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Large brewers are well-known on the American barbecue circuit as major sponsors of the outdoor cooking competitions. Now, Chef Brent Wertz of the Kingsmill Resort in Virginia, a property owned by the Anheuser-Busch Corporation, has helped to develop a line of grilling sauces bearing the Budweiser imprimatur.
"We offer the sauces as a way to enhance the flavors of our beer with food," says Chef Wertz. "What makes the product special is the taste of Budweiser, blended with spices and seasonings." And the signature smoke taste comes from a proprietary liquid smoke, made from spent beechwood chips used in the aging tanks in the brewery and then turned into charcoal.
It's another way for the giant American brewer to build on the concept of cooking with beer and a trend that proves barbecue and beer work together in the kitchen, as well as at the table.
Overall interest in grilling and barbecue with beer is growing. Even People magazine recently featured a recipe for a grilled steak salad with the beef marinated in porter and Asian spices such as five-star anise and orange zest. Several brewpubs make their own house "beer-B-que" sauces, with delicious results. But few have attempted bottling the sauces; one exception is Sprecher Brewery of Milwaukee, which sells a sweet BBQ sauce made with its root beer.
This hesitation to bottle the sauces is because the flavor of the hops in beer will intensify over time, making a bottled sauce more bitter. Hops often contribute a citrusy or spicy aroma to fresh ales and lagers, making the flavors complement the warmth and heat of ginger and garlic.
Fresh craft beer flavors in barbecue that are prepared at brewpubs accent both caramel and smoke flavors. For example, the Stone World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido, CA, features the Stone Brewing Co.'s smoked porter in a remarkable chili BBQ sauce made with pasillas, garlic and other spices. A tamarind and ginger ale marinade brings heat to the Stone Brewing Co.'s buffalo burger.
The malt in craft beer enhances browning of foods cooked over direct flame. For that reason, I use most beer-based sauces at the last minute, or cook over indirect heat for much of the cooling time, adding just a slight char in the last few minutes of cooking over an open flame.
Asian ingredients also accent many styles of craft beer. For example, Pangaea Ale from Dogfish Head Brewing Co. of Delaware
uses ingredients such as ginger to add spice and taste to the brew. In Singapore, Fal Allen, head brewer of the Archipelago Brewing Co., uses gula malaka (palm sugar) and lemongrass in making an exquisitely drinkable brown ale called the Trader's Brown Ale. Both make delicious bases for marinades and BBQ sauces.
If short on time, Asian sauces such as hoisin and spice pastes such as black bean chili paste may be thinned with a bit of ale or lager to make a fast mopping sauce to apply to barbecue that cooks over low heat, such as pork shoulder.
Lucy Saunders is the editor of beercook.com and grillingwithbeer.com, devoted to craft beer and cuisine. She has published 4 cookbooks, and is now working on a new compendium of the best of American beer and food. She is based in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
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