New Belgium 1554 Beer Bread

Giving new meaning to the term "liquid bread."

Recently, my daughter brought home Cooking With Beer, a beer recipe book that she’d found on sale at the local chain bookstore (Barnes & Waldorf, Noblebooks, I forget which one). I pride myself on knowing my way around the kitchen a little bit, though I’m no gourmet chef. I like to think that my strongest cooking attribute is my work on the grill, but I gamely browsed through the recipe book and immediately lit on what looked like a nice, simple bread recipe that used beer as a principle ingredient. (Duh.)

I picked up a single bottle of New Belgium Brewing’s 1554 to use in the recipe and I must admit, I’m reasonably pleased with the outcome, though I’d probably tweak the process a bit in the future.

Here’s the recipe for Texas Beer Bread as it is listed in Cooking With Beer:
3 Cups self-rising flour
1/4/cup sugar
1 Twelve-ounce can of beer, room temperature
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine flour, sugar and beer mixing until blended well.
Spoon into a 9x3 inch loaf pan
To give bread a glaze, combine egg and 1 tablespoon water and brush the mixture on the top of the loaf
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from oven and brush top with melted butter.


The results using the 1554 were entirely satisfactory with one exception. In the future I believe I will refrain from brushing melted butter on the loaf after removing it from the oven. Additionally, I think that, depending upon the type of beer I use, I may up the sugar slightly to make a sweeter bread. (For example, I’m tempted to use a chocolate stout, add a tad more sugar than the recipe calls for, throw in just a very small amount of chocolate chips and perhaps walnuts and raisins for a holiday bread. What do you think?)

In any event, my 1554 Texas Beer Bread was gone in about three days and I’ll be baking another loaf once the temperature here cools off a bit. For now, it’s back to the grill!

You can purchase Sheryn R. Jones’ Cooking With Beer over at Beer Books. By the way, Beer Books is an awesome site, just to browse around for anything beer-related. Have a look!