Try This Beer Basting Trick For The Best Father's Day BBQ

There are a million cliché gift ideas for Father's Day, and yet dads are usually easy to please when you stick to the classics. Beer is one of those classics, and grilling with beer during a Father's Day cookout can be a surprise hit. However, if you plan on bringing beer into your barbecued chicken recipe you'll want to make sure the beer's flavor is properly absorbed. Rather than the odd display of cooking chicken on a beer can (which doesn't actually flavor the meat all that well), try beer basting the chicken.

Basting chicken is fairly straightforward, and this holds true even if you do it with beer since you're still just letting the chicken absorb liquids and butter while it's cooking to keep it moist. The only thing that could make it harder is if you drink a couple of beers first. To baste the chicken, take some beer (we'll get into what kind later) and mix it with water, butter, garlic, and whatever other extras you want; such as honey, ginger, or apple cider. Once the butter has melted all the way, brush it onto the chicken while the chicken is midway through cooking. The baste keeps the chicken from drying out while the beer keeps Father's Day from getting too dull.

As for what beer works best, whatever beer you've got in the cooler should do the job, but lighter beers like pilsners, wheat beers, or slightly malty brown ales are great pairings for chicken. If you're going with a sweeter or lighter beer, you might try reducing it first. (If this is a way to cook with beer you've never heard of, reducing beer means lightly simmering it on the stove first to evaporate some of the water and concentrate the beer flavor.) This is great for adding stronger flavors to the chicken, although you should avoid reducing it if you're using a stronger beer. Those big, hoppy flavors get intensified quite a bit so it might end up being overpowering.

When you're adding your baste to the chicken, you want to avoid using the standard turkey baster since it's easier for beer to drip down beneath the grates and cause flare-ups. Instead, go with a basting brush for a cleaner job. A barbecue mop would also work, but these also tend to get a bit sloppy. In any case, once the beer has been properly mixed with the butter and other seasonings in your baste, it'll stick to the chicken just fine when you add it. Rather than giving Dad a plain can of beer, a good Father's Day gift for dads who grill is to cook up some food with good beer instead.