The Right Beer for the Job

Which beer for which dish? It comes down to how much beer flavor you want in your food.

More powerful beers and ales, such as Guiness Stout, might not be good for delicate foods, such as a meringue. But, says Joseph Owades, president of the Center for Brewing Studies in Sonoma, “if you put the Guiness in a bread or use it to cook shrimp, you’d get a strong beer taste, which can be very nice.

“If you want still stronger beer aromatics, try an ale such as Anchor Steam, Pete’s Wicked Ale or Samuel Adams,” Owades says. “With them you would get some hops bouquet.”

Just remember that some of the assertiveness of stronger beers and ales, such as the bitterness of stout, does not cook away. “You can dilute the flavor depending on the recipe,” says Owades, “but the bitterness will always be there to some degree.”

Whatever type beer you choose, make it one with character. Cooking with mass-market commercial beers won’t be that different from cooking with water. And as for light beers, “You’ll be just spinning your wheels,” says Owades.

He explains that non-light beers and ales, with about 5% alcohol by volume, offer some carbohydrates and consequently better flavor. With light beer, the flavor boils off faster.

Curiously, though, a nonalcoholic beer would do nearly as well as a regular beer in most recipes. “Regular beers and nonalcoholic beers contain the solid part of beer--the starches,” Owades says.

Whenever you’re cooking with beer, wine or spirits, one key point should be remembered: The longer the cooking process, the less intense the flavor will be from the beverage.

Conversely, if a recipe calls for a short cooking time, the dish will retain more of the beer aroma, though, of course, most of the alcohol will still be cooked away.