Beer Bread

We had a lot of visitors during the holiday season, and it seems everyone brought beer. The bottom shelf of our refrigerator actually cracked recently from the weight of all the extra bottles. Rather than getting drunk every night to use up the excessive amounts of booze in the house, I decided to start making beer bread. This recipe was ridiculously easy and delicious. The original recipe came from Epicurious.com with a few alterations on my part.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients:

2 cups bread flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

3 T sugar

1 T baking powder

1 t salt

1 bottle (12 ounces) beer at room temperature

1/4 cup butter (melted)

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add beer all at once and mix as little as possible - batter will be lumpy. Spray or grease a loaf pan (9"x5"x3") and pour batter into pan. Pour melted butter on top of dough, ensuring to completely cover the loaf. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in loaf comes out clean.

I used Yuengling Lager for my first loaf and it worked beautifully. The bread tastes great on its own and is a little bit sweet. The next time I make it, I plan to add roasted garlic and Italian spices to the dough, replace half of the butter with olive oil, and maybe mix a little grated romano cheese in as well. My stomach is growling just thinking about it!