reverendfrag

Recipes 

So we all know cooking wine: wine that is not intended to be drunk, only cooked with.

What about cooking beer?

I'm speaking of a beer flavored in such a way that you would never, ever want to drink it, but would be perfectly acceptable for use as a marinade. For example, a garlic/rosemary pale ale.

Obviously you couldn't make a spicy beer, since alcohol breaks down capsaicin, but what would some other oddball flavor combos for a cooking beer be?

Yooper

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I know that several brewers have made smoked chili pepper beer (I didn't know that alcohol breaks down capascin, and those beers are plenty spicy!) and I think that would be awesome in chili.

I like some beer in stews, and in a beef marinade but I can't think of any other types of foods that I would want to use with a beer.

I think wine marinades work well because the wine actually tenderizes the meat and the flavor works well with the food. Even a rosemary beer wouldn't work as well as a white wine in chicken, to my mind.

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reverendfrag

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Excuse me, on further research I find that capsaicin is soluble in alcohol, hence the cooling effect of a cold beer. You could, in fact, make a spicy beer. Apparently I'd been misinformed.

So, you get the smoked chile beers, which sound awesome. What else?

As to the uses for beer in marinades, there's always Drunken Chicken (beer, garlic, and fresh herb marinade for grilled chicken: I like to use a hefeweisen). I also use beer when sauteeing mushrooms, poaching fish, making barbequed ribs (steam with beer for a couple hours before smoking for maximum tender juiciness), etc..

Gremlyn

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I'm thinking a nice smoky porter on a tri-tip. Maybe I'll pick up a Ballast Point Black Marlin when I go for my grains and try that out.

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JamesClark

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I made a garlic beer once which was a little too garlicky to drink. Sometimes I pull one out and try to finish it, but mostly I use it for cooking.

reverendfrag

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Is it good to cook with?

weirdboy

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You can use crappy wine for cooking, but using a quality wine results in a much better end product. I can only imagine the same is true of beer. Although I don't really cook with it as much, I always drink the same beer I'm cooking with.

wildwest450

Recipes 

Swmbo makes some mean bread with my pales and ipa's.

Zen_Brew

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OK so maybe it's just so obvious which is why no-one has brought it up.

Bratwurst frequently is simmered in beer.

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reverendfrag

Recipes 

Oh, yeah, I forgot about those!

A garlic/sage stout might be just the thing for bratwurst.