A brew especially for cooking?

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Laughing_Gnome_Invisible

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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. :D
 
*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.
 
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.
 
I think you'd want to go malty rather than hoppy..

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.
 
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.
 
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.

Excellent point!! I hadn't thought of that! I would think hoppy for lighter dishes, but malty for meat dishes.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
I made a AHS Blue Moon clone extract kit as one of my first beers and left the coriander in the carboy when I fermented it. It came out tasting overwhelmingly of coriander. I find it adds a little something to chili and stir fries that I deglaze with beer.
 
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