This past weekend my friend Jim Crute, owner and brewmaster at the Lightning Brewery, decided to have a beer bread contest. Now, I’ve baked lots of beer rye breads, mainly from Finland, Germany and Sweden, and one of the challenges I invariably encounter is that I have virtually no control over the beer’s flavor profile, other than making my choice off the shelf. So I decided instead (since I thought it was time to start developing my own breads anyway) to take it from scratch and build a bread to my own tastes using the same ingredients brewers use: malt, hops and flavoring agents. Keep Reading