these ribs is the BBQ sauce, the recipe for which features cherries, beer, and the usual BBQ sauce ingredients.

The recipe was discovered at the now defunct COPIA in Napa, which isn't surprising because they went perfectly with red wine. We enjoyed them with a bottle of Jackse red. Jackse is the red blend we made at work a couple of years ago as a fun team building project. The grapes come from the Napa Valley Vintners property.

Even JR McDonald, who normally enjoys his ribs with a 12-pack of Coors Light, remarked how the ribs made the wine taste better and vice versa.

Funny side notes: Everyone got a hearty laugh at Eric's long laundry list of criteria for girls he would or would not date. Tasha McDonald was amazed, but seems driven to find Eric a girl. A hopeless endeavor indeed...