Cheesy Beer Bread

When I scanned ahead on the recipe schedule for Baked Sunday Mornings and noticed this cheesy beer bread, I was really excited. Bread and cheese are two of my favorite things, particularly melty cheese and warm bread. I am not a beer drinker, despite my friends’ best efforts, but I am a fan of beer in baking applications.

I first stumbled across a recipe for beer bread while on holiday last summer with my Dad’s side of the family. We just so happened to have an abundance of beer on hand, including a nice pumpkin ale I’d picked but wasn’t drinking. I decided to try making a beer bread to use up some of the extra flour we had at the vacation rental from my daily blondie baking. The simple recipe turned out better than I anticipated (better than everyone expected, probably). It was terrific while warm, but once cool, I found the flavor of the baking powder to be too pronounced. I made the bread a second time, with a small amount of yeast added and the amount of leavener halved in order to minimize the aftertaste. I was a lot happier with that result. I also discovered that beer bread can be baked as a flat bread on a quarter sheet pan for about 20 minutes with equal success.

Unfortunately, my next attempt was a disaster, as I grabbed the only beer in Caleb’s fridge, which happened to be a double IPA. The sourness of that IPA dominated the flavor of that batch of beer bread. I was incredibly embarrassed, especially since I’d made it for a group dinner with Caleb’s friends and family. As a non-beer drinker, hopefully that was an honest mistake to make. Now I know (and by proxy, so do you) – beer bread is great with virtually any beer, as long as it’s not an IPA or sour beer.

This recipe from Baked Occasions takes everything great about the adapted beer bread I’d been making, and elevates it to a new level of cheesy bready goodness with a hint of spice and a richness of flavor from the addition of sour cream. I’ve made this recipe a few times now, the first time I followed it exactly, the other times I varied the cheese and the loaf style.

I really enjoyed the combination of the Brebis sheep’s milk cheese and the Gruyère in the bread, and I think it’s certainly worth the effort to seek them out at least once to make this recipe in its original form. However, they are expensive, and depending on where you live, they might be difficult to locate. The nearest chain supermarket to me doesn’t carry them, although the tiny Italian market does. If you can’t find them, or you don’t want to spend over $8 on cheese for a single loaf of bread, you can still produce a fantastic cheesy beer bread using more common cheeses. I think a pepper jack or sharp cheddar could be really great cheeses in this bread. I made mini cheesy beer bread loaves with cubed and grated fontina cheese, and while they didn’t have quite the multidimensional flavor, they were consumed with gusto by everyone at the dinner party I brought them to – despite the fact that pizza had already been ordered and partially consumed when I arrived (I’m working on my tardiness still).

One of the best things about beer bread is how quickly it comes together. You probably have the required ingredients in your pantry, with the exception of these specific cheeses. If you don’t have sour cream, plain yogurt can be used as a substitution. Almost any beer you have around will do - I’ve used a Nitro Milk Stout, McEwan’s Scottish Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale – I didn’t find one to stand above the others as the best beer to use. From conception to devouring, this flavorful loaf of bread takes only 30 minutes to an hour, depending on whether you bake your bread as a single 9-by-5 loaf, a set of mini loaves, a flatbread, or some other shape. Grate and cube your cheese, whisk together the dry ingredients, the cheese cubes, and half the grated cheese. Whisk together the wet ingredients. Gently fold everything together, pour into your pan of choice, which has 1 oz of grated cheese scattered on the bottom. Scatter the last 1 oz of grated cheese on top, and into the oven you go. This bread is phenomenal while still warm, but it's also great once cooled (no hint of baking powder mars the flavor).The cheesy beer bread from Baked Occasions is a great tribute to Bastille Day, which is the holiday it’s meant to honor in the cookbook, however it is so simple to make and pairs so well with virtually any meal, that I highly recommend you add it to your bread repertoire immediately.

Head over to Baked Occasions for the recipe and to see what the other bakers thought of this delicious cheesy beer bread.

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