Follow our recipe and bake your own beer pizza crust in record time. And if you are so inclined, you could set up a build-your-own pizza bar.
Whenever Chris home brews I like to set up a simple bar consisting of individual pizza crusts and a variety of toppings. That way everyone could assemble their own little pizzas at any time, put them under the broiler for a few minutes and snack on them throughout the day.
How to Make Beer Pizza Dough
The recipe is about as easy as it gets and the flavor of the crust is really good. Chris insists that this is because we use his favorite double zero flour. That and the fact that the beer is warmed up to about 100℉ before being added to the other ingredients. We used a Kolsch style ale, Fate Brewing Co. Laimas Kolsch.
From my perspective, the best part of making these crusts is that outside of a few short minutes of kneading and rolling out the dough, most of the work is done by the stand-up mixer and there is no waiting for the dough to rise. The key to this time saving benefit is using pizza crust yeast (sold at your local grocery store).
Parbaked beer pizza crust. Ready for your pizza bar.
Parbake the Beer Pizza Crust or Don't
You have several options in terms of how you handle things. If you want, you can bake your pizza right away, as soon as you roll out the dough and add your sauce and toppings.
Alternatively, you can parbake the crusts, then cool them off and use them later. If you have any left, freeze them for later use. Or, as we did, 'pargrill' the crusts (not a real word, but simply means parbake on your grill with lid closed to maintain the temperature). You can then stack up the grilled pizza crusts and construct a pizza bar. Totally a hit when you have people over.
Here is what our mini pizza bar looked like today.
It included the grilled beer pizza crust stack, olive oil and red sauce, lots of basil, shredded mozzarella, Parmesan, goat cheese, blue cheese, arugula, red onions, tiny heirloom tomatoes, prosciutto, salami and anchovies.
With these we were able to create a variety of different pizzas. Very casual way to enjoy the hours before the game and the beautiful weather. Let's not forget how well pizza and craft beer pair up.
This one below was Chris' favorite - salami, blue cheese and fresh arugula once out of the oven...
... while I absolutely loved this lemon flavored olive oil, red onion, anchovies, Parmesan and fresh basil combo. Gotta love anchovies on pizza paired with a crisp cold Kolsch style ale!
Then more pizzas were made.
Recipe
Beer Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour plus more for dusting use 00 flour for best results
- 2 packets pizza crust yeast must use this type of yeast to make no rise dough
- 1 ½ tablespoon sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- 12 oz beer choose a balanced beer with malty (bready flavor such as Pilsner or Kolsch
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand-up mixer equipped with the dough hook add 3 cups of the flour, the sugar, the yeast and the salt.
- Warm up the beer to 100℉ and add it to the dry ingredients. Mix on low.
- Continue mixing and one tablespoon at a time begin adding the remaining flour until the dough begins to pull away from the bowl and forms a nice compact ball.
- Prepare a clean floured surface and place the dough on top. Dough should be slightly sticky.
- Knead for about 3 minutes, adding flour as needed.
- Cut into 8 equally sized portions and form them into balls. Use rolling pin to form mini pizza crusts.
- At this point you can go ahead and add your toppings and cook your pizzas in a 425℉ oven.
- Alternatively, you can parbake the crusts in a 425℉ oven or grill them making sure that the lid of the grill is closed and the temperature is high enough. Cook each side just until dough sets and begins to turn tan. This may take less than a minute per side. Take out/remove from grill to cool off.
- (Any unused parbaked crusts can be frozen for later use. Use within 2 weeks.)
- Add desired toppings to crusts and broil for about 5-7 minutes making sure broiler is at least 4 inches above the surface of the pizzas. Broiling time depends on how strong your oven's broiler is.
Maggie
Wow, this is such an interesting idea! I have no idea you can make beer pizza crust!
What is pizza crust yeast? I never used it before. Is it possible to find it at the baking section in the grocery store?
CraftBeering
Hi Maggie! We of course are partial, but using a beer with bready and toasty flavors makes the dough so much better! Yes, the yeast is called Pizza Crust Yeast. It is simply a rapid acting yeast, you still need to feed it sugar. Most grocery stores have it. There is a link in the post above the picture of the rolled out dough so you can see what it looks like (waaay overpriced from the link, costs almost nothing at the store). Thank you for stopping by!
Alison's Allspice
I love the idea to "pargrill" these crusts and freeze them for later. Grilling season is almost here, and you can never go wrong with extra pizza crust in the freezer! Also, I don't know why I never thought to put beer in pizza crust? It's awesome.
CraftBeering
We agree Alison! The beer gives so much flavor to the crust and in combination with the yeast creates the fluffiest pizza dough ever!