Saturday Suds: IPA Cranberry Beer Bread

IPA Cranberry Beer Bread Selection

Welcome to Saturday Suds! This column will hopefully be a regular feature on ShoreCraftBeer.com For this week’s edition of Saturday Suds, I made a delicious IPA Cranberry Beer Bread. The basics for the recipe are something I found online, but with a twist.

I used Parsonburg, MD-based Tall Tales Brewery’s Hood IPA as the featured ingredient for this recipe. Hood IPA has an ABV of 8.4% and a 90 IBU. If you haven’t tasted this Tall Tales beer before, it contains several types of hops, including Mosaic, Mandrina, Bavaria, Simcoe, Chinook, Cascade, to name a few. The potent combination is bolstered by tinges of citrus and a skosh of mango.

Tale Tales Hood IPA is delicious!

This bread was easy to make and if you like hops, the finished product has a slightly bitter aftertaste when the bread is still hot. The aftertaste vanishes once the bread has cooled. You may want to add more sugar to the dough to neutralize the aftertaste while the bread is warm. I also found adding a little honey to the butter I ate on the finished product helps, too.

The original recipe appears in this article, but I added a cup of chopped walnuts and a half-bag of Craisins for some extra body, and it did not disappoint.

The Verdict

The Verdict on this recipe is in. Photo credit: Freepik.com

Several people sampled this bread (myself included!); all taste-testers were beer drinkers except one. They didn’t think the aftertaste was a negative component with the warm bread; the one non-beer drinker did mind the aftertaste, however. Maybe he can top it with honey butter next time. The original, five-ingredient recipe below is courtesy of half-baked harvest.

IPA Cranberry Beer Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
kosher salt
1 (12 ounce) beer (I used Tall Tales Hood IPA)
1/4 cup honey (or brown sugar, but honey is best)
6 tablespoons cold salted butter, sliced into 8 slices
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional; I added)
1/2 bag Ocean Spray Craisins (optional; I added)

The finished product-enjoy!

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with butter.

2. Add flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt to a mixing bowl. Pour in the beer and add the honey. Mix until just combined. Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Arrange the butter slices on top.

3. Place the loaf pan on a rimmed baking sheet. Transfer to the oven and bake for 45-55 minutes or until the top of the bread is lightly browned. Slice and enjoy warm!

Are you going to try IPA Cranberry Beer Bread? Let us know what you think and how you made the recipe your own!

Tagged beer bread, cranberry beer bread, Hood IPA, Maryland, ocean city, Shore Craft Beer, Tall Tales

3 Responses

Bob Kelley says:

April 25, 2021 at 8:26 am

Regarding the craisins, how much is half a bag? I get my craisins from Costco and those bags are 64 ounces. Is it really 32 ounces in the recipe?

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Bob Kelley says:

May 16, 2021 at 5:34 am

How much is half a bag? We get our sessions at Costco, so I could fill the loaf pan with just the half bag.

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Bob Kelley says:

May 16, 2021 at 5:37 am

That’s supposed to be craisins. Auto correct changed it.

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