Beer butt chicken

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I was hanging out at my buddy’s place for a few days and we wanted to arrange a fun experiment in his kitchen. We thought about maybe buying a whole chicken and roasting it in the oven. Neither of us have ever cooked an entire chicken before. Since we had no experience at all, we did a quick google search on cooking a whole chicken. We came across articles and recipes on beer butt chicken also known as beer in the butt chicken.

So the basic idea behind it, is to stick a half full can of beer up the chicken’s cavity and cook the chicken either by grilling, smoking, or simply baking it in the oven. The beer acts as a source of moisture to help keep the chicken from drying up when cooking, making the meat juicy.

I am guessing that the type of beer will probably have an effect on the chicken. We found some Yuengling in his fridge and so, we decided to use that. We picked up a nice 4lb-ish chicken from the grocery store, along with some lime to use as a simple rub for the chicken. We also picked up a large and deep aluminum roasting pan.

Ingredients:

  • Half can of beer (we used Yuengling)
  • 4 lb chicken
  • Salt and pepper
  • Olive oil
  • 1 lime, halved
  • Half onion, sliced

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
  3. Squeeze the lime over the chicken and rub around the chicken.
  4. Place the lime halves into the chicken cavity.
  5. Place the half full beer can in the center of the roasting pan. Put the chicken over the beer can with the beer can inserted into the cavity. The chicken should be in upright position.
  6. Pour about one cup of water into the roasting pan.
  7. Scatter the sliced onions around the chicken.
  8. Cover the chicken with aluminum foil.
  9. Put the chicken into the oven for about an hour, occasionally baste the chicken with the liquid at the bottom of the pan.
  10. After about an hour, remove the aluminum foil and return the chicken into the oven for an additional 30 minutes.
  11. When the chicken is cooked, let it cool for about 10 minutes.
  12. Chicken is ready to be carved and served.

The beer butt chicken was delicious! The chicken skin was thin and crispy. The chicken meat was quite juicy, especially the legs and thighs. You can taste the lemony lime flavor. The chicken smelled great. The lime and the beer gave the chicken a wonderful aroma. The recipe was very simple and fun to make. The best part would probably be seeing my buddy struggling with inserting the beer can into the wrong cavity of the chicken. It took me a while before noticing that he was trying to fit the beer can in the chicken’s neck. That was a great laugh.

Here we have our beer butt chicken with mashed sweet potatoes, baby bok choy, and potato salad.

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