With the holidays fast approaching many people will be cooking for their families and friends. Nothing says love and caring more than a fresh baked loaf of bread. So, with that in mind, I thought I’d put a craft beer twist on the loaf of fresh bread. In baking you need to add water to turn the flour into dough. My thought was, “What will happen if I used craft beer?” I know that there are restaurants, like the Armsby Abbey in Worcester, MA, who have very popular beer breads. But how can you do that at home? First, the ingredients (recipe adapted from and based on The Master Recipe from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François):

Note: Recipe makes 4 peasant loaves.

- 2 twelve oz bottles of lukewarm Smuttynose Brewing Co. Old Brown Dog Ale
- 1.5 tablespoons granulated yeast (about 1.5 packets...estimate here)
- 1.5 tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt
- 6.5 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour
- Cornmeal

1) Warm the beer to 100º-110ºF.

2) Combine the yeast and salt in a big (at least 5 quart) bowl, then add the warm water. This bowl will need to accommodate the entire batch of raised dough.

3) Add the flour. Don’t mix as you go, just add it all then stir it with a big spoon. It’s going to take a while, but you’ll get it all incorporated. You might have to break apart the big pieces to get all the dough mixed together. You can use a dough mixer or food processor with the appropriate attachments, if you have them, but I just do it with a spoon. The dough should be a bit wet and form to the bowl.

4) Allow the dough to rise with a loose lid. I use two pieces of overlapping tinfoil (much like when I brew beer) as you want the CO₂ that the yeast creates to be able to escape. Let it rise until you see a flat top on the dough. The book says this will take about two hours, but in my experience it usually takes up to 12. You can refrigerate it after it finishes rising, and I recommend you do this the first couple times as it’s much easier to work with the dough when it’s cold.

5) Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour so your hands don’t stick and pull off about ¼ of the dough. Form the dough into a ball, stretching the sides towards the bottom and rotating as you go. The goal is to stretch the top and bring it all to the bottom. This should only take 30-60 seconds. This is called the “gluten cloak” and will help with a nice crust.

6) Let the loaf rest for 40 minutes on a sheet covered lightly with cornmeal. It will rise during this time. Cold dough won’t rise as much, but don’t worry, it will rise in the oven.

7) 20 minutes before baking preheat the oven to 450ºF. If you have a baking stone, preheat it with the oven. Also, add a broiler tray to the bottom rack and let it preheat.

8) Lightly coat the top of the loaf or loaves that you’ve formed with flour. Take a serrated knife and run it under water, then slash the loaves as you see in the picture (run it under water between loaves). I usually go with a tic-tac-toe pattern but you can be creative.

9) After the 20 minute preheat transfer the loaves (I bake two at a time) onto the hot baking stone. To get a nice, crackly crust add about a cup of water to the broiler tray. The steam will help with the crust. Bake the bread for about 30 minutes, but oven times will vary. Wait until you see a nice, deep brown crust.

10) Let the bread cool on a baking rack. You can either use all of your dough at once (in which case, start baking the next loaves you’ve already formed), or refrigerate it for up to fourteen days. It will start to taste a little more sourdough-like over time.

In my experience, the beer lent the bread a much more sourdough-like character with less time. This probably was because the sugar in the beer gave yeast (both added and wild) something to munch on. Either way the bread was delicious and my friends loved it. It’s great with some decent preserves, Nutella or just butter on it. Let us know if you make it and how it comes out for you. Cheers!

Samuel Adams, the biggest craft brewer by far, is not known for their limited batches of beer. In fact, there are many who argue that they’re no longer a craft brewer at all. Well, to that, we say “No way!” The problem is, when you think Samuel Adams, you probably think seasonals at best and Boston Lager for the most part. To counter that, though, they’ve recently released a series of four limited run brews, each labeled “Batch No. 1.” It seems they might be sick of the criticism and they’re looking to prove the detractors wrong. Or maybe they just wanted to have some fun and brew some new beer. Either way, we’re excited to try them and see how they measure up. The first we’re going to try is the Samuel Adams Tasman Red IPA made with Tasmanian hops (hence the name). Read on to see our thoughts on the brew.

Red is putting it lightly (literally). If you hold Tasman Red up to the light you’ll barely see red tinges around the edges. This beer is dark brown...or at least brick red...very brick red. A bone colored two finger head forms on top and reduces itself, over the course of about a minute, to bits of floating foam with lacing left all over the glass.

