A Splash Of Beer Syrup Will Elevate Your Favorite Drink To The Next Level

Beer bread, beer-cheese dip, muffins made with stout — you can find plenty of recipes where beer is a key ingredient. That goes for cocktails, too, with beer playing a starring role in drinks like shandies and micheladas. But with the craft beer era still in full swing, bartenders and mixologists are finding new and creative ways to play around with the ineffable flavor of a high-quality brew, whether it's a porter or an IPA or a hefeweizen. One example? Beer syrup: a one-to-one combination of beer and sweetener that can add zing to margaritas, whiskey sours, Negronis, and the like.

For bartenders, part of the appeal of beer syrup is that it reduces waste: It can be a way to repurpose whatever beer remains in a keg that's been changed, or something to do with bottles past their sell-by date. Part of the appeal for the home bartender? Beer syrup really couldn't be easier: If you know how to make simple syrup, this one is entirely within your reach. And if you don't know how to make simple syrup, well — it's equal parts water and sugar. That's the whole recipe. Now swap in beer for the water, heat gently to dissolve the sugar, and you've got an ingredient that'll give an invigorating boost to your next happy hour cocktail.

As we said, this one's so straightforward you hardly need a recipe: Just mix the beer of your choice with an equal amount of sugar — essentially you're making a flavored simple syrup, and the flavor is beer. A couple tricks will help ensure your success. One is to open your beer a little bit before cooking so that it becomes flat; you don't want to be dealing with all that foam and carbonation on the stove. The other trick is to heat gently and don't let the mixture boil — it'll cook off the flavor and, especially in the case of IPAs, can impart on off taste. The only real reason to use heat here is to get the sugar to dissolve into the liquid. As soon as that's accomplished, take the syrup off the heat and let it cool before using.

To use beer syrup in your next cocktail, think in terms of complementary flavors. The bitter, floral notes of an IPA syrup would work well in a cocktail with other bitter elements, including those you get from amari — add a splash to your next Negroni or boulevardier. Sour beers, like a gose? A beguiling addition to a whiskey sour or a margarita. Rich, heavier beers like porters and stouts? Try them in a cocktail where their sweetish flavors will play well — say, a Cuba libre or an espresso martini.

Beer isn't the only booze you can turn into syrup. If you're looking to grow your bag of cocktail tricks even a little more, it's time to get acquainted with wine syrups, which operate on exactly the same principle and proportions: a one-to-one ratio, gentle heat, the whole works. You use them in a similar fashion, too, adding a bit of red wine syrup to a Negroni, or using rosé syrup to further amp up the flavor of your frosé.

And even with beer syrup, you don't have to limit yourself to just cocktails. Picture, if you will, a stout-based syrup — say, Guinness — drizzled over ice cream. Vanilla, chocolate, butter pecan: something that will complement the stout's creamy richness. IPA syrup? Those floral notes will play nicely with raspberry jam on top of a stack of pancakes during brunch some weekend — served with a beermosa, naturally. You could brush any kind of beer syrup onto chicken wings before grilling. And, of course, you can use beer syrup in drinks that aren't necessarily booze-based. Just a splash of syrup in plain sparkling water will give you a nice, low-alcohol summer refresher.