Saltwater Brewery - What's Brewing

A cold can of Screamin' Reels IPA — the beer this recipe is built around. (Photo: our own can shot. We don't have a kitchen, so we don't photograph finished dishes — this one is yours to cook and yours to photograph.)

Dog Days — everything on the grill, nothing that heats the kitchen

August in South Florida is one long exhale. The afternoons sit heavy, the storms roll through around four, and the last thing anybody wants is an oven running at 400 degrees inside the house. So the theme on this table all month is simple: Dog Days. Everything goes outside on the grill. Nothing heats your kitchen.

This is the first of our Thursday night recipes, and we're starting with Screamin' Reels IPA. It's the hardest of our four beers to cook with and the most rewarding once you know the trick, which makes it a good place to begin.

Everything below is something you cook at home, on your own grill, with a can you picked up at the store. Read it once, then go light the fire.

The beer: Screamin' Reels IPA

Screamin' Reels IPA — 7% ABV, 75 IBU. That is a genuinely bitter beer, and the bitterness is the one thing to respect once it leaves the glass: hop bitterness concentrates as liquid cooks down, so an IPA should never go into a long reduction. It will turn harsh and metallic every time. Used the other way — diluted in a brine, or brushed on as a quick mop over the last few minutes — it does exactly what you want. The citrus and pine ride along, the malt helps the skin color up, and none of the sharp edge follows.

So: brine and mop. No simmering it down.

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6.

For the IPA brine

• 6 oz Screamin' Reels IPA (half a 12 oz can)
• 3 cups cold water
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 4 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1 tbsp black peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• Zest and juice of 1 lime

For the grill mop

• 6 oz Screamin' Reels IPA — the rest of the can
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• Juice of 1 lime

For the grill

• 3 lb bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 8)
• 4 ears sweet corn, husked
• 2 limes, halved
• Olive oil, black pepper

About the can. One 12 oz can splits neatly in half — 6 oz into the brine, 6 oz into the mop, nothing left over and nothing wasted. If you'd rather drink the second half cold while the fire comes up, that's a fair trade: swap 6 oz of water plus an extra squeeze of lime into the mop. The mop is there for gloss and char more than for flavor.

Steps

1. Dissolve the cure. Whisk the kosher salt and brown sugar into 1 cup of warm water until completely dissolved, about 1 minute — undissolved salt brines unevenly.
2. Build the brine. Add the remaining 2 cups cold water, the smashed garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, and the lime zest and juice.
3. Add the beer. Pour in 6 oz of Screamin' Reels IPA, stir once, and let the foam settle for a minute.
4. Brine the chicken 2 to 4 hours in the refrigerator, submerged. Set a timer and don't run past 4 hours — a 75 IBU beer left on the meat overnight turns it genuinely bitter.
5. Mix the mop. Whisk the remaining 6 oz of beer with the olive oil, honey, Dijon, smoked paprika and lime juice. Set it aside cold — do not simmer it down.
6. Build a two-zone fire and bring the hot side to about 400°F: coals banked to one side, or half the burners on and half off.
7. Dry the chicken. Pull it from the brine 30 minutes before it goes on, discard the brine, and pat every piece very dry. Rub lightly with oil and black pepper — no extra salt, the brine has it handled.
8. Sear skin-side down over the hot side for 5 to 6 minutes, until the skin is deep gold and releases cleanly, then move it to the cool side.
9. Grill the corn and limes over the hot side, turning, for 8 to 10 minutes, until charred in spots. Meanwhile cook the chicken on the cool side with the lid down for 15 to 20 minutes, to 175°F at the thickest part, brushing on the mop only over the last 5 minutes.
10. Rest 5 minutes, squeeze the grilled lime halves over everything, and bring it to the table.

Screamin' Reels label art — 7% ABV, 75 IBU. Look for this one on the shelf.

A note for the whole table

Nearly all of the alcohol here is gone before the plate is: the brine gets poured down the drain, and what little the mop carries burns off over a hot fire in the final minutes. What stays behind is the citrus, the pine and a little malt sweetness in the crust. This is a family dinner — kids at the table included.

Serve it with

• Screamin' Reels IPA, cold — the same beer that's in the brine, and the bitterness cuts straight through the honey in the mop.
• Grilled-lime sparkling limeade, for anyone not drinking: squeeze the spare grilled lime halves into sparkling water over ice with a spoonful of honey. Same charred-citrus note as the plate, and it takes about a minute to make.

Where to find the beer

Screamin' Reels IPA is around South Florida — Publix and local bottle shops through Palm Beach and Broward counties — and it's on tap at the taproom at 1701 W. Atlantic Ave, the first building off the I-95 Atlantic Ave exit in Delray Beach. Beer is a find-it-around-town thing for us; we can't ship it, so online is apparel and gear only.

Taproom hours: Mon 1–7 · Tue–Thu 12–10 · Fri–Sat 12–11 · Sun 12–8.

And if you'd rather somebody else handled dinner this Thursday — there's usually a food truck out front, and the calendar of what's on is over at Reef Room Events.

Please drink responsibly.