Belgian White Beer Bread with Sourdough

Replacing the water with beer in a simple sourdough bread recipe sounded like it couldn’t go wrong. After all, is there anything beer can’t do? The result of my little experiment was nothing short of amazing and now I’m sharing it with you so you can harness the power of beer for making some of the most delightful bread you’ve ever tasted!

Here’s what you’ll need to make your new favorite beer bread!

60g Sourdough Starter

100g Belgian White Beer

100g Bread flour

Combine and let sit for 8 to 12 hours at room temperature. You can (and should!) enjoy a Belgian white beer during this time. Why not? You’ve earned it!

Once the mixture has sat long enough, here’s the rest of what you’ll need:

200g Belgian White Beer (room temperature)

150g Water

400g Bread Flour

100g Whole Wheat Flour

Combine everything together and mix well. Cover it up and allow it to rest for 1 to 2 hours at room temperature (Autolyse).

If you have replaced the whole wheat flour with a lighter flour like bread flour, you can reduce the Autolyse time to 30 to 60 minutes.

After the Autolyse add:

11g Salt

260g Beer Sourdough

Knead for 3 to 5 minutes. Then, transfer the dough from the bowl to a lightly-floured surface.

Stretch and fold the dough over the next 3 hours using the stretch and fold method which goes like this:

1st stretch and fold, followed by a 30-minute rest

2nd stretch and fold, followed by a 30-minute rest

3rd stretch and fold, followed by a 30-minute rest

4th stretch and fold, followed by a 45-minute rest

5th stretch and fold, followed by a 45-minute rest

With the final fold, shape your loaf. Place your shaped loaf in a proofing basket that can hold 2.5 lbs.

As you can see in the photo, I’ve used a 12” long, 6” wide and 3” deep Benetton basket.

Flour the basket well with some Whole Wheat flour so your loaf doesn’t get stuck to the walls of the basket. Let it proof for 4 hours at room temperature and transfer it to the fridge for another 24 hours.

When it’s finally ready to go, you’ll preheat your oven to 460 F including a Pizza stone and a steaming pan. Transfer the loaf to a Pizza/Bread peel, then score and shoot it onto the pizza stone.