Could be good. We used heineken and threw out the entire concoction. MAybe next time less and different beer, way more cheese, way more bacon, way more garlic, less celery, and start the cheese sauce way before the water is put on and cook longer.

I'm a big of a beer freak, and after having the mac n' beer cheese down at the Stone Brewery in San Diego, I HAD to give this recipe a try. A bit labor intensive for a pasta dish (it really did take me a good solid hour) but the result is good so no complaints. It could use a little more cheese flavor. I used sharp cheddar and it still wasn't particularly strong. This time I used a nice hoppy amber ale...and I think the hops were a little too much. I'm a big hophead so it was ok for me, but I imagine a lot of people wouldn't like the bitterness. A nice stout or porter would probably be a safe bet for this recipe. Overall, not quite as good as what I got at Stone, but tasty for sure. There's a lot of variations you can do with this recipe, so it's a good place to start.

This recipe has a lot of potential! I need to preface this be saying Mr. LTH and I love, love, love beer, yet do NOT, as a rule, enjoy foods cooked with/in beer. Yet, this recipe intrigued me and I took a risk and made it anyway (come on, cheese, bacon, beer, pretzels?!). As written, it's a little bland (I more than doubled the garlic and couldn't taste it!), but with a few minor tweaks could be my second favorite mac & cheese (nothing's going to top our recipe!). I'd rec increasing both the garlic and the bacon significantly (the bacon taste was almost undetectable, sadly) and adding a dash of dry mustard, as well as the *wet* mustard. I'd also rec using a variety of flavorful cheeses. I also found I needed to cook my *roux* a lot longer to get it to thicken up, so don't start boiling your noodles until the white sauce has begun to simmer. This is def worth giving a try!

As is, this is four stars. The way it was recieved, it's three. I made the cheese sauce according to the recipe and it wasn't quite cheesy enough. The beer is a nice touch, it just needed more cheese. I tripled the cheese. My kids don't care for celery so I doubled the carrot and used a whole package of matchstick carrots. I sprinkled more cheese on top before adding the pretzel mixture. Smells great, I hope it meets my family's macaroni and cheese expectations. EDITED: This was interesting. My littlest wouldn't eat it and my eldest ate it with reservations. I can't wait to see what my husband says. I thought it was edible, just not something I'd make again. Sorry. I really wanted this to work out.