Brew 'n' stew: How to cook with beer

• Reprints

Beer can add a new dimension to dishes. (John J. Kim/Sun-Times)

CHEAT SHEET

For: Sauces and stews

Try: Porter

For: Broths, batters, cheese sauces

Try: Pale ale, pilsner

For: Shellfish

Try: Amber, lambic

For: Desserts

Try: Stout

Article Extras

Related Stories

• Beer-Braised Beef
• Aged Cheddar-Beer Soup
• Belgian White Mussels

Updated: April 10, 2011 12:15AM

Beer has always done a good job of washing down certain comfort foods. But cooking with beer? That’s a different story.

“Beer is tricky,” says Michelle Foik, general manager at Revolution Brewing, 2323 N. Milwaukee in Logan Square. “You really can’t cook a lot with hoppy beers. If you reduce the beer during the cooking process, it gets closer to its natural state of hops, which is bitter.”

Amber ales, for example, become very bitter when cooked down, “and don’t hold up well during a long braising time,” says David Blonsky, chef at the recently opened Public House, a beer-centric bar and restaurant at 400 N. State.

Instead, Blonsky reaches for California-based Stone Brewing Company’s Arrogant Bastard ale, a strong brew with sweeter hoppy notes, for sauces that accompany his lineup of smoked meats, including Kobe beef and pork brisket, pork shoulder, wings and bone-in chicken.

Or, for heartier beef and lamb dishes in particular, try reducing the sauce with porter, which adds a gorgeous richness, says Adam Seger, master mixologist with Hum Spirits Co.

“For pork, the coriander and orange peel in a Belgian white adds a great dimension,” he says. (Of course, he deglazes the pan with his own spirit, Hum, in place of another high-acid liquid like balsamic vinegar.)

f At the Publican, 837 W. Fulton, chef Brian Huston uses amber ales for tenderizing meat, but in a brining, not braising process.

“We’ve found that if you brine with amber beer, as opposed to cook with it, you get all the flavor and none of the bitterness,” he says. “We also make a lot of beer mustards in-house.”

“Cooking with beer is not easy, but it does tenderize foods so much better,” Foik says.

Boiling it down

There’s a science behind all this beer cooking madness.

Beer-making consists of multiple steps, including malting, milling, mashing, boiling, fermentation and filtering. The boiling process in particular affects the hops and the taste that comes out as a result.

“The longer you boil a beer, the more concentrated and intense the sugars are,” Foik says. “Bigger beers like Russian Imperial stout have a longer boil of three hours.”

Porter pairs well with stews because of its milder hops and caramelized flavor. With stouts, it’s all about the malt, so sweeter malt stouts like milk or oatmeal work well with desserts and certain savory dishes.

A pale ale, such as Revolution Brewing’s Iron Fist, works well in batters and broths because of its lightness and bubbles, Foik says.

Blonsky of Public House likes pale ales, Goose Island Green Line in particular, for cutting the richness of beer cheese soup and a dipping sauce for homemade pretzels, both made with Wisconsin-based Hook’s Cheddar cheese.

Art Wnorowski, owner of LOKaL, 1904 W. North, who worked with chef Ruben Torres to develop the comfort food-driven menu, said he likes to use Zywiec, a medium-light Polish pilsner with extra bubbles and tang, to help fluff up frying batters and potato bread.

The earthy, herbal notes combining cloves and honey and higher acidity also help boost the flavor and the deglazing process for mussels in beer broth, a traditional European dish, Wnorowski says.

The Publican’s Huston likes Gueuze, a lambic Belgian beer with high carbonation and slightly tart sour cherry notes for his mussels broth.

Roger Herring, chef and owner of Socca and the recently opened Red Herring in Clarendon Hills, has used Bells Amber and Goose Island Mild Winter Ale for shellfish because of the shorter cooking time and sweeter taste.

“The beer doesn’t get as reduced as much and it works with the lightness of the mussels and a little caramelized fennel,” Herring says.

By contrast, Butcher & Larder’s Rob Levitt has cooked up a “barnyard chili” of beef, pork and lamb not with amber, but with a dark, smoky porter.

“We are also developing a carbonnade de boeuf sausage flavored like the classic dish, but with caramelized onions and a stout beer,” Levitt says.

Dessert treatment

Revolution Brewing even pairs the frozen with the bubbly.

“We have a lot of fun making ice cream out of beer,” Foik says. “We have made porter ice cream, and we’ve also made ice cream with citra hops, which are known for their fruity, citrusy notes that smell almost like grapefruit and orange.”

Paired with fresh-cut mangos and a grapefruit wheel, the citrus ice cream has already earned a couple of awards and a permanent spot on the menu.

For frozen desserts, the brewery uses the wort of the beer — the sugary, syrupy substance that comes out of the tank after the first boil, before it goes into the fermenting tank — than the beer itself because alcohol doesn’t freeze well, Foik says.

At Public House, Blonsky likes the creaminess of the nitrogen kegerator-tapped Left Hand Brewing Company’s milk stout that “won’t explode all over the place” when combined with ice cream in milkshakes or floats.

For Foik, cooking with beer is more about trial and error than exactness.

“With wine, you know which reds or whites are going to work with which foods,” she says. “When it comes to cooking with beer, it’s not so cut and dry, so that makes it more fun and experimental.”