Beer Bread

This post may contain affiliate links. See my privacy policy for details.

Everyone loves carbs, and what better way to enjoy carbs than by eating bread and drinking beer? With this simple beer bread recipe, you can finally combine the two for the ultimate carby experience, just like my Jiffy Cornbread.

For more recipes that use beer, why not try this Beer & Mushroom Instant Pot Pot Roast? Or how about the perfect Boilermaker with your favorite whiskey?

Beer Bread

The two most important food creations in humanity’s history are undoubtedly bread and beer. While both are made from grains, yeast, and water, there hasn’t ever really been a way to combine them properly.

Now, with this beer bread recipe, you can. The beer contributes both lift and an intense flavor profile to the bread, with different beers contributing entirely different flavors depending on what type of beer it is. This gives you unprecedented control of the final taste of your beer bread, all while still being an incredibly simple recipe.

Ingredients for Beer Bread

• All-purpose flour
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Sugar
• Beer
• Butter

How to Make Beer Bread

• Whisk together your dry ingredients until combined
• Make a well in the center and pour your beer in, mixing until a lumpy dough just comes together
• Bake in a prepared loaf pan at 375 Fahrenheit for about 40 minutes until cooked through and a cake tester comes out clean

What Type of Beer Should You Use?

The choice of beer for this recipe is what’s going to set your beer bread apart from the others. Whatever beer you choose for this beer bread will determine what the final flavor will be like. So, depending on the kinds of flavors you enjoy, choose the right beer that suits your tastes.

If you go for something light and low in bitterness, like a cream ale or a blonde, the final beer will be more white bread-like in texture and flavor.

However, if you choose something like a stout, the bread will take on the color of the beer and look almost like an old-fashioned rye black bread.

There is also a little bit of science that should inform your choice of beer because certain types of beer are going to change the texture of your bread quite considerably.

How to Make a Light & Airy Beer Bread

While the standard recipe provided here produces a pretty dense and satisfying bread if you are using most conventional beers, there is a way to alter it to be more airy light.

If you are looking for a more sandwich bread, bakery-fresh texture, then you should try to find a beer with the label “Real Ale” or “Bottle Conditioned” written on it. Either of these two labels means that the beer contains dormant yeast in the bottle.

This dormant yeast will reactivate when mixed with the flour and sugar in your bread mixture, creating a lot more carbon dioxide and lift for your beer bread.

Most beers sold commercially tend not to have live yeast within the beer, so they will only partially lift the beer with the leftover fizz in the beer itself.

So, for a lighter, almost delicate crumb in your bread, choose one of those fancier craft beers for this recipe.

Tips & Tricks

Overcooking this beer bread is surprisingly easy because the dough takes on the color of your beer even before you bake it.

This means that it can be hard to tell if your bread is done just by color alone. Instead, start checking the center of your bread with a cake tester after 35 minutes, re-checking every 5 minutes until the tester comes out completely clean.

Now this is the kind of recipe I can get behind! Hope you guys enjoy it this little foray into beer and baking!

Mike

PIN THIS RECIPE to your BAKING RECIPES Boards and Remember to FOLLOW ME ON PINTEREST!