Guinness beef stew (braised chuck roast)
- Preparation 15 min
- Cooking 3 h 30 min
- Servings 4 to 6
- Freezing Absolutely
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🍺 A bold, deep taste, and I stand by it
I love Guinness. With or without alcohol, it makes no difference to me, the taste is what I am after: roasted grain, dark chocolate, that fine bubble clinging to the side of the glass. A beer like that does not disappear when you pour it into a pot. It holds its ground. Bold, deep, and exactly what I want underneath a chuck roast.
🔥 Four cans, and no other liquid
No watered-down broth, nothing stretched with water. Beer all the way, plus a beef bouillon cube I break apart in the bottom of the pot to season everything. The liquid comes up almost to the top of the meat, reduces slowly for three hours, and ends up dark brown and a little syrupy, with the bitterness of the roasted grain pushing back against the sweetness of the carrots. The kind of sauce you mop up with bread without thinking about it.
❄️ It falls apart under a fork
Chuck roast does not forgive speed. Cut the time short and it stays tough. Three hours on low heat with the lid on and it gives up. I shred it right in the pot with two forks, I never slice it. That is how I like it, and that is why this ends up being a stew and not a roast.
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🥄 The slow cooker
Chuck roast and slow cookers belong together, and this is the question I get most often about this recipe. I do not make it that way myself, I make it on the stove. But there is nothing stopping you from adapting it, as long as you do not skip the first step.
Brown the roast in a skillet first, all sides, a good twelve minutes. A slow cooker does not sear anything: it heats, it does not brown. Drop raw meat in there and you will get something tender and grey, without the layer of flavour that comes from the crust. Caramelize your onion, garlic, celery and carrots in that same skillet, deglaze with one can of beer while scraping the bottom, then transfer everything over.
Then the baby potatoes, the rest of the beer, the roast on top. Figure roughly eight hours on low, or four to five on high. It is ready when a fork slides in with no resistance and comes back out with strands attached. One thing to watch: a slow cooker does not evaporate, it condenses. Your sauce will be thinner than mine. Pull the meat out at the end, simmer the liquid uncovered in a saucepan for about fifteen minutes, and the body comes right back.
Same logic elsewhere on the site: my slow cooker pot roast with cranberries and orange is built the same way, and my beef stew with beer lays out both versions side by side.
🔥 In the oven, at 350 °F
350 °F, three and a half hours, covered, rack in the centre. This is the version I go for when I have other things going on the stovetop and I want the oven to do the work. Same pot, same layering, just bring it to a boil on the burner before it goes in so you are not starting from cold liquid.
🍺 Swapping out the Guinness
Any stout does the job. Write it on your grocery list exactly like that: Guinness (or another stout-style beer). What you want is roasted grain and dry bitterness, not sugar. An oatmeal stout gives a rounder sauce, an imperial stout hits harder and may need cutting with a bit of broth. Stay away from sweet browns and reds, or the sauce turns to syrup.
❄️ Make it ahead
This one is better the next day. Cook it through, cool it, keep it in the fridge sitting in its own liquid. By morning the fat has set on top and you can lift it off with a spoon if you want, and the meat has been drinking the sauce all night. Reheat gently, covered, on low. It freezes well too, meat and liquid together, never the meat on its own or it dries out.
🍳 Do not rush the bottom of the pot
Twelve to fifteen minutes to brown the roast feels long when you are hungry. That is where the flavour lives. The brown fond stuck to the bottom lifts off with the first can of beer, and that is what you taste three hours later.
✅ What do I serve with my Guinness beef stew?
The sauce is the main character here, so you need something to catch it. Creamy garlic and herb mashed potatoes is my first pick, the cream and garlic go straight at the bitterness of the stout. Roasted baby potatoes with garlic and thyme if you would rather have something crisp beside something soft. And to cut through all of it, a creamy broccoli salad, cold, with enough acidity to reset your palate between bites.
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Ingredients
- 1 beef chuck roast, about 1 kg
- 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 celery stalks, sliced
- 2 carrots, cut into thick slices
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) Italian spices
- 4 x 441 ml cans Guinness beer
- 1 beef bouillon concentrate cube
- 20 whole baby potatoes
- Fresh parsley for serving
- Fleur de sel for serving
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Preparation
- In a large casserole dish heated over medium-high heat, add a good drizzle of olive oil and brown the roast on all sides for a total of 12 to 15 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper on all sides. Add more oil as needed. Place the roast on a plate and set aside.
- Reduce heat to medium, add the onion and garlic, add some olive oil and toss to combine. Cook, stirring constantly, 3 to 4 minutes.
- Add the celery, carrots, Italian spices, a drizzle of olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toss to combine. Cook 7 to 8 minutes to caramelize.
- Pour a can of beer along with the bouillon cube and scrape the bottom to get all the flavours. Break the bouillon cube apart.
- Add the baby potatoes, the rest of the beer, the roast beef, season with salt and pepper and toss to combine.
- Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.
- Shred the meat, serve with plenty of vegetables and garnish with fresh parsley and fleur de sel!
In Quebec and across most of Canada it is sold as a blade roast, or rôti de palette in French, named after the flat blade-shaped bone running through it. Same cut, same shoulder, same behaviour in the pot. You may also see it labelled shoulder roast or pot roast depending on the butcher.
Low, slow, and in liquid. Chuck is loaded with collagen, which is exactly why it is cheap and exactly why it is terrible cooked fast. Sear it hard first for the crust, then let it sit at a bare simmer for three hours so that collagen melts into gelatin. That is the whole trick. Braising, stewing, slow cooker, oven, they all work as long as the temperature stays low and the meat stays covered in liquid.
Yes, and the full method is in my tips above. Short version: brown the meat and vegetables in a skillet first, eight hours on low, then reduce the sauce separately because a slow cooker will not evaporate anything.
Mostly, but not entirely. USDA retention data puts roughly 5 percent of the original alcohol still present after two and a half hours of simmering. Three hours goes lower, though a lid pushes it back up since the vapour condenses and drips right back in. In practice Guinness is 4.2 percent to start, the sauce is split among four to six people, and what lands on a plate is tiny. It is not zero. If you need zero, non-alcoholic Guinness behaves the same way in the pot.
Mashed potatoes first, they are built for this sauce. Roasted baby potatoes if you want texture, and a cold creamy broccoli salad on the side to cut the richness. The carrots, celery and baby potatoes are already in the pot, so you are really just adding starch and something sharp.
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