Saltwater Brewery - What's Brewing

Week two of Mexican month at the Thursday Night Table. Last Thursday we opened September with chicken tinga simmered in LocAle; this week the cooking moves outside, the beer changes, and dinner gets faster. Carne asada is the dish — skirt steak, marinated a few hours, grilled over the hottest fire you can manage, sliced thin and eaten in a warm tortilla with charred salsa verde and lime.

The beer this week is Screamin’ Reels, our West Coast IPA, and it goes into the marinade and nowhere else. That is not a stylistic choice; it is the rule for cooking with this beer, and the next section explains why.

As always: there is no kitchen at the brewery — food on site is whatever truck is parked out front — so this is a dinner you cook at home, on your own grill or in your own skillet. We are bringing the beer and the method.

The beer: Screamin’ Reels, West Coast IPA, 7% ABV / 75 IBU

Screamin' Reels is 7% ABV and 75 IBU, and that second number decides how you cook with it. Bitterness does not cook off; it concentrates. Reduce a 75 IBU IPA into a pan sauce and every minute on the heat makes it more bitter, until it tastes like a mistake. So the IPA never goes in the pan. It goes in the marinade — where its citrus-and-pine hop character seasons the outside of the steak alongside the lime and garlic — and then the marinade goes down the drain. What reaches the plate is the flavour the meat picked up, and the char. Save the pan-sauce jobs for a beer like LocAle, which is exactly what we did last week.

At 7% it is also a beer to pour into a glass and drink slowly with the finished tacos, not to cook down. Only 3/4 cup of the can goes into the marinade; the rest is the cook’s.

What you’ll need

Plan on twenty minutes of hands-on prep, two to four hours of marinating in the fridge, and about fifteen minutes at the grill including the rest. The salsa verde is made while the steak marinates, so it adds nothing to the clock.

Serves 4 to 6 — 12 to 16 tacos.

For the steak and marinade

• 2 lb skirt steak (outside skirt if you can get it), trimmed of surface fat and silver skin, cut into 3 or 4 manageable pieces
• 3/4 cup (6 oz) Screamin' Reels West Coast IPA, poured from a cold can
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
• 1/4 cup fresh orange juice (1 orange)
• 4 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 jalapeño, sliced (seeds in for more heat)
• A small handful of cilantro stems, roughly chopped (save the leaves to serve)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp brown sugar (for the char, not for sweetness)

About the rest of the can: you are using 3/4 cup, which is half the can. The other half is the cook's — and it is a 7% beer, so that is one glass, not two. Do not pour the whole can in: more marinade does not mean more flavour, and this is not a liquid you keep.

For the charred salsa verde

• 1 lb tomatillos (about 8 medium), husked and rinsed
• 1 jalapeño (or 2 for a hotter salsa)
• 1/2 white onion, cut into thick wedges
• 2 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• 1/2 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste

To serve

• 12 to 16 corn tortillas (or flour, if that is your house)
• 1/2 white onion, finely diced
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves
• 2 limes, cut into wedges
• Optional: sliced avocado, crumbled cotija

How to make it

1. Whisk the marinade. In a bowl, whisk together the Screamin' Reels, lime juice, orange juice, olive oil, salt, cumin, pepper and brown sugar until the salt and sugar dissolve. Stir in the smashed garlic, sliced jalapeño and cilantro stems.
2. Marinate 2 to 4 hours, no longer. Put the steak in a zip-top bag or a shallow glass dish, pour the marinade over, press out the air, and refrigerate 2 to 4 hours, turning once. Skirt steak is thin and the lime is acidic: past four hours the surface goes mealy instead of tender.
3. Char the salsa verde. While the steak marinates, set the oven broiler to high (or use the grill). Spread the tomatillos, jalapeño, onion wedges and unpeeled garlic on a foil-lined sheet pan and broil 6 to 8 minutes, turning once, until blistered and blackened in spots. Peel the garlic, then blend everything with the cilantro, lime juice and salt until just smooth. Taste for salt and set aside.
4. Take the steak out early and get the grill screaming hot. Pull the steak from the fridge 30 minutes before cooking. Heat a gas or charcoal grill to high — 500°F or more with the lid down — or set a cast-iron skillet over high heat until it just begins to smoke.
5. Pat dry and discard the marinade. Lift the steak out, shake off the garlic and jalapeño, and pat it truly dry with paper towels — a wet steak steams instead of chars. Pour the marinade down the drain; it has done its job, and it is not a sauce (reducing it would concentrate all 75 IBU of that beer). Sprinkle both sides lightly with salt.
6. Grill 3 minutes a side. Lay the pieces on the hottest part of the grate (or into the skillet, in batches so they are not crowded) and leave them alone for 3 minutes, until deeply browned. Flip and cook 2 to 3 minutes more. Pull at 130°F on an instant-read thermometer for medium-rare; skirt steak is at its best there and tough well past 145°F.
7. Rest 5 minutes. Move the steak to a board, tent it loosely with foil, and leave it 5 minutes so the juices settle instead of running out under the knife.
8. Slice thin, across the grain. Look at the direction the muscle fibres run — on skirt steak they run across the width of the strip — and slice against them, thin and on a slight angle. This step is most of the difference between tender and chewy.
9. Warm the tortillas and build the tacos. Heat a dry skillet or comal over medium-high and give each tortilla 30 to 45 seconds a side until soft and lightly spotted; stack them in a clean towel. Pile on the steak, then diced onion, cilantro, a spoon of salsa verde and a squeeze of lime. Taste for salt at the table.

