Beer Bread

This simple bread has an amazing yeasty beer flavour and it’s best served warm with a fresh crispy crust as a side for a hearty stew or potjie. The actual recipe is extremely easy, all you do is mix beer, flour and some sugar and then bake it in an oven for an hour. The beer gives the bread it’s flavour and assists with the rising of the flour while the sugar brings in some sweetness to contrast the bitter hops flavour in the beer. The choice of beer drastically affect the final product, you can go for a lager if you would like a bitter malt taste or for a more hoppy bread try an IPA or blonde.

What you’ll need:

• 330ml (11fl oz)  Bottle of Beer
• 400g (14oz)  Self Raising Flour
• 50g (1 3/4 oz) Sugar

To really activate the yeast and get the bread to rise well, you need to warm the beer up. This is best done by pouring it into a saucepan and warming it over the stove, you’ll want to warm it to bath water temperature, it mustn’t boil. Next mix in the flour and sugar until a thick dough is formed. Pour it into a bread tin and bake it in the oven at 180°C (360°F) for 50 minutes or until golden brown.

To try something different, pour melted butter over the bread before baking, add wholegrain mustard to the batter or sprinkle some Cheddar or Gouda cheese over the top.