We can’t get good bread here in North Carolina like we did in New York. So I make my own bread all the time. I’ll make a nice, crunchy artisan bread for us to have with sauce-based dinners, prosciutto bread for us to have as a snack, and beer bread for breakfast.

Don’t let me lose you.

The beer interacts with the sugar in the recipe to help the bread rise. See, for those of you who don’t drink (or don’t make beer like us), you might not know that yeast is an ingredient in beer. And since beer bread is generally a yeast-free bread, the beer acts as that part.

So it’s used to make a fluffy full loaf of bread, not used to make you drunk.

And don’t worry. The majority of the alcohol of the beer bakes out of this, similar to how the alcohol in wine cooks out when you’re using it in recipes. Beer does impart a lot of flavor in beer bread.

Beer Bread is more of a cakey bread than a flaky one. Beer Bread doesn’t have a crunchy outer layer like an artisan bread would. Beer Bread is soft, like a sandwich bread, but pretty crumbly so I wouldn’t use it for sandwiches.

Beer bread makes the perfect breakfast bread, though. We cut off a thick slice, toast it, and top it with olive oil and everything bagel seasoning. It’s perfect.

Beer Bread Recipe

Beer Bread Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 12 ounce can or bottle of beer
• 3 cups self-rising flour
• 1/2 stick butter, melted
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese

How To Make Beer Bread:

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Combine the self-rising flour and sugar in a bowl. You can also add any seasonings at this time too. (See the end of this post for seasoning suggestions.)

Melt the butter and add it to the flour. Stir until it is slightly combined.

Pour in the beer and stir until a dough forms.

Fold in the cheese and stir until everything is combined.

The dough may be clumpy after you add in the beer. If it is, you can stir until your remove all the clumps, which could take a while. So, our better suggestion transfer the bowl to a stand mixer and mix on medium for about six minutes until the clumps are removed and the dough it homogeneous.

Mixing it in the stand mixture will also help the cheese to disperse evenly.

Pour the mixture into a greased medium loaf pan.

Bake for an hour until the top becomes slightly browned. Set the bread pan on a trivet and let it cool completely. Then, remove it from the bread pan.

If you try to cut Beer Bread too early, or to remove it from the bread pan before it has cooled completely, it may crumble and fall apart. You also risk it collapsing into itself.

What seasonings do you add to Beer Bread?

Personally, I like to add two pinches of salt and about a half teaspoon of garlic powder to Beer Bread. Onion powder is a good option too.

Because of the sweetness from the sugar, I don’t like ground pepper in this bread. If you really want to use pepper, use ground white pepper instead of black pepper, for aesthetic reasons.

We top Beer Bread with everything bagel seasoning to eat it, but I wouldn’t add that to the Beer Bread dough. It’s too overpowering for this mild tasting bread. I would stay away from dried herbs for the same reason.

What cheese do you add to Beer Bread?

I use a sharp cheddar cheese in our Beer Bread recipe. The cheddar really works well, plus it looks pretty on the top of the bread.

Mozzarella is my favorite cheese, but it doesn’t actually add anything to this bread. It’s too mild.

I usually advocate for using blocks of cheese and slicing it yourself in recipes (like in our Baked Ravioli and when I make Baked Ziti) because I like how it melts better. But in Beer Bread, you don’t want chunks of melty cheese. You want the cheese to melt into the bread, and pre-shredded cheese will do that a lot better than cheese your shred yourself.

What beer works best in Beer Bread?

I prefer a lighter-colored beer when I’m making Beer Bread, like a Mexican lager. A darker-colored beer, like a stout, would infuse a lot of flavor into the beer, while a lighter-colored beer infuses a milder flavor (and I like that better).

A darker-colored beer, like a stout, will also change the coloring of the bread too.

A hoppy beer, like an IPA, is the worst choice for Beer Bread. An IPA would make the bread taste really hoppy, and that’s definitely an acquired taste.

If you’re making this in the fall, a pumpkin beer would be a good option for a pumpkin beer bread. But beers with a light citrus note won’t really make your bread taste like a fruit bread.

Don’t buy a good beer specifically for Beer Bread because a cheap beer will work just as fine. Whatever is in your fridge will work.

Can you substitute soda for beer in Beer Bread?

There’s a recipe out there for a quick bread using soda rather than Beer Bread. I tried soda in this recipe … and it was awful. The bread was so crumbly that we just had to eat it in chunks, not slices. And the bread was so cloyingly sweet that we didn’t want to eat it. And I really like sweets, so that’s saying a lot.

Plus, there’s no yeast in soda, so the bread doesn’t get a leavening agent from the soda like it does from the beer. So the bread turns out really dense.

So sure, in theory you can substitute soda for beer in Beer Bread, but I wouldn’t suggest you do.

Can you use all-purpose flour instead of self-rising flour?

The benefit of self-rising flour is that it already has baking powder and salt added to it. If you don’t have self-rising flour, you can’t do a 1:1 substitution. But, you can sift 1.5 teaspoons baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt into 1 cup of all-purpose flour.

For this recipe, since it calls for 3 cups of self-rising flour, you would need to substitute 3 cups of all purpose flour, 4.5 teaspoons baking powder, and 3/4 teaspoon salt.

How do you store Beer Bread?

You can store it in an air tight container or ziptop bag in the fridge for up to a week.

Want more recipes using beer?

• Slow Cooker Beer Pulled Pork
• Beer Cheese Dip
• Beer Can Grilled Chicken