Slow Cooked Chicken + Eagle Bay Black IPA
It’s been a while since I sat down and planned a dinner and beer match at home so on the weekend I decided this needed to be rectified. On Saturday morning I pulled out the slow cooker as this is now one of my favourite cooking appliances with its whole set-and-forget thing and I also like the way it makes the entire house smells like edible awesome. 
The previous weekend I did a fairly successful leg of lamb in the slow cooker so I decided on chicken for this time around. I found this recipe on Half Baked Harvest which, quite frankly, had me at the words “BBQ” and “beer”. My recipe ended up being slightly different because I emptied a half open BBQ sauce bottle into the slow cooker only to find it was only a single cups worth. The sauce was a random bottle that I think claimed to be a product of the Caribbean, you could tell from the cartoon of a guy with dreadlocks on the label. For the remainder of the sauce I quickly whipped up a homemade BBQ sauce, the recipe for which I got here however half way through making this I realised we were out of Worcestershire sauce. [Please feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph when my ineptitude in the kitchen story has ceased]. After Googling “replacement for Worcestershire sauce” I got a little exasperated and threw in some fish sauce and an anchovy and then decided just to get on with life. Thankfully the result was pretty good. For the beer, the recipe used a pumpkin ale, I instead used a fairly generic pale ale soley because it was in the beer fridge. It was either this or one of the imperial (aka ballsy), smokey or sour beers of various origins that I haven’t gotten around to opening yet. 
The chicken was a HIT – very tasty, especially once put into a homemade tortillas, peppered with fresh coriander and a good dose of chilli sauce. 
lt seemed to me that the more chilli sauce I put on, the better the pairing with the Eagle Bay Black IPA.
“Say hey to autumn, cooler temperatures and our Brewer’s Series Black IPA is BACK!”
Read: Revisit Eagle Bay’s Black IPA launch for 2014 here
If you haven’t tried Eagle Bay’s Black IPA it’s something you should seek out. It is another of their Brewer’s Series, their seasonal range, that has already given us beautifully made beers like the Cacao Stout and Summer Ale. They’ve done their Black IPA in the past and it’s always a cracker. Between this and the Bootleg Black Market IPA it’s hard to pick a favourite so just to be fair I make sure to drink plenty of both!
Homemade Tortillas – 2 cups flour, generous dash EVOO, pinch salt and enough water/beer to get a dough. Let sit for 10 minutes, divide and roll out into whatever size you like. Cook each side for a minute on medium heat. Easy! I’d credit the recipe if I could for the life of me remember where I got it!
On this particular beer and food occasion, the Eagle Bay Black IPA had plenty of flavours to hang on to. Admittedly without any chilli, the beer dominated the dish, however the beers roasty malts did a great job of turning the bits where I had slightly burnt the tortillas into very tasty bites! The bright citrus hops gave the chilli something to play with whilst also taking the bite out of the acidity in the salsa. Overall a pretty good Saturday night in. Next up, I think it will have to be pork … maybe with something funky perhaps? 
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