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My favorite honey beer bread recipe is ultra-easy to make with just 6 ingredients (no yeast required) and tastes so buttery and delicious!
Looking for an easy homemade bread recipe that doesn’t require a packet of yeast?
This honey beer bread recipe is here for you. ♡
If you have never made beer bread before, I’m telling you, bread-baking doesn’t get any easier than this! Simply stir 5 basic ingredients together (flour, baking powder, salt, beer and honey), brush melted butter on top of the batter, and bake until golden. Then — voila! — in less than an hour, the most delicious, buttery, cozy and comforting beer bread will yours to enjoy in no time.
It can be served up with just about any kind of meal, although we’re especially partial to dipping it in soups and stews at our house. It can also be easily frozen and saved for later, if you would like. And it’s also easy to customize with various herbs or a handful of shredded cheese, if you would like.
I have probably made this recipe hundreds of times, and thousands of our readers have made and loved it too. So if you haven’t yet given it a try, I say it’s time! ♡
Honey Beer Bread Recipe | 1-Minute Video
Honey Beer Bread Ingredients:
All you need are 6 simple ingredients to make this honey beer bread recipe:
All-purpose flour:This recipe is total comfort food for me, so I have only ever made it with all-purpose flour.
Baking powder:To help the bread rise.
Salt:I used fine sea salt.
Honey:Which balances out the savory flavors here with the perfect hint of sweetness.
Beer:I typically use an IPA, but just about any kind of favorite beer will work in this recipe!
Butter:Which we will use to grease the pan and brush on top of the bread to give it some extra-delicious buttery flavor.
Alright, here are the basic steps for how to make beer bread — it couldn’t be easier!
Make the batter. Super simple! Just stir together the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then stir in the beer and honey until combined.
Add the butter. Pour about half of the melted butter intoa 9×5-inch bread pan, and brush it all around to grease the inside of the pan. Add the batter and spread it out in an even layer. Then brush the remaining melted butter evenly on top of the batter.
Bake. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove and transfer the pan to a wire baking rack and let the bread cool for at least 10 minutes.
Serve. Slice with a bread knife, serve warm and enjoy!
(Detailed recipe instructions and ingredient amounts included in the full recipe below.)
Possible Beer Bread Variations:
Want to customize this beer bread recipe? Feel free to…
Add herbs:Stir some fresh or dried herbs into the batter. (I especially love adding in some fresh or dried rosemary.)
Add garlic:Feel free to also mince a clove or two of garlic and add it to the batter to make garlic beer bread.
Add cheese:Add in a cup or so of shredded cheese to make cheesy beer bread.
More Easy Bread Recipes:
Looking for more easy bread recipes to bake? Here are a few of my faves!
1-Hour Soft and Buttery Dinner Rolls
Rosemary Focaccia Bread
Healthy Banana Bread
Catalan Tomato Bread
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Honey Beer Bread
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This honey beer bread recipe is quick and easy to make with just 6 simple ingredients! See notes above for possible seasonings that you can add in too.
Ingredients
Scale
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 cup honey*
1 bottle (12 ounces) beer
1/4 cup butter, melted
Instructions
Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F.
Make the batter. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt until combined. Slowly pour the beer and honey into the flour mixture, and stir until combined.
Add the butter. Pour half of the melted butter into the bottom of a 9×5-inch bread pan, and brush it around to grease the inside of the pan. Add the batter and spread it out in an even layer. Then brush the remaining melted butter evenly on top of the batter.
Bake. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove and transfer the pan to a wire baking rack and let the bread cool for at least 10 minutes.
Serve. Slice with a bread knife, serve warm and enjoy!
Honey:If your honey seems super-thick and does not drizzle easily, I recommend warming it up in the microwave or on the stovetop for a few seconds so that it will mix into the batter more easily.
Lighter beers, such as lagers, ales and pilsners, will give your bread a lighter color, and mild taste that just about everyone loves. Darker beers like stouts and porters make a darker-colored loaf and have a stronger beer flavor. Hoppy beers like IPAs will give your bread a more bitter taste.
To carbonate a 5 gallon batch of beer with honey, you can typically replace 5 oz of priming sugar and use 1 cup of honey. Bring 16 oz of water to a boil. Add the 1 cup of honey to the boiling water and stir vigorously. Add this honey solution to the bottom of your bottling bucket, then rack your beer on top of it.
Honey helps extend the shelf life of baked goods, which in particular is important for loaves of bread that need to stay fresh and moist. Honey is a humectant, a substance that prevents moisture transfer in bakery foods. Honey does not give up water easily; in fact, it collects moisture from the atmosphere.
Luckily, if you encounter this problem every time you break out the beer and the batter, there is an easy fix for your next loaf: Watch how much you're working it. Overworking the dough of your beer bread will affect the texture, causing it to turn from soft and chewy to tough and condensed.
Can You Use Something Other Than Beer in Beer Bread? Absolutely! Almost any carbonated or noncarbonated beverage can be used, including water, soda pop, milk or buttermilk, fruit juice and even creamed corn! In general substitute 12 fluid ounces of whatever liquid you choose in place of beer.
Mead (/miːd/), also called hydromel (particularly when low in alcohol content), is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops.
A good place to start experimenting is with one to two pounds of honey per 5-gallon batch (~0.5–1 kg/19 L) of mid-gravity beer. One pound (0.45 kg) will tend to impart a fairly subtle flavor, while two pounds (0.91 kg) will yield a much more pronounced and noticeable contribution.
If you add too much honey, it can change the hydration of your sourdough bread. Honey is higher in fructose than sugar making it much sweeter. For this reason, when substituting, you'll need to reduce the amount of sugar you use to three quarters (¾) or even half (½) of the amount of honey used.
Bake the bread for 45 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted about 1/2" into the top of the loaf comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs clinging to it.
Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.
Uneven heat in your oven can be the culprit – if you loaf is nicely golden on the outside but gummy or moist in the inside, it's baking too quickly on the outside. Trying reducing the temperature you're baking at and bake for a bit longer.
It's also the phrase you'll find gracing each box of Trader Joe's Beer Bread Mix. The flavor of the finished loaf really depends on what kind of beer you use: Go with a lager for a lighter profile, an IPA for a hearty, hoppy taste, or a stout for a rich result with a slightly darker finished product.
Wheat beers are great for chicken and seafood. If you're cooking pork, beef, and lamb, you will need ales, porters, and stouts. Hearty meat goes well with belgian ales. Stews pair well with ale.
Although I would recommend staying away from some of the new flavored beers, like lime and orange. I have used Miller Light, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra Light and Boulevard Pale Ale and they have all worked perfectly!
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Introduction: My name is Msgr. Benton Quitzon, I am a comfortable, charming, thankful, happy, adventurous, handsome, precious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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