Cooking With Beer: A Guide

Beer is a classic, timeless, versatile, and delicious beverage, and there are more ways than one to have it. In fact, you can eat it, too.

Surprised to hear that? Don’t be! Beer is one of the best cooking ingredients you can add to certain meals to make them more delicious, adding tons of flavor, texture, and complexity.

Here’s a brief guide on using beer while cooking and making desserts:

A key trick to using beer when cooking is deciding which flavors pair well together. Bitter beers go well with certain desserts like dark chocolates and certain tangy, sour, and salty flavors, while sweater beers go well with spicier foods. It’s important to use the right type, whether it’s an ale, stout, or lager, too, depending on the notes, aromas, and flavors.

Use beer to give your soup a new life. Beer is excellent for making soups, stews, and curries because it makes them lighter and adds more flavor. You get a certain sweetness, it helps harder ingredients like potatoes and onions soften and caramelize better, and you get a richer end product. We love this beer cheese soup that makes an orgasmic bowl or two of our favorite things.

Another great use of beer in cooking is in marinades and batters. In the former, beer works by adding more flavor and aroma, especially for foods like ribs and steaks where you want the meat to soak it all up, and it helps the latter get light and fluffy. Batters do very well with beer since they end up crispier, toastier, and more delicious.

Speaking of fluffy,  beer’s natural yeast, bitterness, and sweetness all work in favor of creating the most fantastic desserts. From breakfast foods like the fluffiest pancakes to malt cakes, and pies, there are many ways this beverage gives more oomph to your favorite sweet foods. Make a mean pie filling with a sweeter, darker beer or a richer cake and frosting with stout--the options are endless.

If you’re looking for great beers that you can cook with, check out our craft beer reviews, as we make recommendations for everything you can do. We also have great craft beer merchandise online that you can buy to support our cause and get fun presents and merchandise for beer enthusiasts in your life.