On Saturday, I ventured into a Raleigh Whole Foods, dancing around clusters of flustered shoppers who’d stopped in the middle of the aisle, blocking everyone while they browsed for their selections. I paused and looked up: “For the Dad Who Has Everything: Beer.” 

It was a week before Father’s Day, and marketing efforts were in full effect. 

I was here to procure two pounds of pork shoulder and some beer to braise it in. My husband had recently tried grilling with beer, pouring a bottle into an aluminum pan placed next to burning coals, a makeshift-smoker technique he’d read about in Matthew Register’s new cookbook, Southern Smoke. Dad Fuel—the pale lager from Carrboro’s Steel String Brewery—seemed a good choice to enhance the richness of the pork we planned to braise in the Instant Pot. 

One problem: Whole Food’s beer section had been picked clean of Dad Fuel. I found solace, however, in the assortment of sours I scored next-door at Ridgewood Wine & Beer Co. When cooking with beer, I’ve learned, you can’t go wrong so long as it’s a beer you enjoy drinking. 

“When you cook with beer, you develop more flavor,” Brian Jenzer, executive chef for Trophy Brewing Company, told me recently. Jenzer’s menu at Trophy Tap + Table on Wilmington Street includes a number of beer-charged dishes, from Trophy Wife-battered Mahi tacos to a poutine-inspired mound of tater tots and cheese curds topped with a fried egg and drizzled with vanilla-coffee-infused Trophy stout gravy—which, Jenzer says, works with the saltiness of curds and potatoes “like fries dipped in a milkshake.” 

Unlike cooking with wine, the quality of beer matters. Wine reduces to a basic fruity or bitter profile, so you can cook with something you’d never drink. But the intricacies of beer remain mostly intact even after the alcohol evaporates. 

“Beer adds a richness and complexity to dishes as if they had been cooking all day long,” says Katie Coleman, chef-owner of Durham Spirits Co., which will offer a “Beer to Eternity” cooking class in August. “It can be used as a marinade for meat, helping to tenderize. It can be used to baste meat while roasting. And it can even be used in baking, adding lightness to biscuits and batters and a true yeasty flavor to breads.” 

Darker ales will add depth and color to dishes, Coleman adds, while lighter ones allow spices and seasonings to shine.

Cooking with beer isn’t new. Ancient Egyptians drank a kind of beer called bousa, a thick, lumpy porridge heavier in nutrients than alcohol. The traditional Hungarian stew Lecsó is made with dark beer. Germans, of course, invented the beer-braised bratwurst. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the English brewed old ale, known as “old stock,” at home. 

But the idea of cooking with beer has taken on new life with the proliferation of craft beer and chef-driven menus that pair beer with food. 

Plenty of local restaurants are getting in on the action, exploring the possibilities of beer for comfort food. At the new Wye Hill Kitchen + Brewing in Raleigh, the pub cheese uses Night Train Black Lager, as the dark malts add complexity without bitterness. Al’s Pub Shack in Governor’s Village features an inventive take on the old standby beer-battered fish and chips. The Raleigh Beer Garden has a beer cheese dip and beer-battered pretzels. Parts & Labor offers beer-battered cheese curds. Bull McCabe’s has beer-battered fries. Pompieri Pizza has a Drunken Horse pizza with a beer-saturated crust, as well as a “Beer-amisu” of ladyfingers soaked in craft beer and espresso. The Federal serves beer-braised pork carnitas. O’Malley’s Pub does a chocolate Guinness cake. Lilly’s Pizza boasts Jon Garrison’s famous beer chili. 

The Latinx gourmands of downtown Raleigh are on it, too, from Oscar Diaz’s Crank Arm Barbacoa at Jose and Sons to Angela Salamanca’s brisket tostadas at Centro.

Cardinal Bar co-owner Jason Howard says there’s never been a more interesting time to cook with beer. The Cardinal’s all-beef and even veggie hotdogs are marinated in beer and onions for twenty-four hours. When I visited, two types of dogs were available: one that had marinated in Unicycle, a single hop pale ale from Crank Arm, the other in Hamm’s lager, a cheap Milwaukee brew that is by no means craft. 

You won’t find beer-doused dogs at Trophy Tap + Table. But the corn dog is served with Cloud Surfer honey mustard, a silken pale-yellow dipping sauce that’s neither sugary nor syrupy, a delicate balance of Dijon acidity and honey sweetness. Jenzer says the key is the amount of reduction, as well as the beer. 

“When you reduce Cloud Surfer, the pineapple really stands out,” he says, explaining the technique that brings Dijon, honey, and beer to a simmer before reducing it. The mustard is beer-forward, in a good way— savory and piquant. 

Jenzer’s wisdom proved effective for Saturday night’s pork. I braised our butt with Sandsport, a pineapple-and-pomegranate-infused sour ale from HopFly Brewing, and used a minimalist rub of lemon-pepper, coriander, sea salt, and olive oil. After browning the meat on both sides, I sautéed onions and crushed garlic in butter, then added a little coconut sugar, fresh pineapple juice, and a can of Sandsport. 

The result was insanely aromatic and easy to pull apart: juicy, succulent, subtly sweet, and tropical. Next time, though, I’m tempted to try something a bit less carnivorous—jackfruit, perhaps.

Contact food and digital editor Andrea Rice at [email protected]. 

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