Beer Bread

Beer Bread is one of the quickest bread recipes out there, with a distinct flavor and an awesome moist texture.

Find this recipe on my baking blog and on my NEW YouTube Channel !

Beer has rising agent in it already, but most store-bought beer will not have enough of it to make the bread rise; for this, most beer bread recipes include baking powder, which reacts with the beer to lets the bread rise and develop air pockets. Because of this process, Beer Bread is certainly a 'quick bread' - the recipe consists of mixing the dry ingredients together, then mixing in the melted butter & beer, then baking right away. There are no rising times or kneading.

Another interesting thing about Beer Bread is that the flavor depends on the type of beer that you use. Darker beer will result in a bread with more intense flavor, and pale beer lends a lighter flavor. For Beer Bread in general, it has been recommended to use pale beer, but you can experiment with whatever type of beer you want.

While researching rising agents in Biscuits, I found that the best method is to use a 1:3 ratio of baking soda and cream of tartar instead of using straight baking powder. This was because is yielded a stronger rising reaction, and took some of the risk away from having a strong baking powder taste in your bread.

So instead of the Tablespoon of baking powder usually called for in Beer Bread recipes, I decided to instead use 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar, and 1 teaspoon of baking soda. The texture ended up just as good as it had with the baking powder, but the strong baking powder taste I was getting before was mostly gone. As always, let me know if you make this recipe, or if you have your own recipe and method of making beer bread, and comment below with feedback or tips & tricks!

Step 1: Ingredients

Ingredients: (makes 1 loaf)

1 (12 oz) can pale beer

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. Cream of Tartar

1 tsp. Baking Soda

¾ teaspoon salt

⅓ cup butter, melted (divided)

Step 2: Grease & Flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan, and knock the excess flour out.

Step 3: Dry Ingredients

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.

Step 4: Wet Ingredients

Add the beer and half of the melted butter to the dry ingredients, and stir till combined. (reserve the other half of the melted butter for later)

Step 5: Into the Pan

Pour mixture into the loaf pan, smoothing out the top, then pouring the remaining melted butter evenly over the top.

Step 6: Bake It

Bake for 45+ minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Step 7: Enjoy!

Serve warm

Comments

[KittiCarlisle]

Do you think I could substitute (and keep all other ingredients the same) ginger beer for the beer? I’m not a beer fan but I wanted to try the recipe.

[Vixyn85]

You can substitute any carbonated beverage in this recipe, but the density of the bread can change. However, be careful of brightly colored sodas as they will give you a colored bread.(i.e. Red cream soda will make a pink bread.)

[KittiCarlisle]

Thank you for your response to my question. After receiving the first reply that the beverage have alcohol I decided not to try it because, as you know, ginger beer is non-alcoholic. I just moved on without doing any reshearch. Now I think I’ll give it a go.

[MichaelsTestKitchen]

Yes! I'm pretty sure it should work just as well; as long as has alcohol i think. Just know that the bread will borrow the flavor from the beer :)

[ERICOSCAR]

You say that the owen should be set to 375 degrees celsius !!??

And then you baked it for 45 minutes

Something is wrong here, was it not 175 degrees ?

Wille B. Sweden

[bjm1950]

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. I would have thought that is pretty clear!

C is not mentioned.

[MichaelsTestKitchen]

I'm sorry, I forgot to put Fahrenheit after that - 375 degrees F - which would be roughly 190 degrees Celsius

[jannie.lloyd]

Nope. He said 375 but didn't specify either F° or C°. If using F° the it's still extremely hot so your 175 (F°) is probably nearer the mark. :)
I haven't tried this recipe yet - I'd not hear do f Beer Bread, it sounds interesting so I'm going to give it a go.

Jannie in France

[Mex5150]

Thought this was going to be about baking bread with the lees from brewing, not disappointed though, I'll just try this version when I'm not racking beer LOL

[ANDRELAS]

Maybe it would be a good idea to get the beer real cold so the bubbles don't go out as much when you mix it in. Then maybe the soda mixture can be less. Something along those lines.

[MichaelsTestKitchen]

Sounds like a good idea; For this recipe i didn't chill the beer, but will certainly try that next time

[Penolopy Bulnick]

Sounds like a fun recipe! Quick bread sounds like the way to go :) So some probably silly questions: Does the alcohol bake off? Do you know if there are types of beer you cannot use for a bread recipe like this (I don't drink beer so I don't know much about it)?

[jjmcgaffey]

The alcohol definitely bakes off - I'm allergic to it (technically, intolerant, the way some people are lactose intolerant) and can eat beer bread without a problem. I've always used pale beers - but there's also Guinness bread (which is usually more complicated, but I don't see why it wouldn't work here). I have some old dark beer, I should try it.

I've also usually seen the recipe say use flat beer - let it sit opened for a while, or even cook it a little (warm it in a saucepan) to get rid of fizz. Now that this recipe doesn't say so, I don't know why...

[MichaelsTestKitchen]

yeah, it's pretty fun to make; super quick recipe, as well! Yes, the alcohol will bake off in the oven. I'm honestly not sure what types of beer you CAN'T use - but I would say just to be safe, stick with a lighter or pale beer, unless you want to try something stronger, in which case, the flavor of the beer bread will also be stronger. (I don't drink beer either, so I don't know a whole lot about it either :P )

[Penolopy Bulnick]

I feel like I've seen crazy flavored beers and I wondered if they would work/taste interesting :)

[MichaelsTestKitchen]

Yeah, that would be a cool thing to try! They would definitely work and certainly taste interesting, it would just be whether you prefer your bread to taste like that :D

[dchall8]

+1 for beer bread. I don't like the bitter flavor from beer so I use blueberry ale. It makes an amazing blueberry flavored bread.

[MichaelsTestKitchen]

oooh that sounds really good!

[JustCraftingAround]

Technically this recipe is not organic because you would need to use organic butter, organic flour, and organic baking powder. If you include those things in your recipe, it can then be organic. I do like the idea of the beer bread, but to me right now it's just not organic.

[MichaelsTestKitchen]

You're right! It's not organic, I didn't make it for the contest, but...it was accepted somehow :P So it probably won't win or anything XD