First off, put the bacon into a glass dish and set the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Bake the bacon until perfect - I think mine was in for about twenty minutes.
While the bacon is cooking, chop up the celery, carrots, onions, potatoes, and grate the cheese.
Add some vegetable oil to a pan and toss in the onions, carrots, and celery.
I ground a dash of black pepper over it but then I put gound pepper on everything. Cook until the onions are soft and almost translucent.
When the vegetables are done, set them to the side to cool. the bacon's done!
pat off some bacon grease and then chop it up into fine pieces.
Now that the veggies are a bit cooler, we can put them in the blender.but put a cup of chicken stock in first, I took about 4 tablespoons of bacon fat from the pan and put it into a tall pot. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in with it and whisk in the 8 tbsp of flour. This makes it a pretty thick so start adding stock as soon as the flour, butter, and fat are smooth.
Stir and add the stock slowly to keep it mixed well. Bring the base up to a boil over medium high heat. Time to add vegetable puree!
Return to a boil. I like a little heat behind my beer cheese soup, so I used nearly 2 tsp of white pepper, but you can taste the pepper after 2 tsp. Gently slip in the cheese so you don't splash boiling stock all over you!
Add potatoes (As a side note, sometimes I cook the potatoes separately, until they fall apart when pierced by a fork. I've found that the cooked potatoes thicken up the soup a bit more than cooking them in the stock.)
About this time, you should cook up the sausage. Stir the soup every minute or so while the meat cooks.
When the sausage is done, cut it up and put it on the pot.
Turn off the heat and pour in the beer. This is going to give off an amazing beer aroma for a little bit,. Let it happen.
Make sure you let the beer flatten in an extra large bowl
