If you're doing sausages... I make a sauce/reduction with your favorite porter.
Depending on how much you want to make... I did this over the summer for a house full of about 20 people and it was awesome!
22 - 24 oz of your favorite porter (I usually use homebrew or Sammy Smith's Taddy Porter. Did it with Ska Porter and that was really good).
2 shallots - cut in half then sliced very thin.
3 cloves of garlic - diced
2-4 Tablespoons of brown sugar
4 Tablespoons of butter
add 2 Tblspoons of butter to a sauce pan on medium heat. Add shallots and garlic (with a pinch of salt). Stir until the shallots begin to go clear. Add your porter. Bring the heat up and bring the mixture to a boil and begin to reduce. Once it is up to a boil, add 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar - stir as you do this or the sugar may burn on the bottom. Depending how much porter it looks like, you may want to add more brown sugar. This is all a judgment call... I would probably add the extra 2 tblespoons of sugar, but that's me.
Let this all reduce by about half. it won't get super thick. Once it has reduced down to about half or 1/3 it's original volume, take it off the heat. Cut up the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter (kept chilled) into about 4 to 6 small pieces. Add these to the sauce (off the heat) one or two at a time and stir in until they melt. This will give the sauce a nice sheen (No Sheen... I'm not talking about you!
).
I usually serve this over some brats and potatoes, almost like a bangers and mash kind of a thing. Super tasty... but that's just my opinion. Give it a shot, not hard to make, just takes some time for the reduction.
Cheers!!
