Honey Beer Sauce, Take 1

Today I made my first attempt at recreating the amazing Honey Beer Sauce that I had while in New Zealand (see the blog). It was not terribly successful.

The chef at the Blue Duck said the sauce was 50% beer and 50% honey, mixed and reduced for several of hours.

Here is what I did:

1 c. Bell's Oberron beer
1 c. Dutch Gold Orange Blossom Honey

I combined them in a small sauce pan and brought to a boil over medium heat while stirring. Once it was a boil, I reduced the heat to medium-low and let it simmer, stirring occasionally for 1.25 hours. At that point it the sauce was starting to look a little dark, so I reduced the heat to low. After another 0.25 hours, I took it off the heat, but it was too late ... the sauce had a distinct burnt sugar flavor to it. Bah.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, we did not end up eating the pork chops tonight anyway, so I will try again tomorrow, this time with much less time on the heat. I suspect that when the chef said "reduce it for a four hours or so" it was for a much larger volume of sauce than I was making.