Laughing_Gnome_Invisible

Recipes 

The missus bought some Christmas ale, which I was very grateful for. I couldn't understand why she got pissed at me for drinking it, that's what it's for, right!? She paid $9 for a six pack of cooking beer!!?? What the hell!!??

So, long story short. I got to wondering if anyone had a recipe for a small batch of beer especially suited for cooking such things as Steak and mushroom pies. gravy, stuff like that. I reckon it would be easy to brew a small batch, doesn.t even need to be carbonated, but it could be especially tailored for cooking meat dishes.

Obviously a stout springs immediately to mind, but I was wondering if anyone had a preferred recipe or suggestions for special tweaks to regular brews as it can be tailor made and all.

This is gonna be my way out of the doghouse and a further excuse to brew more.

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Revvy

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*subscribes*

This sounds like it could be an interesting discussion.

The only beers I have ever cooked with were mexican style lagers in chili and "cowboy stew" usually spicy dishes.

An old girlfriend used to make a great lamb dish with my Ginger Orange Dortmunder beer, it was a recipe for lamb with dried fruit and ale from the Shakespeare's kitchen book.

The ginger and orange gave it a nice flavor with the apricots, figs, and things like that in the dish.

Those are like two extremes, a neutral lager without a lot of flavor to contribute, and an intense ale that when reduced brought out more intense ginger, clove and orange spiciness.

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Danek

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I think you'd want to go malty rather than hoppy. I've made both chocolate muffins and normal bread with two types of beer, a stout and an IPA. The stout was great in both, but the IPA didn't sit right with either. I don't think hops go that well in cooking, though I'd be interested to hear other people's experience.

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Laughing_Gnome_Invisible

Recipes 

Yeah, my original thoughts were strong on malt, probably with a lot of biscuit. (Dunno, why biscuit, it just sounds right to me) Very low on hops, just enough so that it won't spoil.

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zoebisch01

Recipes 

Or you could make it hoppy, just all in the aroma addition so as to avoid bittering. It really is mainly the bitterness that limits beer as a cooking liquid.

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Laughing_Gnome_Invisible

Recipes 

Excellent point!! I hadn't thought of that! I would think hoppy for lighter dishes, but malty for meat dishes.

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gratus fermentatio

Recipes 

I've cooked with scotch ales, porters, stouts & nut browns. I always use them with meat in one way or another, mostly as part of a sauce/gravy sort of concoction. I've used them all on beef, pork, chicken & lamb. I also use porter in a BBQ sauce recipe I developed. I've also boiled potatoes (and brats) in nut brown, added porter to pasta & basted steaks with scotch ale. Stouts of course make a great (Irish) stew.

I like to reduce the beer/ale by about 1/2, add a nice sized glop (is that a technical term?) of butter, meat drippings of course, a few secret herbs & spices & you've got yourself a base sauce that'll work with almost any cut of any meat. You might even be able to do something sweet with a beer like Henninger. I can see how something like mincemeat might benefit from having reduced Henninger in the mix, maybe even an apple pie, or tart. This is a good Idea Gnome! It'll be interesting to see where this thread goes. Regards, GF.

hokster

Recipes 

Personally, I really love using a dark mild in things like steak and mushroom pie. It's cheap to brew, malty, and the dash of roastiness just works with the caramelized mushrooms.

Orfy

Recipes 

I generally have beer left over after I fill a keg from the fermenter.

65 gallon fermenter and 4.5 gallon kegs (Big UK gallons)

I split it.
2 pints for me.....mmmmm. flat warm beer.
1 pint gets herbs and garlic added then reduced to a stick stock for rubs etc.
1 pint gets used for a pie and a stew.

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caspio

Recipes 

Last summer some time I brewed a smoked pale ale as an experiment, I hadn't tasted a beer before that had smoked malt and wasn't seeing too many commercial choices at the supermarket. It came out fairly decent, was nice to have one or two with a steak, but I had lots of other brews in the pipeline I liked better.

I bottled off a little over half of the keg, and since then have been using them on occasion for cooking. So far I've used it as the base for a BBQ sauce (recipe from this forum I think), for making bratwurst in the slow cooker, and in the batter for home made onion rings. All of these came out awesome, the bbq sauce especially.

Because this was a pale ale though, the flavor contribution is pretty subtle. Obviously using a porter or something like that it'd be far more noticeable.