Super Easy Cheddar Beer Bread Recipe - Super GOOD Too! (2024)

FAQs

Which beer makes the best beer bread? ›

Lighter beers, such as lagers, ales and pilsners, will give your bread a lighter color, and mild taste that just about everyone loves. Darker beers like stouts and porters make a darker-colored loaf and have a stronger beer flavor. Hoppy beers like IPAs will give your bread a more bitter taste.

Use room temperature beer: This helps the bread rise and creates a better texture than cold beer. Don't over-mix: After adding the beer to the dry ingredients, mix enough until just incorporated and nothing more. Overworking the dough will create a very dense loaf.

Without sufficient leavening from the beer, a loaf of beer bread will be fairly dense and heavy unless an additional leavening agent (e.g., baking soda, baking powder, baker's yeast and sugar, sourdough starter, or wild yeast cultured from the environment) is added.

I used Fat Tire because that what I had on hand, but Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors Light, and Miller Lite are all good options. No need to use anything fancy! What brands of cheese do you recommend? For the Cheddar, you can use a good supermarket brand, like Cabot or Tillamook.

Hefeweizen is a classic example of beer that is not especially high in alcohol, typically coming in between 4% and 6%, but it has perhaps the highest levels of yeast suspended in the beer. Hefes are known for their cloudy, hazy appearance and their nice thick head.

The majority of beers use a yeast strain called Saccharomyces. This translates from Latin to “sugar fungus.” It's apt, given that the yeast that goes into beer looooooves sugar. Within that genera, there are two specific species of Saccharomyces yeast that get the most use: lager yeast and ale yeast.

Bake the bread for 45 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted about 1/2" into the top of the loaf comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs clinging to it.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), baked or simmered dishes that contain alcohol will retain 40% of the original amount after 15 minutes of cooking, 35% after 30 minutes and 25% after an hour. But there's no point at which all of the alcohol disappears.

Can You Use Something Other Than Beer in Beer Bread? Absolutely! Almost any carbonated or noncarbonated beverage can be used, including water, soda pop, milk or buttermilk, fruit juice and even creamed corn! In general substitute 12 fluid ounces of whatever liquid you choose in place of beer.

All it takes is a small amount of dough enhancer per loaf to create a much lighter and fluffier result. Using a dough enhancer like Vital Wheat Gluten works to improve the texture and elasticity of the dough and elongate the strands of gluten. Doing so allows more room for the gas in the dough to develop and rise.

What is the best flour for bread? ›

While bread flour is the best option, it can sometimes be used if you don't have bread flour. “Check the protein content,” advises Chef Jürgen, since it can vary from brand to brand, and an all-purpose flour that contains protein on the higher end of the range, 12 to 13 percent, will produce a better outcome.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Aged cheddar and Belgian ales

A slightly sweet and off-dry saison or Belgian ale is a perfect match for aged cheddar.

But beer cheese? It's a Kentucky thing. Nearly every brewery and brewpub menu around Louisville has an iteration of the mouth-watering appetizer: most traditionally a combination of cheddar cheese, beer, cayenne pepper, paprika and some garlic.

It is full flavored, salty and tangy; you won't be missing out on flavor if you try this cheese. Beer Cheese is a semi-soft combination of Limburger Cheese and Brick Cheese. Not to be mistaken for the Beer Cheese dips that are popular in Kentucky, it has a very strong smell and taste.

It's also the phrase you'll find gracing each box of Trader Joe's Beer Bread Mix. The flavor of the finished loaf really depends on what kind of beer you use: Go with a lager for a lighter profile, an IPA for a hearty, hoppy taste, or a stout for a rich result with a slightly darker finished product.

What type of beer to use? I'm from Pennsylvania, so my go-to is Yuengling. It's a nice, well-balanced medium-bodied lager with malty and hoppy flavors that works really well for beer bread. Many people choose a light or medium beer with a mild flavor, but you can experiment with whatever you have on hand!

A Guinness Draught of course! This classic Irish stout perfectly balances bitter and sweet and will bring out the rich flavors of our slow-cooked meatloaf. If you're looking for the ultimate comfort food, this pairing is for you.