Most of us think of beer as an end product, but did you know that it can be used as an ingredient, too?
Beer is a key ingredient in all kinds of food recipes, from sauces and marinades to cocktails and desserts. Check out these three delectable foods made with beer!

Beer-Charged Caramelized Onions (via The Homebrew Academy)
I would put caramelized onions on just about anything – steak, eggs, casserole, pizza, tacos. Though caramelized onions can be relatively simple, this recipe uses a dash of beer and a little brown sugar to make them irresistible. Try it with this Newcastle Brown Ale clone.
Ingredients

• 4 yellow onions
• 1 tbsp beer (amber or brown ale work great!)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp brown sugar

Directions

1. Cut the onions into 1/4” slices.
2. Melt the butter and oil in a skillet. Add the salt and brown sugar. Next, add the onions to the skillet and sauté for about five minutes, stirring often to avoid burning.
3. Turn down the heat and cook for about 40 minutes, turning periodically until the onions are caramelized through.
4. When the onions are thoroughly caramelized, add the tablespoon of beer and scrape up all the yummy brown bits.
5. Serve over grilled meat, pasta, fajitas, or just about anything else and enjoy!

Pilsner-Battered Asparagus with Lemon-Chive Aioli (via Draft Mag)
If you have to eat your veggies, you might as well eat them battered, fried, and dipped in mayonnaise, right? Even better, add beer! This recipe works great with bright, effervescent beers like Bohemian-Style Pilsner.
Ingredients
For the asparagus:

• 3⁄4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1⁄2 cup cornstarch
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup pilsner
• 4 cups peanut oil
• 1 pound medium asparagus, ends trimmed

For the aioli:

• 1⁄2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 small garlic clove, mashed with a pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh chives

Directions

1. Combine the dry ingredients from the asparagus portion of the recipe in a bowl. Mix in the pilsner to combine. Set aside for 30 minutes.
2. Combine the ingredients for the aioli and season to taste. Place in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
3. Preheat oven to 200˚F. Heat the peanut oil in a pan and heat to about 360˚F. Dip the asparagus spears in the batter, then gently place them in the hot oil and cook until lightly browned. (Do these in batches so as not to overcrowd the pan.)
4. When golden brown, transfer asparagus to a baking pan lined with paper towels. Keep them in the oven until the whole batch is ready to serve.
5. Serve with the lemon aioli and enjoy!

 
Homebrewed Beer Dip (via Taste of Home)

Need something quick and easy for the big game? Look no further! This ranch-style dip takes all of about five minutes to whip together and can be made with a wide range of beer styles. Try it with an aromatic tripel or a saison.
Ingredients

• 16 oz. of cream cheese
• 1/3 cup of beer
• 1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix
• 8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
• pretzels, crackers, or chips for dipping

Directions

1. Beat together the cream cheese, beer, and ranch dressing mix.
2. Stir in the cheddar until smooth.
3. If desired, zap in the microwave to serve warm.
4. Serve with pretzel, chips or crackers and enjoy!

Looking for more foods made with beer? Check out these Chocolate Stout Cupcakes!

———————————–
David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

After the success of my first mead, a traditional mead with no herbs or spices, I’m ready now to mix things up and try something a little different.

I just so happened to meet a gentleman at the farmer’s market this morning who had some very nice things to say about a mead recipe in Charlie Papazian’s book, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Papazian’s Barkshack Gingermead is a dry, sparkling mead, similar to champagne, made with the pungent spiciness of ginger and flavored with a “brewer’s choice” assortment of fruits and spices. Papazian personally prefers raspberries as the fruit.
The gentleman at the farmer’s market said that it was easy to overdo it on the spice level, so much so that he felt compelled to blend the gingermead down with an unspiced mead. If you choose to use aggressive spices like nutmeg and cloves, take it easy. If this is your first time trying a spiced mead, you might want to scale the mead recipe down to a one-gallon batch until you develop a comfort level with the spices.
Remember that mead takes a long time to make – at least six months. To accelerate the process, you might try the staggered nutrient additions recommended by Michael Fairbrother – but don’t forget to be patient. Many things – especially mead – get better with age.

