There are good technical functions for beer in cooking. The yeast and effervescence act like a leavening agent, fluffing up a beer-battered coating for fried foods or adding lightness to baked goods. An open can of beer imparts terrific moisture to whole grilled chicken in the favorite backyard beer-can chicken recipe. There's the bitter flavor, which serves as a foil for other salty, sweet, and sour notes.
Also topping the list of reasons to bring your favorite ale into the kitchen is leftover beer, which can be used at the chef's discretion.
Traditional English, Irish, and Belgian dishes have long used beer as a central ingredient. Think Welsh rarebit, mussels, Guinness stew, and beef carbonnade, the rich Flemish stew that's sweetened with onions and Belgian ale.
Of all the beers to work with, dark styles such as stout and porter offer the most distinct roasty, bitter qualities (porters may be more smoky or malty than stouts), making them the perfect complement to coffee, chocolate, dark meats, and ginger. Flavored dark beers or those aged in bourbon barrels offer another, usually sweeter dimension to play with. At London Grill's Beer Week Deschutes dinner, for instance, a bourbon-barrel-aged stout is reduced to make the basis for a caramel, ultimately served up with a scoop of Capogiro ginger gelato and fresh mint.
"People tend to cook with stout before anything else - braising short ribs, making stews, and even using it in ice cream or milkshakes," Kimball says. "But there are so many other beers to work with."
Kimball employs sour Flemish ales for vinaigrettes, sweet-sour raspberry lambic for a fruity summer salad with raspberries. In his experience, the piney quality of IPAs pairs well with berries, rosemary, juniper, and grapefruit in both sweet and savory dishes. Kimball has created a fig jam made with Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA, paired with a cheese plate.
