Grilling with beer

Milwaukeeans love to grill out, and we definitely love beer, but grilling and drinking often don’t go well together. (That is, unless you want your brats to resemble coal mined in the seventh circle of hell.) Cooking with beer, however, is another story. Now that the grilling season is upon us, Decider sought out the advice of Lucy Saunders, a Milwaukee food writer whose book Grilling With Beer: Bastes, BBQ Sauces, Mops, Marinades And More Made With Craft Beer features more than 100 recipes combining two of God’s greatest gifts to mankind.

1. Go malty
“I like maltier beers for certain kinds of applications. When you’re grilling food that is typically kind of pale—like a chicken breast—if you marinate it in a brown ale or a bock lager, you’ll get this incredible surface caramelization. It almost turns a mahogany color, even without a heavy smoke. It’s a great way to really get some dark grill color.”

2. Bad beer has its place
“I typically don’t drink a lot of light, mass-market kinds of pilsners. But those actually work really well when you’re grilling brats and sausages because there’s not enough hops to make it really bitter. Typically, when you’re grilling sausages, it’s part of a big party with a crowd, and it’s nice to have that big pot of not too-expensive beer.”

3. Watch the clock
“If you have a really fine piece of beef or fish, you don’t want to marinate it too long in beer because it can actually pick up enough of the hops flavor that it becomes bitter. It’s definitely a timing thing. I recommend an hour in marinade. Most American meats are bred to be very tender, so unless you’re working with something like a brisket, you’re not going to marinate for more than an hour to get a good set of flavors going.”

4. Just because you cooked with it doesn’t mean you have to drink it, too
“If I’m uncorking a 22-ounce bottle and using maybe a half-cup in the marinade, then of course I’m going to polish off the rest of the bottle in the meal. However, I like playing around with different styles as a contrast, because I don’t think everything has to match perfectly in terms of intensity. For example, you could marinate a steak in a rauchbier, which is a smoke beer with a real intense flavor. But I wouldn’t want to have that same rauchbier served alongside of that steak; I might switch to a pale ale.”

5. For tailgating, go with campfire potatoes
“You cut up potatoes and onions and carrots, and put in some herbs and garlic, and add a splash of your favorite style of beer and wrap it in a foil package. Then you crimp the edges and throw that on the grill. You’ll be amazed by how good that is.”

6. Avoid fruity beers
“It’s the surface sugars. The extra fruit juice in the beer will lead to flare ups that really caramelize fat. And they’re increasingly pricey beers. If you’re going to spend $8 for a bottle of beer, why not serve it in its most natural state? Not all beers are designed to be cooked with, they’re designed to be drunk.”