Barkshack Gingermead (via the Complete Joy of Homebrewing)
(5-gallon batch)

Ingredients 
7 lbs. light honey
1.5 lbs. corn sugar
1-6 oz. freshly grated ginger root
1.5 tsp. gypsum
1 tsp. citric acid
3 tsp. yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp. Irish moss
Optional: 1-6 lbs. your choice of crushed fruit (e.g. sour cherries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb, grapes, grape concentrate, cranberries, chokeberries, etc.)
Optional: 3 oz. lemongrass or other spice or herb (be careful with cloves, cinnamon, mint, hops – they can easily overpower the mead)
1-2 packs champagne yeast
3/4 cup corn sugar (for bottling)
Directions

1. Boil the first seven ingredients for 15 minutes in 1.5 gallons water.
2. Turn off the heat, and use a small strainer to remove as many pieces of ginger root as you can without going crazy.
3. Add the crushed fruit to the hot wort and let it steep for 10-15 minutes. This will help pasteurize the fruit.
4. Pour all of the “wort” into a clean, sanitized fermenter containing 3 gallons of cool, chlorine-free water and mix well.
5. When wort reaches 78˚F or below, pitch yeast. Ferment at about 70˚F for seven days, then rack to a secondary fermenter. Take care not to transfer any fruit into secondary. Allow for 1-1.5 months in secondary.
6. Bottle with the 3/4 cup corn sugar. If desired, prepare a strong tea using the herb/spice of your choice and mix it into the bottling bucket prior to bottling. You can easily bottle only part of the batch with the tea be adding it part way through the bottling process.
7. Age for six months to a year and enjoy!

Do you have a favorite Mead recipe you’d like to share? Put it in the comments below…
———————————–
David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

Back in August of last year, you may have caught this post about my love for experimenting with homebrew. I’m here to remind you that it’s all true. So much so, I’ve taken it one step further…
Friends really enjoyed one of my recipes introduced in that post – a beer/cider hybrid called “graff.” Essentially a malted cider, the brew combines the best of both drinks. You get aromas of apple sweetness as well as some hoppy flavor. A friend and I recently decided to tweak the original graff recipe to test our ability to create something akin to apple pie in a glass.
The results were decidedly tasty!
For reference, here’s the original graff recipe, which has you steep some grains in two gallons of water for 30 minutes at 155°F before an hour-long boil with liquid malt extract and hops:

Basic Graff Recipe
(5 gallons)
3 lbs. extra pale liquid malt extract
1 lb. honey malt
2 oz. Cluster hops at :60
By topping off with pasteurized apple juice or cider to make five gallons and fermenting with Wyeast 1056, you’ll get an ideal blend of beer and cider. I even added about a quarter-pound of honey with five minutes left in the boil to give it a sweet tinge.
While this graff recipe is great year-round, I started thinking about how to make it even more appropriate for fall. A discussion with my homebrewer friend led us to yet another experiment: this time trying to combine more aspects of a stout with the apple base.
Here’s the mad scientist graff recipe we decided to use:

“Apple Pie” Graff Recipe
(partial-mash, 5 gallons) 
.25 lb. black patent malt
.5 lb. flaked oats
.5 lb. two-row pale malt
1 lb. extra dark crystal malt
3 lb. amber liquid malt extract
1 oz. Challenger hops at :60
.5 oz. Kent Goldings hops at :30
.5 oz. Kent Goldings hops at :15
Directions: Steep all the grains in two gallons of 155°F water for 30 minutes. Bring to a boil and add the extract and hops, according to schedule. Top the wort off with three gallons of pasteurized cider or juice, adding a little water if necessary to make five gallons. Use Wyeast 1968, which is a perfect complement for the sweet juice used in this beer.
If you want to add an additional layer to this brew, add one cinnamon stick to your priming sugar boil on bottling day.
The result – at least what we found – was a homebrew that nearly resembled a baked apple pie. The apple flavor was unmistakable, but the combination of grains provided both roasted and sweet flavors amounting to a baked pastry.
But most of all, it was a fun excuse to experiment again. Don’t be afraid to try variations of your own when taking on the graff recipe, including different hops to see how those flavors play to your tastes!
———————————–
Bryan Roth is a beer nerd and homebrewer living in Durham, North Carolina. You can read his thoughts on beer and the beer industry on his award-winning blog, This Is Why I’m Drunk, and send him suggestions on how to get his wife to drink craft beer via Twitter at @bryandroth.

