In May 2023, “just in time for grilling season,” the press release read, noted chicken brand Perdue launched its first ever beer. Produced in collaboration with New York’s Torch & Crown Brewing Company, it was a honey double-citrus summer ale brewed with the intriguing ingredients of lemon and orange puree, honey, rosemary, thyme, sea salt, and pink peppercorn. Dubbed Beer Can Chicken Beer, it was designed less for sipping than to have a chicken straddle it upright while on a grill.
Though we may never know who the first genius was to realize that shoving an open can of beer into a chicken’s cavity—it’s also known in some quarters as “beer butt chicken”—then slow-cooking it over a fire makes for a delicious meal, it is said to have arisen in the South during the 1980s. While even today some question the tactic, loyal practitioners believe the process steams and infuses the chicken with flavor from the beer. From the beginning, however, the beer used was of little significance—in other words, it was usually cheap industrial lager from a can.
“It was Budweiser,” says Steven Raichlen, the James Beard Award-winning writer who first encountered beer can chicken in 1996 at the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest in Memphis. Many credit his writing on the subject, including his book Beer Can Chicken (2002), for popularizing the dish across the country.
Of course, another culinary creation was also becoming popular across the country in the late 1990s: craft beer. However, it would still take another decade or so for pitmasters to begin using it with their beer can chicken.
See also: Beer Chicken Green Chile Enchiladas
“And for a surprising reason: when the first edition of Beer Can Chicken came out, good beers simply didn’t come in cans,” explains Raichlen. “All you could find were a handful of mediocre beers. Back then, the craft beers came only in bottles.”
That changed a bit when Dale’s Pale Ale arrived in a can courtesy of Colorado’s Oskar Blues Brewery in 2002. But it would really take until 2011 and the cult success of The Alchemist’s Heady Topper—released in 16-ounce “pounder” cans—along with the introduction of mobile canning lines, for other craft breweries to follow suit. The mid- to late 2010s would see an explosion of craft breweries putting their beer in cans.
Suddenly, craft breweries also began to lean into promoting their own beers as ideal for a chicken butt. Initially, that stylistically meant IPA.
In 2017, California’s Stone Brewing encouraged fans to deploy its Stone Enjoy By IPA for the practice. In a blog post penned by “The Beeroness” Jackie Dodd Mallory, she thought the fresh and fragrant West Coast IPA paired well with a glaze made of chipotles and lime juice.
“Once you’ve consumed a bird that has recently spent time on a backyard grill propped up with a can of IPA in its haunches, you’ll probably agree: that[tampered with] chicken was delicious!” she wrote. “It may look silly, ridiculous even, but the way the beer turns your standard chicken into the most delicious chicken you’ve ever had is a thing of beauty. And completely worth the cost of one of your favorite brews to make it happen.”
A few years later, Kansas City’s Boulevard Brewing Co. recommended its own Space Camper Cosmic IPA, for beer can chicken. Amateur grillmasters would likewise mostly opt for IPAs; it is the most popular craft beer style, of course. In a 2023 video, YouTuber Grill Sergeant makes his own version of the beer can chicken using Fort Collins, Colo.’s New Belgium hazy Voodoo Ranger Juice Force IPA.
But the style debate is hardly settled.
“Beer can chicken has long been one of the most popular methods of grilling poultry, but we noticed a lack of consensus on what type of beer is best,” explained Julie Lehman, Perdue’s vice president of marketing, back in 2023. Working with Torch & Crown, their goal was to brew the ultimate beer can chicken beer. It was a hit, and quickly sold out online.
Like Torch & Crown (and Perdue), New Hampshire’s Woodstock Inn Brewery believes a lighter, summery ale is preferable. They tout their Honey Lemon Blonde as the beer can chicken craft beer of choice. Other breweries go a darker route. This summer, Delaware’s Dogfish Head, in collaboration with Dan-O’s seasoning, released a grilling kit, complete with a beer they thought ideal for beer can chicken: a malty dark lager named Y’all Don’t Know Till You Dan-O, brewed with lemon peel, orange peel, and rosemary.
“The chicken’s browned skin brings out Y’all Don’t Know Till You Dan-O’s bready, toffee-forward flavors,”claims the culinary team at Dogfish Head’s Rehoboth brewpub Brewings & Eats,while noting that the seasoning rub “further enhances the complexity of the beer, amplifying a subtle, black-pepper undertone that continues into its finish.”
While some three decades into making beer can chicken, the master himself, Raichlen, now uses all sorts of different craft beer styles from various breweries, specifically mentioning New Belgium’s Fat Tire and Brooklyn Lager; a recent Instagram post even found him using a Belgian-style white ale. Still, his preferred beer can chicken beer of choice remains one of the most famous stouts in the industry and, oddly, one more frequently enjoyed on draught than from a can—noting that he uses half the can to make a barbecue sauce.
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