Boh Small Batch

Recently I had the pleasure of whipping up this tasty beer bread courtesy of Boardwalk Food Company.

While I had never heard of this particular company, I thought, anyone offering an easy beer bread mix is certainly worth checking out. Y’all know how much I love a good beer bread after all.

I chose to try the Rosemary Sea Salt version because I just adore the flavor of rosemary.

Of course I couldn’t simply add beer and bake as the instructions say because I have an inane need to tinker. Take, for example, those frozen Trader Joe’s meals that you’re supposed to just throw in a hot skillet and stir – Goodness no! I just have to add extra veggies, garlic, cheese etc. Velveeta mac ‘n cheese? clearly needs broccoli in it didn’t you know?

That’s just how I role, can never leave well enough alone.

The combination of rosemary and Parmesan is perfection so I added a healthy dose of finely grated parm to the mix, you know, to fulfill my tinker urge.

And because cheese makes everything better, yes?

Yes.

The beauty of these mixes is that you just a regular 12 oz beer (plus whatever add-ins you feel necessary), and in an hour you have a nice freshly baked loaf of bread.

One criticism I have of the instructions is that there is no guidance on what type of beer to use for the bread (though their blog does have some fun and interesting beer pairing suggestions). I see this with a lot of recipes that call for beer as an ingredient. In some ways I can see how this might encourage experimentation but it could also result in an unexpected or not so tasty end product. Personally I avoid cooking with beers that have a lot of bittering hops, like most IPAs.

I chose Old Speckled Hen as my beer of choice for this mix because it has a pleasant maltiness without much bitterness. That hint of nutty malt sweetness worked well with the Parmesan and balanced out the rosemary pungency.

Overall the bread had a nice crust on the outside with the perfect combination of soft and chewy inside. Be warned that the rosemary flavor in the bread was pretty strong, rosemary lovers rejoice!

Many thanks to Boardwalk Food Company for letting me try their tasty product! I’d be very curious to try the other varieties, particularly the cornbread version, which I think would be excellent with a big bowl of chili!

If you want to try out these simple and tasty breads, you can head on over to their website and enter the code LoveBeer14 for 25% off! Would be a fun gift basket item – with a six pack of beer in it of course!