Beer Bread

Beer Bread

Yes... beer bread. We had some leftover Blue Moon Agave Nectar Beer that some friends brought over and since it wasn't the type of beer we typically drink, I decided to bake some bread. The concept isn't a new one (beer bread or baking beer bread to get rid of unwanted beer). My first experience was a loaf of Sam Adams Cherry Wheat Beer which turned out well considering my dislike of cherry-flavored foods. So why beer bread? One bottle of beer makes a single loaf of bread in a little over an hour. Yep, it takes virtually no time to prep and about an hour to bake. Homemade bread without waiting for the dough to rise or any kneading.

I used this recipe from Food.com and swapped out the sugar for some raw agave nectar. My modification to the recipe is in blue but it's a nice basic recipe that can be easily modified with ingredients that compliment the flavor of your beer. I substituted 1/3 of the flour with wheat flour when I made the Cherry Wheat Beer bread.

Beer Bread

3 cups flour (sifted Don't be lazy, just do it... even if it came pre-sifted)

3 teaspoons baking powder (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)

1 teaspoon salt (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)

1/4 cup sugar (I substituted this with ~3 tbsp of agave nectar)

1 (12 ounce) can beer (warm to room temp first)

1/2 cup melted butter (1/4 cup will do just fine)

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2) Mix dry ingredients and beer. (I tried not to overmix this so it was fairly lumpy when I transferred it to the loaf pan)

3) Pour into a greased loaf pan. 

4) Pour melted butter over mixture. (I added 6 x 1/4" squares of butter on top rather than the 1/4 - 1/2 cup)

5) Bake 1 hour, remove from pan and cool for at least 15 minutes. (I baked mine for ~50 minutes and pulled it out of the oven after it passed the toothpick test.)