White Rascal is a popular Belgian-style witbier brewed by Avery Brewing Co. out of Boulder, CO. Witbier makes for a great summer beer. Refreshing, smooth, a little sweet, with mildly spicy citrus notes. If you’re looking for a great beer to get you through the warmer months…this could be it!
Witbier literally translates to “white beer.” The reason witbier is white is because of the high proportion of wheat in the grain bill. In the case of this beer recipe, it calls for 50% wheat malt. Wheat has much more protein than barley and gives beer body and a sweet wheat flavor, but also makes the beer cloudy. The cloudiness gives the beer a very pale appearance. Since the protein in wheat can sometimes contribute to a stuck sparge, I recommend adding rice hulls to the mash to improve filterability.
Paired with the sweet wheat flavor is a low hop bitterness and an intriguing flavor and aroma. Witbiers are made with coriander and orange peel (and sometimes other spices) which give the beer a delightfully refreshing citrus flavor. This is a beer you can drink all day while hanging out in the sun!
The final key component to brewing a good witbier is using an authentic Belgian witbier yeast. This beer recipe calls for Wyeast 3944, but 3942 would work very will, also.
The beer recipe below is from the Avery website, where they share homebrew recipes for more than a dozen of their beers (including Maharaja Imperial IPA). The ingredient weights might look a little funny (0.07 oz. of hops?), but keep in mind these are scaled down from a much larger system. At Avery, that hop addition is probably a pound or more – not so awkward at that scale.

Avery White Rascal Clone Recipe (All-Grain)
(5-gallon batch)
Specs
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.010
ABV: 5.2%
IBUs: 24
SRM: 4
Ingredients
5 lbs. pale two-row malt
5 lbs. white wheat malt
1 lb. rice hulls (do not crush)
0.4 oz. Bravo hops at :60 (6.2 AAUs)
0.07 oz. Bravo hops at :30 (1.1 AAUs)
0.27 oz. Sterling hops at :0
0.18 oz. Hersbrucker hops at :0
0.31 oz. coriander at :0
0.25 oz. sweet orange peel at :0
0.06 oz. bitter orange peel at :0
Wyeast 3942 – Belgian Wheat yeast
Directions 
Add the crushed malts and the rice hulls (not crushed) to about 3.75 gallons of water at 170˚F. Hold the mash temperature at 152˚F for one hour, then sparge with 170˚F water to collect 7 gallons of wort. Bring wort to a boil, then add hops and spices according to schedule above. Chill wort to 66˚F and transfer to a clean, sanitized fermenter. Ferment at 66˚F for about 5 days, then let fermentation temperature climb to room temperature to complete fermentation. When fermentation is complete, bottle or keg for 2.5 to 3 volumes of CO₂.
Have you brewed an Avery White Rascal clone before? What’s your favorite witbier recipe?  
———————————–
David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

Looking for some great summer beer recipes? Thirst quenchers for the heat? Brews for your backyard barbeque? Look no further!
Since we spend so much time outdoors in the summer sun, summer beers are typically low in alcohol. They’re refreshing without being overpowering. The flavor profile can vary quite a bit, from light, easy-drinking cream ales, blondes, and lagers to more assertive IPAs and Belgian ales. Whatever you choose, you’ll enjoy it more if you brew it yourself!
Without further ado, below are ten excellent summer beer recipes to get you through the warmer months!
10 Refreshing Summer Beer Recipes

• Brooklyn Summer Ale Clone – Just because a beer is low alcohol doesn’t mean it has to be low in flavor. For this reason, summer ales are ideal for warm weather. This beer is 4.8% ABV, with just enough citrusy hop character to keep things interesting. A great beer for the pool, the beach, or the backyard.

• Honey Blonde Ale – Though we included this in our lineup of perfect spring beers, it’s a great fit for summer as well. It’s an easy partial mash recipe boasting sweet honey flavors from both honey and honey malt. English Kent Goldings hops bring a touch of citrus.
  

• Buddy Light (Bud Light Clone) – If you’re in need of an easy-drinking lawnmower lager or a tailgate beer, this is a quintessential summer beer recipe. No, it won’t hit you over the head with hops or alcohol – it’s not supposed to. If you can, ferment this one as a lager to smooth it out.
  

• Ommegang’s Hennepin Farmhouse Saison Clone – Though on the strong side at 8% ABV, this Hennepin clone is bright gold in color and full of fruity, floral, and spicy character from the use of spices and Belgian ale yeast. All this as an easy-to-brew extract recipe.
  

• Bell’s Two-Hearted IPA Clone – If you like IPAs, you’ll agree that they’re always in season. This beer recipe, with both all-grain and partial mash options, is a clone of one of the most popular IPAs around. This beer features exclusively Centennial hops, offering loads of piney and citrusy hop character.
  

• Blue Noon (Blue Moon Clone) – Brewed in the style of Belgian witbier, Blue Noon is a pale, citrusy, supremely refreshing clone of the ever popular Blue Moon. Enjoy outdoors with a slice of orange!
  

• Hard Apple Cider – Hard cider is easy to make, light, and thirst quenching. If using fresh, unpasteurized juice, use Campden tablets to stabilize it first. Yeast nutrient is also recommended.
  

