Chicken & Beer

Now that I've gotten over my fear of roasting a whole chicken, I'm pretty obsessed with cooking things on the bone. You don't even realize the flavor you're missing with all those boneless, skinless chicken breasts we've all made over the years. I clearly haven't abandoned the ease of the boneless breasts, but a whole chicken is where it's at for flavor. And not only is the flavor great, but it's a pretty economical thing to make too - you get a meal off the chicken the first night, plenty of leftovers for lunches or at least one more meal, and then you have bones for stock. It's a win all around.

In an effort to expand the cooking on the bone theme, and to avoid heating up the kitchen on these lingering warm days at the end of summer I tried my hand at a beer butt chicken. It's a very elegant name, isn't it? Makes you think of refined late summer garden parties, no?

Naming aside, it's a great, easy, extremely flavorful way to cook a chicken and I highly recommend it. You can flavor it however you like, but the method is as easy as 1-2-3.

1 - Assemble your Beer Delivery Mechanism
You need an open can of beer, about half full - it doesn't matter what kind. I actually grabbed a leftover Coors from a party for this one. I never drink Coors, but it has a slightly smaller diameter can that works well for this application. But anything will do. The make all kinds of fancy beer can chicken holders these days, but I didn't have one. What I did have was my round grill pan that I repurposed here as a way to get the chicken on and off the grill more easily. This way I could lift the chicken on and off the grill with the handles. But if you don't have anything like this, just set it directly on the grill and use two pairs of tongs to get it back off the hot surface when cooked.

2 - Season & Mount
You've got to use liberal amounts of kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and olive oil. Beyond that you can use whatever seasoning you want. I used the fantastic blend of Northwoods Seasoning from Penzeys. Really great flavor. Be very liberal - I used at least a Tbs or two each of the salt & pepper, and 2-3 Tbs of the seasoning. Get it inside and outside the chicken. Next time I would also lift the skin and get some under that skin over the breast and back. Once it's seasoned, you want to place the end opening of your raw chicken over the beer can, and use it, along with the legs, as a tripod to support the chicken upright.


3 - Grill it Baby!
Then, get your grill to medium heat. You want indirect heat, so on my gas grill, I turned on the right and left burners, leaving those directly under the chicken off. With the grill closed I was running a temp of about 325-350. Then, let it go for about 90 minutes or so (for a 4lb chicken), or until the breast reaches 165. When it's done, remove from heat and let it rest 10 minutes or so before serving.


A note about the chicken
I'm all about a bargain. But I also don't mind splurging for something great. And I have to say, an organic chicken is worth it for an application like this. Great flavor and it's really worth investing in a piece of poultry that you're going to get this much mileage out of. So much more flavor, and isn't that what it's all about?

This stuff was so good that the hubs was still raving about it as he picked at the leftovers for days afterwards. It is so juicy you won't believe it. It's so juicy that it might just drip out the bottom of your grill and overflow your drip pan. And if you happen to leave your dog outside while this cooking and dripping goes on, this could be your fate:

The goof ball had to have a bath because he stuck his head under the grill to lick up the juices while hot grease dripped on his head. But hey, at least we knew it was good stuff!