Belgian Ale Two Ways

One of my favourite lunch meals back when I was a student was a beef and ale pie - served at the Ram bar with a half of Devenish ale. I've been meaning to try cooking with my home brewed ale for a while so I naturally gravitated towards Flemish beef in ale casserole - "Carbonades a la Flamandes" to give it a French name (can't tell you its name in its native Flemish). I picked out this version of the recipe - Hairy Bikers Carbonades Flamandes - because the Hairy Bikers (a very British cooking phenomenon I think) know how to cook - you're pretty much guaranteed of something that tastes right (they bear out the old observation that if you want great food, you need to look for the guy who likes to eat!). This recipe is really simple, but I think the original dish is even simpler - the bikers recipe has redcurrant jelly and vinegar to give the dish a little sweetness and sharpness, which the original doesn't. I used some of my tribute to New Belgium's Fat Tire as the ale - around 650ml of the stuff. After three or four hours in the oven the beef and onions and the beer had condensed down to dark deliciousness. Served with sweet potato mash and carrots and accompanied by more Fat Tire tribute ale - it was an immensely satisfying meal to ward off the ridiculously unspringlike weather (coldest March for 50 years here!).
To be honest the dish was just a little sweet for my taste - the ale was probably stronger and sweeter than the true dish would use - I believe it should actually be made with a low gravity Old Brown - which would be drier and also very sour. Sour beers are something I've not got into brewing yet (not really something you find in the UK). Maybe the trick would be to add some more vinegar to the dish and ditch the redcurrant jelly next time - or find some sour ale. It was good though.
On the altbier front, I tasted a little of what I bottled yesterday. I rather fear that what I though might have happened did happen. I used the wrong hops - Admiral rather than Mt Hood - for the bittering. It's definitely bitter. Not necessarily in a good way right at the moment - but I think with a bit of luck it should mellow out in a couple of weeks in the bottle. I may have to pretend its an American Amber Ale... After all, pretty much no one in this country will know the difference!
BTW to those Americans who swear Fat Tire isn't a Belgian Ale, of course you're right - its brewed in America therefore it is definitively American. But style-wise Belgian beer is about as broad a church and you can imagine - there are as many styles as there are beers - and Fat Tire is pretty close to the mid-strength ales you find a lot - like De Koninck. So - it's Belgian enough for me!