I've been trying to use beer in cooking i.e using beer in the frying or crock pot slow cooking of hot food.
I'm not having much success. I found - and then subsequently read - that only very freshly opened bottle/can or freshly poured draught beer should be used. A few hours old or, even worse, overnight fridge stored beer will destroy the food.
But despite using good beer I can't seem to positively impact the taste of the food - it ends up tasting of stale beer or of no beer at all.
Clearly, ale is a traditional ingredient in British food (at least south of the Scottish border) so why is it so bloody difficult to create a decent meal using beer?
I've tried beer in slow cooker recipes (a no go because the long cooking process renders the beer stale); I've tried it in fried of oven baked recipes (another no go because the taste is too strong - the oven recipes appear to be a bit better than the fried though).
I've used bottle conditioned real ales, bottled real ales, draught real ales and even popular lager brews. The best result, so far, has been Hoegaarden which imparted a nice and subtle fresh yeasty and wheat filled taste to the (partially) slow cooked lamb and potatoes. Someone who tasted the food - and didn't know that I had added Hoegaarden - described the meal as reminding them of wheat fields (make of that what you will!) I don't know why Hoegaarden is so easy to cook with - it just seems to produce good and almost (but not quite) fool proof results.
My own theory is that beer in general is difficult to cook with because of the water:alcohol ratio. Wine is easier because you simply burn away the alcohol in which case you are left with a sophisticated grape juice or you add wine to a slow cooked meal for taste and an explicit acknowledgement that the food contains wine.
But beer, culturally, doesn't have the same role. Beer is at its best when it is least visible and least apparent. It's valued the most when it isn't in the hands and mouths of chavs gagging for a fight on a Friday and Saturday evening. The quiet and respectful mind your own business approach of real ale makes it the most suitable brew for cooking - but also, as I'm finding, the most bloody difficult to cook with. A few years ago Marks and Sparks sold a steak and ale pie which I have never before or since tasted the likes of. A work of pure genius.
Would anyone be able to recommend an easily available brew (available nationally) with which to cook and maybe a recipe?
Gareth.