You can tell from the smell that this is going to be a serious beer. At first you can smell dank, resinous hops. It’s not overpowering, but it’s there and it’s strong. In parallel, though, you smell some sweet malt, which lets us know this isn’t going to be a bone dry hop-water beer. There’s definitely something to this brew, so let’s dive in!

Yep, it’s an IPA! Up front you get extremely smooth hop bitterness and clean pine. This is quickly followed by malt that has that roasty, dark flavor but it doesn’t have any of the bitterness you’d normally expect. This is great as the hops do plenty fine in the bittering department. They don’t need any help! If you were to hand this beer to me, I’d possibly guess it was a smooth porter mixed with an IPA. With all this said, it’s quite tasty.

This is a very interesting take on the IPA style and we’re stoked that Samuel Adams did something a bit different. The piney hops goes very well with the smooth, roasty malt. There’s a million great IPAs out there, but this one cuts through the noise by doing it in a different way. It’s got the hop bitterness. It’s got the smell, with every sip you can’t miss it. It’s got great hop flavor, pine and citrus.

After this one, I’m excited to try the other three brews in this small batch Samuel Adams series.

I picked this bottle up at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont.

We're based out of Boston and recently there's been a string of great new craft brew breweries hitting the market. Backlash Brewing, Mystic Brewing, Slumbrew and Idle Hands have all hit the scene here very recently adding to an already impressive lineup of MA breweries. Our question today is when at the bar or your local store do you gravitate to beer made near you? Does it matter to you where your beer is made or do you just drink what you like? Let us know on Twitter, on Facebook or in the comments below the poll. Cheers!

Pilsner Urquel is ingrained into Czech culture in a way I’ve never experienced before. You really can’t compare it to anything in the US. Sure we have regional breweries, but even then people have their favorites. Pilsner Urquel is available everywhere in Prague; I couldn’t find a bar that didn’t serve it. The bars don’t compete on who has the best variety of beer, but rather who has the best Pilsner Urquel. When I arrived in Prague I was determined to experience more than just this beer. This is not to say it isn’t a good beer, my first article from Prague illustrates just how good it can be, but I wanted to experience more.

When I checked in to my hotel I asked where I could go buy some beer. The concierge directed me to the local grocery store so I made my way down the street to the store only to be met with stacks of Pilsner Urquel. Clearly this wasn’t going to be the easiest of endeavors. At this point I took to Twitter, asked all of you where to go, and within 30 minutes I had a list of places I was told I had to check out. I ended up checking out a few places, but the following stuck out for me as places everyone should check out.

U Fleku Brewery

I’m going to start of right away by saying this place is really touristy. As we walked in an older gentlemen started playing American songs on the accordion, it just felt odd. I know I’m not exactly selling the experience right now but it does have some things going for it. First off it’s the oldest brewery in Prague, founded in 1499. Secondly, their dark lager is smooth and malty and worth the trip. I had almost forgotten what dark malts tasted like and this trip saved me. Make it a quick trip though, I’d recommend popping in for a pint and moving on. Sit at the bar if you can; we found getting the check at our table to take an insane amount of time.

Pivavorsky Dum

I actually ended up here by accident. We intended to go to Pivavorsky Klub (more on this bar next) but our taxi driver took us here instead (lost in translation I suppose). We looked at it as a happy accident and rolled with it. It turns out this a a satellite brew-pub of Pivavorsky Klub. As we entered we saw a gorgeous copper brewhouse and what appeared to be mostly local patrons. What we found here was the beginnings of a craft beer culture in Prague. It was clear that this place was not the norm. We got the sampler, which was comprised of eight beers. For my taste there were too many flavored beers; banana, cherry, coffee, and spruce made up half the offerings.The beer itself was secondary in an odd way. It was clear to me that hundreds of years of brewing tradition was evolving here. The basic pilsner was augmented with completely different styles. We really take our craft beer culture for granted in the US and it felt special to experience the beginning of that culture in another country. I’d bet that if I went back to Prague in five years I’d see far more places like this one. For that reason I’d recommend anyone headed to Prague check this place out.

Pivavorsky Klub

This is a must find spot if you’re in Prague. With hundreds of beer in bottles and 6 beers on tap nothing I found even came close to the selection here. There were pages and pages of Czech beers from who knows where, but they were good! There were also imports from all over Europe and the US. Our waiter spoke little English which made it hard to ask too many questions but in short this place a gold mine of good Czech beer. The bar is very brightly lit which made for a slightly odd atmosphere but the sheer selection of beer made it worthwhile.