The beauty of braising lies in taking inexpensive meats that are often tough but flavorful and making them melt-in-your-mouth tender. Braising is a low and slow method of cooking meat with liquid in a closed stew pot or Dutch oven. It tenderizes meat by dissolving connective tissues and collagen into gelatin. That gelatin is the drippings you can later use to create a luxurious gravy or pan sauce.
Liquids are essential to the process, imparting flavor while the meat cooks. Though we almost always braise beef shank and chuck roast in wine for dishes like osso buco and beef bourguignon, you can also achieve both alliteration and beautiful braised beef using beer.
In addition to allowing for amusing wordplay, beer is a powerhouse for braising. It imparts its own rich, hoppy flavor and excels as a tenderizer, making any tough cut of beef fall apart under your fork.
Choosing the right beer for braising your beef
Although liquid is essential to braising, the best reason to use beer specifically is to enhance both the color and flavor of the beef. How you want your brisket or chuck roast to taste is entirely up to you, and with a huge variety of light and dark beers available, the possibilities seem boundless. Stout beer provides earthy, almost chocolaty or coffee-flavored notes, which pair well with the rich flavor of beef. But the tart, sweet, or floral nature of pilsners provides a delightful contrast.
An added bonus to beer braising is that you can get away with using fewer seasonings. Add a few cloves of garlic, an onion, some tomatoes or tomato paste, and the aroma coming from your kitchen will have hungry admirers arriving in droves. Maybe make sure to use a big cut of beef. That way, you can be sure to feed everyone who just happens to be in the neighborhood.