• Paulaner Hefeweizen Clone – A well-brewed German hefeweizen may be the perfect summer beer recipe. Both sweet and smooth with notes of banana and clove, it’s remarkably cooling and drinkable. This clone recipe mimics one of the most popular hefeweiens from Germany.
  

• Dogfish Head 90-Minute Clone – At 8.7% ABV and 90 IBUs, this is the biggest beer on the list. Though you probably wouldn’t have more than one or two in a sitting, if you like hoppy beers, this is a delicious recipe that is sure to keep your taste buds happy.

 What are some of your favorite summer beer recipes? Share them in the comment section below…
———————————–
David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

Looking for a little homebrew inspiration?
Over my 5+ years of homebrewing, I’ve brewed some 50 batches of beer. There have been a few mishaps, many enjoyable beers, and a few batches that have knocked it out of the park. Below are five of my all-time favorite homebrew recipes.
*Note: I brewed most of these all-grain, but the all-grain homebrew recipes can easily be converted to extract or partial mash. Where no partial mash recipe is provided, simply convert a majority of the base malt using the following ratios: 1 lb. grain = .75 lb. liquid malt extract = .6 lb. dried malt extract. For example, replace 9 lbs. base malt with 6.75 lbs., or about two cans, of LME.

1. Uinta Dubhe Imperial Black IPA Clone – If you like big, hoppy, aggressive beers, this homebrew recipe’s for you. A massive grain bill delivers a full-bodied brew with deep rich flavors of chocolate and coffee and an alcohol content upwards of 9% ABV. On the hops side of the equation, Chinook, Bravo, Columbus, and Falconer’s Flight combine to deliver a stout bitterness (100+ IBUs), but also copious levels of dank, spicy, piney, and citrusy hop flavor and aroma. My nickname for this beer is “Holy Hop Tar!”
   

2. Ithaca Beer Company Flower Power IPA Clone – IPAs taste best fresh, and it’s hard to get fresher when you brew it yourself. This cloning experiment yielded a delightful India Pale Ale at a respectable 7.5-8% ABV. The simplicity of the grain bill provides a sweet, honey-like base to support the juicy, citrusy hops, which are added at five separate points throughout the boil and fermentation. You can review the entire Flower Power brew process through the link above.
   

3. Captain Cogsworth Coffee Stout – The desire for a simpler brew day led me to revert back to partial mash brewing for a day. This easy homebrew recipe yielded a tasty American stout with an easy-going, somewhat fruity coffee flavor that helped get me through the winter. I reviewed the finished beer here.
   

4. Chipotle Smoked Porter – This recipe goes back to my early days of homebrewing and still stands out as one of the more audacious beers I’ve made. It starts with a smoked porter recipe kit and adds a can of chipotle peppers straight to boil. This one might make you sweat!
   

5. Munich Dunkel – I’m going to finish with something a little more approachable, a daily drinker, if you will. To me, this traditional German style offers the best of both worlds: the drinkability of a lager with a full flavor of a darker beer. If brewing this one partial mash, I recommend using two cans of Munich LME in place of the Munich malt and the wheat malt. Be sure to ferment cool and lager for several weeks for best results.

Do you have any favorite homebrew recipes from your homebrewing career? Feel free to share them in the comments below!
———————————–
David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

Blue Moon is a very popular beer in the United States. Many consider it a “gateway beer” to other beer styles from around the world. Based on the Belgian witbier style, Blue Moon is a hazy, golden orange brew with pronounced orange flavors. As with traditional witbier, Blue Moon is brewed with orange and coriander and often served with a slice of orange. It’s a great beer for the summer!
Our Steam Freak Blue Noon Recipe Kit uses two cans of Steam Freak light LME make for an easy brew day, while oats and white wheat contribute body and soft grain flavor. And of course, orange peel and coriander contribute enticing notes of citrus.
This is a partial mash recipe kit. In this recipe, partial mash brewing combines the brew in a bag (BIAB) technique with extract brewing. Using a grain bag (included in the kit) steep the 2.75 lbs of crushed grains in 150-160˚F water for 20-30 mins, then withdraw the bag and proceed with the recipe.
Consider saving 10% by buying two kits, which will also qualify for free shipping!

