Beer Bread Recipe | Spoon Fork Bacon (2024)

FAQs

What beer makes the best beer bread? ›

Lighter beers, such as lagers, ales and pilsners, will give your bread a lighter color, and mild taste that just about everyone loves. Darker beers like stouts and porters make a darker-colored loaf and have a stronger beer flavor. Hoppy beers like IPAs will give your bread a more bitter taste.

Overworking the dough of your beer bread will affect the texture, causing it to turn from soft and chewy to tough and condensed.

Darker beer, like stouts and porters, will produce bread with more robust, pronounced flavors. Likewise, a blonde ale or pilsner will make a milder, lighter loaf.

Don't Overmix. Overmixing the batter can cause the bread to turn out tough or crumbly. Stir gently and stop as soon as the flour disappears (and any mix-ins are incorporated).

Use room temperature beer: This helps the bread rise and creates a better texture than cold beer. Don't over-mix: After adding the beer to the dry ingredients, mix enough until just incorporated and nothing more. Overworking the dough will create a very dense loaf.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), baked or simmered dishes that contain alcohol will retain 40% of the original amount after 15 minutes of cooking, 35% after 30 minutes and 25% after an hour. But there's no point at which all of the alcohol disappears.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Bake the bread for 45 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted about 1/2" into the top of the loaf comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs clinging to it.

I've made beer bread with everything from craft beers (Allagash White, Moosehead, etc.), to commercial beers like Heineken, Miller Highlife, and Samuel Adams Boston Lager (which we found lends more of a pronounced aroma than others on the list, and didn't make our favorite loaf).

I use Budweiser. The beer batter works because of the alcohol and the CO2 in beer. Bitter flavours aren't really welcome there. For that effect, I recommend using carbonated water with vodka.

Can you use stale beer in beer bread? ›

Old, stale beers do just fine in breads, chili, beer can chicken, for tenderizing meat before grilling, or for a beer batter for fish or seafood.

Only Use a Cold Beer

Some beer batter recipes will say to add ice or place the beer batter in the fridge to 'rest' for 30 minutes.

Think brisket, chicken, ribs, steaks, pork loin – all pair wonderfully with a slice of beer bread. When you're trying to keep it lighter, pair beer bread with your favorite salad. We highly recommend Caesar salad!

Use a light beer, a stout, a pale ale … that pumpkin beer hiding in the back of your fridge. You can make a few additions to complement a beer style and flavor, but most of that flavor will come from what you've added. For basic beer bread, you'll stir together self-rising flour and sugar. Pour in a bottle of beer.

If your bread has a sour, yeasty flavour and smells of alcohol then you have either used too much yeast.or you may have use stale yeast or creamed fresh yeast with sugar.

Most are fair game for beer batter (Pilsner Urquell, Stella Artois, Modelo, and Firestone Pivo Pils are particularly nice), with the exception of Bohemian pilsner, which comes with a heavy dose of spices that can change the overall flavor of your dish. In a beer batter, pilsner is one of the more low-key options.

Amber and brown ales tend to be less bitter than the alternatives and feature a nutty flavor. Because of this, these beers are often recommended for caramels, cookies, and pies. Light-colored beers have their place in baking, too. Lagers and Witbiers are used in lighter cakes and cookies.

It's also the phrase you'll find gracing each box of Trader Joe's Beer Bread Mix. The flavor of the finished loaf really depends on what kind of beer you use: Go with a lager for a lighter profile, an IPA for a hearty, hoppy taste, or a stout for a rich result with a slightly darker finished product.

I recommend a lager or an amber ale, but if you prefer a hoppier flavor, you could also opt for an IPA. The cheese: When it comes to cheese, I love extra-sharp cheddar here, but you could also try a milder cheddar if you like.