Can I Substitute Ale for Beer in Recipe?

[birder53]

Hubby said I didn't need to buy the beer called for in my southwestern chicken stew recipe. Said we had plenty. Well, we have pale ale, Bass ale and some kind of belgian dubble(?). We also have Guinness - which he said not to touch! What would be a suitable substitution here? Since I don't drink beer, I have no idea what taste differences I'm dealing with here. Can I use the ale?

[Jason Perlow]

pale ale is a type of beer.

Do you know if the beer that is called for in the recipe is a light-colored beer, a tan colored beer, a dark beer/stout or a lager?

[birder53]

The recipe just calls for beer. It contains chicken, bacon, peppers, onions, chili powder, chipotle peppers and black beans.

[Jason Perlow]

Use the Bass.

[birder53]

Thank you, Jason! You're a life saver!!!!

[Brad S]

Cook with the Bass. Drink the Belgium Double Bock with the meal.

[birder53]

Cook with the Bass. Drink the Belgium Double Bock with the meal.

The Belgian Double bock never made it to the meal. My nephew found them and finished them off before dinner. (There were only two bottles.) The stew was wonderful and hubby will buy some more Belgian DB to go with the leftovers.

[beerguyjim]

The Belgian Double bock never made it to the meal. My nephew found them and finished them off before dinner. (There were only two bottles.) The stew was wonderful and hubby will buy some more Belgian DB to go with the leftovers.

I doubt that it was a double bock. Much more likely a dubbel, a Trappist or abbey-style brown ale.

[slkinsey]

Right. Doppel Bock is a dark, very rich and malty German beer. Dubbel is a pale, ester-ey, light but often surprisingly alcoholic Belgian beer. Two totally different beers.

For the record, there are two main types of beer: Ale is fermented with Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast that flocculates on the surface of the liquid. Lager is fermented with Saccharomyces uvarum (once known as Saccharomyces carlsbergenisis) yeast that flocculates on the bottom of the fermenter. Lager is also lagered, which means that it is aged at low temperature for a period of time. Both ale and lager are beer.

[Pan]

m-w.com didn't help me with "flocculate." The best I could get was "resembling wool especially in loose fluffy organization" for "flocculent." So does it mean congregate in this context?

[Mayhaw Man]

Flocculate, as used by brewers, is a term used to describe what the yeast does at the end of fermentation. Loosely translated, "to floc" means to fall to the bottom of the tank. A good brewer will select his yeast strain based not only on fermentation characteristics and eventual flavor profiles, but also on floc characteristics.

Lager yeast, once the beer is cooled a bit, will settle to the bottom of the tank (hence those conical looking tanks that you see in microbreweries, they are designed to draw off the yeast to be repitched or thrown away and also make for better filtration characteristics). As a general rule, beer in the aging (laagering) process develops alot of flavors that you don't want in the end product if it is allowed to sit on the yeast.

Ale yeast does not do any of this stuff (generally) but that is o.k. because most ales do not benefit by aging. A big part of the aging process is to get some flavors and esthers OUT of the beer, not really so much to put them in. Ales are pretty much ready to go at the end of fermentation, either ready for filtering and drinking, or not filtering and drinking.

There is a hybrid known as alt yeast that performs as a ale yeast during fermentation but has many of the positive characteristics of the better flocculating lager yeast.

Hope that covers it.

[slkinsey]

m-w.com didn't help me with "flocculate."

It didn't?

Flocculate means, roughly, "to aggregate into a mass formed of a number of fine suspended particles."

[Pan]

m-w.com didn't help me with "flocculate."

It didn't?

Nope. " To cause to aggregate into a flocculent mass" is a circular definition.

Thanks for the explanations, Sam and Brooks.

[Mayhaw Man]

Thanks for the explanations, Sam and Brooks.

As my friend Everette used to say "I'm just here to help".

[birder53]

I doubt that it was a double bock. Much more likely a dubbel, a Trappist or abbey-style brown ale.