Heat, swaps and leftovers

Skirt is the classic cut and the one to hunt for; flank steak works with the same method, but it is thicker, so give it 4 to 5 minutes a side and pull it at the same 130°F. Sirloin flap (sometimes sold as bavette) is the other good option and cooks like skirt.

If there is no grill, a cast-iron skillet on the highest burner does the job, with the range hood on and the windows open. Cook in two batches; a crowded pan steams.

The jalapeño in the marinade adds a background warmth more than actual heat, because almost all of it is thrown out with the marinade. The heat that reaches the table lives in the salsa verde — one jalapeño keeps it friendly for kids, two makes it a grown-up salsa. Put the salsa in a bowl and let each person decide.

Leftover carne asada keeps 3 days in the fridge and is best reheated fast in a hot skillet, not the microwave. It goes into quesadillas, onto nachos, over rice with the salsa, or into scrambled eggs on Saturday morning. The salsa verde keeps 5 days and gets better on day two.

Serve it with

A cold Screamin' Reels, in a glass. The same citrus-and-pine hop character that went into the marinade meets the lime and the char on the plate, and at 75 IBU it has more than enough bitterness to cut through a rich cut of beef. For everyone at the table who is not drinking, make a pitcher of limeade: the juice of 6 limes into 4 cups of cold water with 1/3 cup of sugar, stirred until it dissolves, over ice — same lime as the tacos, so nobody is stuck with tap water.

If you want something with our name on it at the grill, the Saltwater Lifestyle hat collection is what our crew wears outside — free U.S. shipping over $75.

A plain note on the alcohol

Most of the beer in this recipe never reaches the plate, because the marinade is discarded. Of the 3/4 cup that goes in, the steak carries only what clings to its surface, and that then meets a 500°F grill for about six minutes. We are not going to put a percentage on it, because the USDA's retention table covers alcohol stirred into a dish and cooked, not a marinade you pour out — but the amount in a finished taco is small, and it is why this dish is at home on a family table. We would rather say that plainly than claim it all disappears, because a trace does not.

Thursday Table: 15% off Screamin’ Reels to-go

Cooking this one? Come by the taproom, say “Thursday Table” at the register, and take 15% off Screamin' Reels to-go — cans to cook with and a couple cold for the table. Good Thursday through Sunday this week.

How it works, plainly: the discount is on packaged beer to go — 4-packs, 6-packs, single cans and crowlers of this week’s featured beer. It does not apply to draft pours at the bar, and it is a code word you say out loud to the person at the register, not something you type in online.

While you are here, it is worth checking what’s on the taproom calendar that week.

Where to find Screamin’ Reels

Screamin’ Reels gets around South Florida, so ask for it where you buy beer — and if your usual spot does not have it in the cooler, ask them to get it. You can also pick it up at the taproom at 1701 W. Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach, FL 33444 — the first building off the I-95 Atlantic Ave exit.

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

We do not ship beer. Anything on our website is merch only, shipped within the USA — the beer you have to come get, or find on a shelf near you.

Next Thursday at the Thursday Night Table: week three of Mexican month, and the beer moves to Sea Cow, our Milk Stout — the one built for a braise.

Please drink responsibly.