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(Brew-steamed Fowl)
by Don Drane
Of all the difficult stuff men do in the backyard kitchen, beer-butt-chicken is so simple it ought not even count as cookin'. For sure it ranks right up there with the same difficulty level as coming home to a roast that's been smiling in a crock-pot all day long. But, when you get around to assigning points for taste and presentation, both the chicken and the crocked roast are way up there on the scale.
Beer-butt-chicken, I'm quite sure, was originally born near a campfire, out in the woods somewhere, with a bunch of guys playing poker and crunching beer cans against their foreheads. Somebody decided to find an easy way to do chickens, hands-free, on a makeshift grill, while playing cards instead of constantly tending to the task of turning meat and messing with charcoal. "Hey, man, wouldn't it be neat if we could figure a way to make a chicken stand up and roast slowly for a couple of hours without having to turn it and slide it around on the grill every 30 minutes?"
We ought to decide right here and now to call it something besides beer-butt. That label sort of restricts it to campfires and backyard beer busts and gangs of college sophomores or middle aged guys on weekends pretending they're on the Food Channel.
But, for the sake of simplicity, and having no better name for the delicacy, we'll continue to refer to it indelicately. Beer-butt-chicken probably could be accomplished in a sparkling, new nine-hundred dollar electric oven, but it just don't seem right to even imagine that. The only proper way to do it is on a grill, gas or charcoal; gas if you really want to do it the crock-pot-lazy way.
Kitchen-product stores and anywhere they sell grills now have these little towers you can buy to stuff a chicken down onto. Get one of those if you want to. I have one, two in fact. The tower resembles the business end of a trumpet and costs maybe three bucks. Buy the largest whole chicken you can find. Road kill or back-yard-neck-wrung will do just as well. Remove feathers and gravel, wash it and sprinkle the chicken with pepper, lemon-pepper and, if you like, BBQ Rub. Get out your oldest cookie sheet. (Something about the oldest cookie sheet when a man goes out and does his thing on the grill. A new one doesn't work.)
Assuming you've bought the tower, place it in the middle of the cookie sheet. Spray it with a vegetable oil spray. This allows it to slide out of the chicken later. Open a beer and pour half of it down the drain. Right! What man's gonna pour half a beer out unless it's the thirteenth one he's opened that night? Drink half the beer. Knife-smash three or four cloves of garlic and add them to the can. Set the can in the middle of the tower, which is made to accommodate a beer can as well as a stood-upright happy chicken. An old green-striped Holiday Inn towel adds something to the process right about now. There's not really much in the way of instruction. It's actually easier than plopping a roast in a crock-pot. Very unimaginative. The can's in the middle of the tower and the chicken is to be slid down over the tower, butt first. Miraculously, the bird fits the tower perfectly and seems to come to life like he's standing on your kitchen counter about to erupt in song.
Stick another can of beer in the pocket of your shorts, sling the Holiday Inn towel over your forearm and head to the grill. The assembled chicken-can-tower should be placed in a standing position on the end of the grill opposite the fire. Voila! Set it and forget it! Cook over hot coals or low gas setting for at least an hour and a half. Two hours is better. Resist the temptation to open the grill.
The reason you started with only a half-can of beer is that the fats and juices from the chicken will have dripped down into the can, causing the beer and garlic and fat to steam up through the body of the chicken during the entire process. This is the secret to the moist, succulent delicacy you'll whack in half and spread out on the counter later. Actually you won't even have to whack it in half. It'll pull apart and slide off the bone like fine ribs. There just ain't a simpler way to do chicken on the grill and not many have a better result. If you like your chicken with crispy, blackened bar-b-que sauce, brush it on twenty minutes before you plan to take it off the grill.
The easiest way to take it off the grill (it's hot!) is with two sturdy forks, one poked in either breast. Don't forget about that now-full can of hot grease and beer. It'll ruin a tennis shoe or damage a forearm. Set the whole works back on your cookie sheet and head for the kitchen. Wiggle the chicken upward and carve or pull meat.
Plates are optional. Deviled eggs are not.
[Note from Ye Editor: We grill our Beer Butt Chicken in a similar way, but our final basting consists of a honey drenching followed ten minutes later by a second drenching of Ranch or buttermilk dressing (ten minutes apart) about twenty minutes prior to taking the chicken off the grill. So moist!]
Don Drane is a native of the Mississippi Delta.
Now residing in the Jackson, Mississippi, area, Don has nary a dull moment.
Write him at Don's addy.
Read more of Don’s stories:
Bottle tree: Out of Nowhere
Chief Dempsey’s Cold Plastic Couch
Jim’s Duck
Southern Fried Turkey
And there are more! Check our Articles Archives.
For another story on Beer Butt Chicken, read Carl Bartlett's account.
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