Red Rage BBQ Sauce

I'm in the Keweenaw this week, having just spent the 4th of July enjoying the barbecue at the Fitz, a great restaurant in Eagle River.   They have the very best named BBQ meal on the menu at the Fitz.....Douglas Houghton's Anchor.   Douglas Houghton was Michigan's first geologist, and while working in Eagle River, he and two companions drowned in Lake Superior near Eagle River, Michigan when their small boat capsized in a storm.  His remains were discovered on the shoreline the next spring.   The Douglas Houghton's Anchor menu item features brisket, pulled pork and ribs....it's really enough for 2 people to eat.  I so loved their BBQ ribs that I begged the owner for the recipe, and didn't succeed.    It can never hurt to ask. 

My usual "go to" BBQ sauce recipe is one I first learned about on Bobby Flay's Throwdown.....it was from a restaurant in the Carolina's that no longer is open called Wood Chick.   Here is how I make that sauce.    I was leafing through some old clipped recipes (actually I really wasn't leafing through clipped recipes at all, I was looking at google photos of recipes I took pictures of) and I forgot that I had found a recipe I had coveted for years....Alex Young's Red Rage BBQ sauce at Zingerman's Roadhouse.   Alex is no longer at the Roadhouse, he ended up opening a French restaurant called the Standard Bistro and Larder, and so I wondered if Zingerman's still uses that sauce.....it appears they do, they just call it "Red Rage" now. 

I'm going to try my hand at making a version of this for dinner tonight.   Since I am in the UP, exotic ingredients like Urfa pepper and Muscovado sugar are off the list.   Here is how I will adapt:

Mother's Kitchen Red Rage  BBQ Sauce

1 1/2 c ketchup
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c finely diced onion
1/4 c  beer
1 T honey
1 T molasses
1 1/2 t minced fresh garlic
3/4 t pepper
1 1/2 t red pepper flakes
1/4 t kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.