Recipe: Beer Bread

​We swung by Fiesta Mart to nab baking supplies this week and happened to find Guinness on sale for $6.99.

It occurred to us we that should include the 250-year-old beer in our baking run, so we hopped on the Internets and, working from several similar recipes, came up with the following plan.

Beer Bread

• 3 cups white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 12 ounces Guinness
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten

​This is an easy one. Dump all the dry ingredients together and "sift" with a fork. Add the Guinness and eggs, stirring (and stabbing, or at least that's our technique) well to get the flour lumps out. Pour into a greased nine-by-five-by-three-inch loaf pan (larger would probably be fine, our loaf expanded far beyond the top of our pan) and bake at 375 degrees for about 70 minutes.

We tossed some foil over the top halfway through to keep the crust from burning, and it came out well: moist and light but with a grainy, hearty feel and the ever-so-slightly bitter taste some wheat breads have. This is a good cold-weather bread.

We tried our concoction spread with plain butter, dipped in soup and topped with a relative's homemade pear butter (a cousin to apple butter). It was good each time.

We can't vouch for it working well with other beers but we're interested to try. Any ideas, readers?