Why Beer & Basil?

My husband brews his own beer, and since our apartment balcony is pretty much covered in pots of tomatoes and herbs, it's not surprising we decided to throw some basil in one of the last batches. Of course, the basil we used wasn't actually from our garden -- it was cheap, store-brand dried basil. But it still tastes good.

I'm becoming partial to Jason's experimental beers. He doesn't just do all-grain brewing now (where you extract the malt from grain yourself rather than buying the already-processed malt sugar), but he also makes his own recipes. I like the basil pale ale that's on tap now, but one of my favorite beers ever is his pale ale with lime, lemon, and grapefruit peel. The grapefruit and hops had a surprisingly taste: a burst of tartness/hoppyness at the beginning and then a smooth, non-bitter finish.

We like basil in more than beer, too. Our $2 plants from K-Mart are growing like weeds and we have to trim off the biggest leaves every few days. So now fresh basil goes with everything from pizza to lemonade. The only thing that hasn't turned out is when we tried making infused olive oil with it, but the leaves were covered in white stuff (mold?) after only a week, even in the fridge. Some experiments are just doomed to fail, I guess.