Just Add Beer: Beer-Baked Irish Beef With Dragon's Milk Bourbon Barrel Stout

17 Nov Just Add Beer: Beer-Baked Irish Beef With Dragon’s Milk Bourbon Barrel Stout

Posted at 18:40h in Just Add Beer, Musings, Uncategorized by Justin Knepp 0 Comments

By Tyler McCord for Indiana On Tap

As the weather starts to chill and the leaves start to fall here in Indiana that means it’s time to pull out the slow cooker, dust it off, and start perfecting your favorite beer recipe. If you are like me then you get excited about this because that means that your house is going to smell of deliciousness all day long!

I’ve been searching for a good slow cooker beer recipe for a while. I’ve even experimented with a few over the years. I found a good base recipe off of the Allrecipes app and have been working to improve upon it and I believe that I have found what will be my go-to recipe now.

I made this base recipe last year without altering any of the ingredients so I knew where to start. The base recipe isn’t bad, too many onions for my taste though. Still, you need a good base to start with if you plan on changing a few things. Here is the recipe that I use now:

6 slices of bacon, diced (like I would get rid of the bacon)
⅓ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 ½ pounds cubed beef stew meat
4 carrots, peeled and cut into one inch pieces (diagonal shmiagonal)
1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms (don’t use canned…just…trust me)
3 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup fresh minced parsley
1 teaspoon dried rosemarry, crushed
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 bay leaf
1 Bomber of Dragons Milk Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout

As you can see, I didn’t need to change much. I did try it with potatoes instead of mushrooms last year but that ended up being a little too hearty for me. So this time, I used fresh mushrooms. The vegetables are pretty much interchangeable though, so pick your favorite vegies and throw them in. After you know what vegetables you want, here is what to do next:

Cook the bacon in a large non-stick skillet under bacon is crisp and brown. Remove the bacon and place to the side. Do not drain all the bacon grease from the skillet. You’ll use this next.
In a large zip-lock bag mix together the flour, salt, pepper, and allspice. Close the bag and shake it to mix all the ingredients. Next drop in all of the cubed beef, reseal the bag, and shake it like a polaroid picture. Not really, just makes sure that all cubes have the mixture on them.
Cook the cubed beef in the bacon grease until brown on all sides. Don’t worry about cooking until fully done, the slow cooker will take care of that. When the cubed beef is finished then drop it into the slow cooker. Keep the skillet out and don’t clean it just yet.
Pour about ¾ of your bomber into the skillet and bring it to a boil
While you wait for the beer to boil, add your vegetables, garlic, parsley, rosemary, marjoram, and bay leaf to the cooker.
Once your beer is at a boil, pour into the slow cooker scraping all of the left overs and everything into the slow cooker. Set to medium to high heat, cover, and cook for 4-5 hours
Once you are about an hour away from serving pour the remainder of your beer into the slow cooker. Also crush the bacon and sprinkle mix into the slow cooker as well.
Before serving remove the bay leaf. Or eat it, it’s your life. (Ed. note: do not eat the bay leaf)

Like most stews this goes great with cornbread! This is a great meal to prepare on a Sunday. I put all the ingredients together and had it going by 2:30 and was able to enjoy it by 7:00. Plus, my entire house smells amazing right now!

Hope that you try out this recipe! If you do, take a picture and let us know what you think! Also, as a personal improvement type thing, if you have any feedback I would love to hear it!

Cheers!