I've been making plain beer bread for many years love trying something new; this Honey Butter Beer Bread is just as simple but flavored with honey and butter!
Have you ever tried beer bread? I've been making Coors Beer Bread for years but after finishing this loaf of Billowy Off-White Bread the other day that includes honey, milk, eggs, and butter, I had a hankering to modify it a bit and go for some Honey Butter Beer Bread. Why did I not try this before!
The recipe for the Coors Beer Bread comes from one of the first cookbooks I bought when I moved to Denver so many years ago, the Crème de Colorado Cookbook ( affiliate link) from the Junior League of Denver. It was called Coors Beer Bread so of course I assumed it was something devised locally.
Over the years I've come to realize that beer bread is pretty universal; the Coors designation for this bread was simply the Colorado ingredient the recipe used. Coors Beer used to have a lot of cache attached to it; it wasn't shipped east past the Mississippi River and it became the stuff of legend. Now it's available everywhere.
The truth is that the beer brand is not particular in this recipe. For this recipe though I wanted a light beer; I would have used Coors if it had been on hand but alas...only a 12-pack of Corona; so Corona it was.
No, this is not Mexican Beer Bread; Corona is simply a pale lager; a pretty even-keeled imported beer that has fruity-honey aromas and a touch of malt. It's perfect to add the yeasty flavor that makes this bread different from a quick bread but doesn't impart a strong flavor profile of its own. For one that does you should also try this Honey Maple Dark Beer Bread. I used Nitro, a stout beer from Colorado's Left Hand Brewing for that loaf along with some molasses and maple syrup; Guinness would also be delicious!
I think it's important to note; this bread also uses baking soda powder for leavening; someone made a comment about that the other day saying of course it would rise and that the beer was unnecessary. Well there is some truth there but that's not the whole story.
While the beer does have some yeast in it and that might serve to help it rise a bit, I think the baking soda is the workhorse for that effort and the beer simply adds that yeasty flavor that we expect from homemade bread. The woman who suggested 7-Up could be used was even further off base; I don't crave bread that tastes like a soda drink! 😉
Either way, it's a recipe ingredient that equates to 12 oz of liquid...if for no other reason but that one it's clearly SUPER important! Some things in baking you can play with and others...not so much.
For this recipe I did switch out the white sugar for honey and added some of the butter to the batter instead of pouring most of it on top but it is still so quick and so easy and am I becoming redundant, but NO yeast required. Normally that would not be a huge deal but it's April of 2020 and food shortages include flour and yeast; people stuck at home because of the pandemic are baking up a storm!
Here's a list of ingredients you'll need...and I'm hoping most of you have these already in your home ( full recipe at end of post):
- Flour
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Beer, room temperature
- Honey (if not available, you can substitute 1/4 cup of white or brown sugar)
- Butter, melted
That's it...and it's all mixed in one bowl too. Simply spread melted butter all over the inside of your bread loaf pan, use more melted butter when mixing the dough and then after putting the dough in a bread pan, drizzle the remaining butter over the top and voila...you're done. You seriously can make it AND bake it in an hour.
I know that flour and yeast can both be a bit difficult to come by but everyone I know has been able to source some flour. Yeast? Not so much. It's nowhere to be found in grocery stores and most online shops. I was able to find yeast on Amazon and placed an order last week for a pound of SAF Yeast ( affiliate link); it might take a bit to get here but at least the product is available as I can track my order and it has shipped. A pound sounds like a lot but I have friends anxious to help me use it and it will keep in the freezer for a couple of years...I'll be set!
In the meantime, we're happy to indulge in beer bread and this Honey Butter Beer Bread is most certainly my newest favorite! Happy bread baking!
PIN IT! 'Honey Butter Beer Bread'
