Beer in Pizza Dough

Want to try a novel crust flavor? Substitute the water in your recipe for beer in pizza dough!

Pizza dough can be made with just four ingredients – flour, salt, yeast, and water.

What if you didn’t have any yeast in the pantry? Or what if you just wanted to try something new?

Substituting beer for the water and yeast in your pizza might be for you. Let’s explore!

What is Beer-Dough Pizza?

Simply put, this is a recipe for beer in pizza dough! By switching out the water in your dough recipe with beer, you can easily add some different flavor notes to the crust.

Best Beer for Pizza Dough

Well, here is where you are going to have to let your own palette decide. A conventional lager beer is not going to contribute a strong flavor to your dough – and this might not be a bad place to start for those who aren’t into a strongly flavored crust.

And you know, not everyone is going to agree on the best. We tried Guinness, a hazy IPA, and a super-low-calorie lager while writing this and each imparted different flavors into the crust.

Granted, those flavors weren’t very pronounced when the pizza was loaded up with ingredients. They really stood out more when eating the crust.

Does the Pizza Taste like Beer?

Although some of the flavor essences of the beer may carry forward, we didn’t find the pizza actually tasted like beer.

What Happens to the Alcohol?

Beers are typically in the 4% to 6% range (although some can be double that). And you’re making an entire pizza with one can. But what happens when it is cooked?

Although it is commonly known that cooking evaporates out alcohol. However, the rate of cooking off the alcohol is not all that fast – even though it cooks off faster with more surface area (like pizza) and higher temperatures. A pizza generally cooks in 15 to 20 minutes, and that’s probably only going to cook off about 60% of the alcohol content according to the USDA.

Long story short – if you don’t want any alcohol content in your final pizza, use a non-alcoholic variety.

Ingredients You’ll Need For Beer Crust Pizza

As stated above, you can make pizza with just 4 ingredients. But we’re going to make our Easy Peasy Pizza dough and substitute in beer. Although you can put beer in pizza dough and skip the yeast, we found that adding yeast still made for a better final pizza.

• Flour
• Beer
• Salt
• Yeast
• Olive Oil

How to Make Beer Dough Pizza

How to Make Beer Dough Pizza

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. In your stand mixer (or a medium bowl), dissolve the yeast in your beer. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
3. Ideally your beer will be room temperature, as the colder temperature will make the yeast more slow to activate. If the beer is cold, you can warm it but do not heat it past 110 degrees.
4. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. You do not want the salt to touch the yeast directly, as it will kill it.
5. After the yeast and beer has sat for 10 minutes, add in the flour and salt mixture, about ½ cup at a time, incorporating it. Alternate between adding the flour and olive oil, beginning and ending with flour. Reserve about 1 teaspoon of your olive oil to oil your pan and your hands later.
6. After all the ingredients are incorporated, let it rest for at least five minutes.
7. Lightly oil your pizza pan to help avoid sticking.
8. After the dough has rested, lightly oil your hands and press the dough into a circular shape onto a pizza pan.
9. Top with your favorite toppings.
10. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. 

Variations for Pizza Dough made with Beer

Obviously your options come from your choice of beer!

Guinness is malty from the roasting of its malted barley. It’s often described as both bitter and slightly sweet. We found the malt flavor was what translated most into the final pizza crust – that and some of the color. I found this to be a good choice of beer in pizza dough.

Firestone Walker’s Mind Haze is a hazy India Pale Ale. With an International Bitterness Unit score of 40, it’s not the hoppiest out there, but we still found the hops translated to the crust. What we didn’t expect was that the tropical essence of those hops also carried across…and we didn’t ultimately love that!

Our overall preference was to use something lighter and yet flavorful but without any floral characteristics. You might try something like Modelo Especial due to its upfront corn taste?

Or if you’re making this for your kids, why not try a non-alcoholic variety like Athletic Brewing Company’s Run Wild IPA?

Additional Tips and Tricks

• Cooking the beer in pizza dough is going to remove about 60% of the alcohol, but not all of it. If that’s an important consideration, select a non-alcoholic variety.
• If you use beer in a different dough recipe (which you can), you can generally substitute the water with beer on a one-to-one ratio. But if the recipe calls for a full package of yeast, you may want to use less to avoid a strong yeast flavor in the final pizza.
• The temperature of your beer will affect how the dough ferments. If you use cold beer but want to get down to making the pizza sooner, you will want to add more yeast – and you’ll still want to give the dough at least thirty minutes to proof.
• We made the dough both with fizzy and flat beer. With flat beer, the dough really needs additional yeast and/or baking soda to help it rise. With fizzy beer, you don’t technically need either, but we found it still much better to add additional yeast.

How to Reheat It

If the pizza is from the fridge: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Once it reaches temp, place it on a pan or the pizza stone for 15 minutes. Alternatively, you can heat the slices in a skillet on the stovetop – no need to preheat the pan! Place the skillet on the stovetop over medium heat, place the pizza in, and let heat for 6-8 minutes.

August 4, 2023