Beer Bread is Magic

As anyone who has tried the stuff knows, beer has a rather broad range of tastes and quality. The barley-and-hops beverage can range from a heavy grain flavor that is very bread-like to almost fruity. Beer is so diverse that different types hardly taste like the same beverage. When beer is good, it's really good. But when it's bad, man is it ever bad. Skunky, rotten-tasting, watery, or all of the above, bad beer is the epitome of gross. However, something happens when this vile substance is baked. Something strange and wonderful. It becomes flavorful beer bread with a smell that will have you hovering by the oven like my cat when I'm making salmon (Yeah, I see you, Puff, and I'm not sharing). Beer bread is some form of kitchen magic.

I discovered this recipe in college when I had the itch for baking and not a whole lot of time or kitchen space to do anything elaborate. It  quickly became a go-to comfort food for cold Michigan winters. When I moved to Texas after college, I made a loaf for a game night with friends and it disappeared like a retail worker after clocking out. Everyone wanted the recipe, which was so simple I had memorized it after making it only once, so I decided to make it my first recipe post. I'm starting simple, trying not to scare my readers away early on. Plus, this is one of those recipes you can easily keep in your back pocket for a potluck, sportsball party, or family event.

There is nothing bad I can say about this beer bread (except maybe the carb count, but if you're eating beer bread, you're not watching carbs). If you are serving a person who is allergic to dairy, eggs, or someone who is vegan, this bread fits the bill with no modifications. Most people have the ingredients in their kitchen, it doesn't need to rise, no kneading required, and it combines two things generally known to be pretty awesome: beer and bread. I won't say it's foolproof because I've seen some pretty impressive kitchen fails in my time but it's pretty hard to screw up. For beer, use the cheapest beer you see at the store. Never put any beer you would actually drink into beer bread, and never taste your bread beer. I did this once and NEVER AGAIN. There is drinking beer, and there is bread beer, they do not overlap.

One great thing about this recipe is that it takes no babysitting, so you can throw a loaf in the oven and go do whatever else you need to do. Clean your house, prepare the rest of your meal (look at you making everything from scratch, you kitchen beast), get dressed for the dinner party where you plan to use this bread to impress people. It bakes for about an hour, give or take depending on your oven. I am a crazy person who rarely uses timers because I can just tell when something is done by sight/smell/intuition. It's my superpower. It's no invisibility or telekinesis, but it's useful.

This bread is a dense, yeasty bread that goes well with heavy, starchy foods. I recommend serving it with a potato soup, clam chowder, or a beef dish. It would probably also be great covered in sausage gravy or as toast for SOS (creamed chipped beef as it is generally and boringly known). Or just smear it with butter and jam fresh from the oven because who can leave warm bread alone long enough to cool?

Enough rambling, Recipe time! I will generally be linking to other blogs for recipes and just putting my modifications here, but I've had this one memorized so long that I have no idea where it came from, so I'm putting the whole thing here.

Ingredients:

12 oz. beer
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 T sugar

Preheat oven to 350℉ and grease a loaf pan. Mix everything except the beer in a large mixing bowl. Add beer and mix with a large spoon or spatula until combined. The dough will have very sticky, taffy-like consistency. Place dough in loaf pan. Bake for ~50-60 mins until the top is starting to brown. Cool before slicing if you can wait that long, or just make a huge mess trying to slice warm bread.