Krusteaz Beer Bread – Just Add Beer! A First Sampling

I’m all about enjoying a great beer.  I also love beer & food pairings, but what I really like to do is bake bread.  I consider myself somewhat of a bread lover, so I was really excited when Krusteaz sent me some of their Beer Bread Mix.

This Artisan bread Mix was created to be made with beer instead of water, so I thought I’d experiment a little with more than one style of beer (more on that later.) 

First off, this mix could not be easier.  Pre-heat the oven, lightly grease a bread pan (I used butter), and melt 3 tablespoons of butter.  Add 12oz of any beer to the batter mix, drop it in the bread pan, and drizzle the butter on top.  No waiting for the bread to rise, and no kneading at all. 

For this loaf I used a Kolsch and I think it was a really good choice.

Off to the oven it goes, and within minutes the house smelled fantastic and the bread started to look good.  I used a little lower temps to bake the bread, and I love crispy crust, so I left it in a little longer.  After testing it with the toothpick, I cooled and sliced the bread.

So how is it?  It’s really good!  The crust is light and crispy (just how I like it) and the center was soft and moist.  We sliced it up warm and spread a little butter on it and the flavor and texture were wonderful.  I like the crusty ends which were crunchy and flavorful, and the softer center was almost desert-like.  Beginning to end the process took less than an hour, and you can use any carbonated beverage, not just beer.

For fun, we decided to make a loaf using a stout as well as a loaf made with a pale ale.  The bread made with stout was noticeably darker and it had a roasty flavor to it we really liked.  The Pale Ale bread also had a noticeably different flavor, picking up on the additional hops and more complex flavor, it really had a nice complexity to it.

As if that wasn’t fun enough, we had enough bread to try it toasted for a sandwich, toasted with peanut butter and even with strawberry jelly.  All of the above were really good, and stay tuned as we plan to make some toasted cheese sandwiches with the Kolsch bread.

Thank you again to Krusteaz.  This beer bread mix started hitting store shelves in early fall and each box makes 1 loaf of bread.  Try it for yourself and see what you think.