Steam Freak Blue Noon (Blue Moon Clone)
(Partial-mash recipe, five-gallon batch)


Specs
Style: Belgian Wit
OG: 1.055 – 1.060
FG: 1.0014 – 1.018
ABV: 5.5%
IBUs (Bitterness): 20

Ingredients
6.6 lbs. Light Liquid Malt Extract
1 lb. two-row malt
1 lb. white wheat malt
12 oz. flaked oats
2 oz. Hallertau hops
Orange peel
Ground coriander
Mangrove Jack’s M20: Bavarian Wheat Yeast
Also included in this kit:
Grain Bag
Bottle Caps
Priming Sugar
Directions: Preboil and chill about 3 gallons of water. This will be used at the end of brew day. Clean and sanitize all equipment. Place crushed specialty grains in the included grain bag and steep in three gallons of clean water for 30 minutes at 155˚F. Remove grains and discard. Mix in malt extracts while stirring and bring wort to a boil. Add hops and spices according to recipe instructions. At the end of the boil, stir wort to create a whirlpool and chill to about 70°F. This can be done with an ice bath or a wort chiller. Pour wort into a sanitized fermenter, leaving sediment behind in the brew kettle. Mix in enough of the preboiled and chilled water to make five gallons and stir with a sanitized spoon. Pitch yeast by sprinkling directly into wort. Seal fermenter with a sanitized lid and airlock and ferment at about 70˚F for two weeks. Bottle and condition for at least two weeks.
———————————–
David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

I’ve got to tell you, this Flower Power IPA clone has really come into its own over the past few weeks. The somewhat harsh, alcoholic bite that I noticed in the initial tasting has completely gone away, leaving behind a lush, citrusy hop flavor that’s damn near irresistible. I’ve recently had a few IPAs from the store (from major American craft brewers, no less) that don’t stand close to this brew. It just goes to show that it is possible to make better beer than you can buy.
In addition to the development in flavor, there has also been a big change in the appearance of the beer. In my initial taste test about two weeks after kegging and bottling, both the kegged and bottled beers showed some serious haze. The kegged beer gradually became clearer as it was consumed, and with a little extra time, the bottled beer became clear as could be, as long as I avoided pouring the sediment into the glass.
Regrettably, I finished off the kegged portion of the Flower Power clone before getting a final photo, but I’ve got some bottles stashed away and one more bottle of the original Flower Power IPA for a final side-by-side comparison. Here are my tasting notes:

• Aroma – Both burst with fresh, American hop aroma. The original Flower Power has more of a malty, sweet honey aroma.
• Appearance – Both clear, with a decent white head. The clone has somewhat more head retention than the original. Original is golden straw in color, while the clone is more of a bright orange.
• Flavor – For all intents and purposes, they are identical. It’s hard to pick out differences when the hops just sit on your palate.
• Mouthfeel – Both are medium-full bodied, carbonation is good. Bitterness doesn’t linger too much.
• Overall – Aside from the color, the clone is nearly spot on. A wonderful IPA in its own right.

Flower Power Clone Recipe Adjustments
Don’t get me wrong – this clone is awesome just the way it is. But if I wanted to make a perfect clone of the Flower Power IPA, how would I change the beer recipe to make it more accurately resemble the original version of the beer?
When adjusting a beer recipe, it’s important not to make too many drastic changes all at once. Instead, focus on just one or two areas and make incremental adjustments. This will make it easier to keep track of what changes have what effect on the beer. After all, the beer is close – we don’t need to reinvent it, just tweak it a little.
That said, the biggest “fault” is the color. To fix that, I would make the following adjustment:

• Grain bill – The clone is too dark. In the original beer recipe, the grain bill is 14.5 lbs. Weyerman pale malt and 1 lb. honey malt, with an estimated color of 9 SRM. I’d consider switching the base malt from a pale ale malt (3˚L) to a 2-row brewers malt (1.8˚L) and possibly reduce the honey malt to .75 lb. to get the color closer to 7 SRM. To maintain a malty sweetness (which is where I think the original really stands out), I’d make sure to keep the mash temperatures on the high end, maybe 154˚F.

Conclusion
This has been a fun experiment in recipe development. Though the first attempt at this Flower Power clone wasn’t a perfect match, I’ve stumbled across an amazing IPA recipe in the process. Best of all, I feel that I’ve really proven to myself that yes, you can make better, fresher beer at home than what you can buy at the store.

What beer would you like to see cloned on the E. C. Kraus Homebrew Blog?
—————————————————————–
Review the whole Flower Power clone brewing process below:

• Part 1: Developing a Recipe
• Part 2: Brewing Water Adjustments
• Part 3: Brew Day
• Part 4: Primary Fermentation Mishaps
• Part 5: Bottling & Kegging
• Part 6: A Conditioning Taste Test
• Part 7: Final Side-by-Side and Recipe Edits

—————————————————————–
David Ackley is a beer writer, homebrewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.