Malty, sweet and bitter with hint of coffee and chocolate, Guinness beer has a roasted barley with smooth and creamy balanced flavor that is perfect to cook with.
Guinness is a great dark beer to drink with various dishes such as beef stew, baked salmon, fish and chips, and Shepard’s pie. However, not all ingredients go along with Guinness beer when cooking in the kitchen.
What to cook with Guinness? Depending on the type of Guinness beer, go with Guinness extra stout for in-depth flavor when marinating, braising and stewing. However, use Guinness Draught if the recipe requires a hint of beer.
When cooking Guinness, it offers mellow roasted flavor to vegetables and meat. Additionally, it blends well with vinegar, lemon, and spices to marinate beef or lamb for grilling.
This kind of dark beer is typically found in many Irish dishes as well as in desserts with chocolate including brownies, chocolate mousse, truffle, and cake.
It’s easy to assume that dark beers like Guinness are only meant for drinking, not cooking. But the truth is, there are many great ways to make a meal with this rich, dark beer, and the results are guaranteed to be delicious.
Because of their robust flavors, stouts like Guinness work best in sauces and desserts. When choosing what to cook with it, here are some considerations.
Can you cook with Guinness draught stout?
Yes, you can cook with Guinness draught stout. While the flavor will be less apparent in a dish that is cooked for a long time, the effect of these flavors on the other ingredients adds overall complexity and richness.
It is commonly used in braises, stews, and sauces, Guinness draught stout can also be combined with other liquids to create delicious stock or used as a glaze or sauce.
As always, be sure to use only fresh bottles of Guinness draught stout when cooking for best result. Avoid Extra Stout due to its intense and bold flavor, choose Draught for mild hint of roasted barley flavor at the end.
What Guinness is best for cooking?
The best tasting Guinness for cooking is Guinness Draught Stout.
It’s sweeter than its brethren, with a robust black-coffee flavor and a hint of caramel. It’s made from roasted barley, an ingredient that Guinness utilizes in all its beers except for Guinness Blonde American Lager.
The same roasted barley gives Guinness its deep color and slightly astringent flavor.
The other varieties you can use for cooking include:
- Draught: dry and roast flavor with slight chocolate undertones
- Extra Stout: bitter yet sweet and slightly fruity
- West Indies Porter: more malty than hoppy, with notes of caramel and coffee
What flavor cooks well with Guinness?
Guinness is a rich, dark stout beer with layers of fragrance and flavor. The roasted malt and barley notes in Guinness provide depth to dishes that pair perfectly with the hearty taste of the beer.
The chocolate and coffee aromas found in a pint of Guinness work well with chocolate desserts. The slightly bitter flavors of this stout beer complements the sweetness found in chocolate, therefore the deep roasted malt flavor enhances the taste of decadent chocolate cakes.
From savory to sweet, here are classic flavor combination that cook well with Guinness beer:
Cook with Guinness: Conclusion
Guinness can be used as a cooking ingredient, but it’s important to note the types of Guinness that are best for drinking and those suitable for cooking are not the same.
When choosing a Guinness for cooking, avoid any products with an alcohol content that’s significantly lower than the standard 4.2%.
The alcohol content will generally rise alongside its flavor intensity, so brewing styles with more alcohol by volumes like Extra Stout will give a dish more of its signature richness and maltiness.
The complex flavors found in this Irish stout also create a strong base for soups and stews that call for a braising liquid with bold flavors, such as beef stew or lamb stew.
Adding Guinness to these dishes helps create a savory broth that can be used as a base for other recipes, such as Irish soda bread, which can be served alongside the stew it was made from.
Similar to its benefits in soups and stews, this Irish stout provides a rich base for meat marinades often used when grilling meat.
Pouring Guinness over steaks creates a marinade that adds depth to grilled steak and pork chops without overpowering the natural flavors provided by these meats.
When roasting vegetables or grilling meat, consider using Guinness Draught Stout. In addition, Guinness beer complement well with vinegar, lemon, acid, and spices.
Other than savory, it also can be added to chocolate-based desserts such as brownies, mousse, truffle, and layered cakes.
Use this guide to experiment with new ways of cooking with Guinness beer. Here are some foundations for you to explore and expand upon to open new doorways of culinary excellence.