Beer Bread is the Best!

Seriously, if you have a bread maker, you need to do yourself a favor and bake up a loaf of this beer bread right now. It is that good, and ridiculously easy to assemble. Considering that beer and bread share many of the same basic ingredients (grain, yeast and water), it makes perfect sense that the former would elevate the latter. Just a few simple ingredients yield a loaf of dense, soft, slightly-sweet bread that is the perfect platform for softened butter and preserves or your favorite lunch fixings.

I used an ale in the Berliner Weissbier style, which is a wheat ale with citrus notes and a low alcohol content (4%). My beer selection was less a purposeful pursuit of a specific flavor profile, and more a matter of what was already in the fridge, but it worked remarkably well. Interestingly, I wasn't very keen on the beer as a stand-alone, but in the form of bread, it was divine. The recipe advised against using a porter or stout style ale, but I imagine that anything along the lighter side, from a lager to a pale ale, would yield delicious results. I can't wait to bake up another loaf!

*BEER BREAD*
Yields one 1.5-pound loaf

Ingredients

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup beer

1 t salt

1 T sugar

3 cups bread flour

2 t yeast

Assemble ingredients in the bread machine, in the order listed, taking care to keep the yeast separate from the wet ingredients. Select the basic/white bread cycle with a light crust setting. Remove the loaf upon completion of the baking cycle and slice while still slightly warm. Bread keeps well for many days when stored in an air-tight container.