Editor’s note: In this column writer Lisa Spear indulges her sweet tooth by sampling desserts made at area restaurants.
Don’t expect your blood alcohol level to rise if you eat the beer doughnuts at the Northampton downtown bar The Dirty Truth.
The taste of beer is faint, but if you concentrate hard enough, you might be able to detect the Weihenstephan Hefe Weissbier hefeweizen-style wheat ale.
This unlikely combination of drink and doughnut is what piqued my interest, but what kept me eating them are the subtle flavors of banana and cloves brought out by the beer’s yeast. The super thick dough is also a perk for me. It’s heavier than any other doughnuts I’ve tried, almost like a dense cake.
After a few moments in a deep fryer, these doughnuts — actually big doughnut holes — are rolled in cinnamon sugar.
When you bite into one, the golden-brown shell crumbles apart, revealing a perfect balance of toasty on the outside and moist on the inside.
The sweet, warm cinnamon smell is a familiar comfort that conjures up childhood memories of the hot, fried dough sizzling at the fairgrounds. If you didn’t get the chance to sample that as a kid, it’s not too late for you. If you’d rather not, that’s fine too. Not everyone finds comfort in fried dough coated in sugar, but in my own informal research, I’ve found many people do.
“Cinnamon sugar is a nostalgic thing,” says Dirty Truth head chef Kyle Anderson.
After a bit of experimentation, he introduced the beer doughnuts at the bar — which has a dinner menu and serves brunch on weekends — about a year ago. Other items on the menu are a little more sophisticated than typical pub food, like the nachos topped with pulled barbeque duck or the spicy mac and cheese with hand cut fries. The brunch menu includes items like savory bread pudding with mushrooms and pork belly tacos.
I tried the doughnuts for the first time a few weeks ago at the suggestion of a friend. After parking on a bar stool in the back corner of the bar, a long, dark space with walls painted red, I quickly gobbled up my first round of doughnuts.
One order is three hot, deep-fried globs for $4. Each hand-rolled doughnut hole comes with unique bumps and lumps. Most are at least two times the size of a golf ball.
At first glance, it looks like the kind of snack a drunk college student might devour, but I’ve learned that they are so much more than that and there is a kind of art that goes into creating them.
So far, Anderson has dabbled with more than a dozen beers for his mixture, from the darkest molasses flavor to cranberry ale, finally settling on the light European wheat beer.
“We are trying to see how we can work with the recipe, throw in different things,” he says.
It can be challenging to strike a balance with the flavors and not let the beer overpower the sweet doughnuts. Just a cup of beer is enough for a batch of 30, says Anderson.
Cooking with beer is fun, he says, and he continues to try different variations: “We learn how each beer reacts.”
Anderson is considering changing the beer based on the season, adding a darker beer in the winter months.
On special occasions and holidays he gets creative with toppings. For a special brunch, he did a rosemary icing. On another occasion he used orange peel to make a citrus icing. Chocolate beer doughnuts with a ricotta whipped cream filling also have made an appearance on the menu. Instead of cinnamon sugar, they were rolled in cocoa powder.
Sometimes the doughnuts are served at dinnertime, when the crowds stream in after work.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, the watering hole is transformed as a brunch destination. On warm days, windows are propped open to let in some fresh air and natural light. The doughnuts are more popular with this crowd, says Anderson, served not with a glass of beer, but with coffee and a corned beef hash benedict or the southern-style breakfast, chicken and waffles.
Anderson says the doughnuts are just one more step in the bar’s slow push to expand its dessert options.
Sometimes The Dirty Truth has a pot de crème with candied ginger from Old Friend’s Farm in Amherst. When strawberries are in season, it offers small pies or shortcake.
So far, I’ve tried just the doughnuts. They aren’t always on the menu, but when they are, I will definitely go for another order.
Have you discovered a confection at a local eatery that makes you want to skip the main course? Email Lisa Spear at Lspear@gazettenet.com.