What is to be done

Welcome one and all to "Now We're Cooking With Beer," a blog where I, a bachelor male with no particularly fine cooking or culinary skills, will document my attempts to learn to cook with beer.  I do this based on the advice of Mark Bittman, food and opinion columnist at the New York Times, who wrote a column which said

"Cooking with beer makes sense: not only is it more flavorful than water, but it’s also more flavorful than any store-bought chicken stock and less ethically objectionable as well. And unlike wine or liquor, you can substitute beer cup-for-cup for stock or water when you’re braising or making soup. Yet like wine, beer is acidic, which comes in handy when you’re baking quick bread, cake or fried foods, because you need a little acidity to activate baking soda.

In fact, beer’s flavors are arguably more varied and complex than any ready-made liquid besides wine. And like bread, to which it’s closely related, beer loves to team with meat, cheese and strong flavors like onions, garlic and spices."

You can find the column here.

A bit about myself:

I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small village in the Republic of Armenia, so my selection will include many beers that are not available in the states, most notably the brands Ararat, Gyumri, Kotayk and Kilikia.  Occasionally, I will throw in Russian brands such as Botchka and Baltika 3, 5, 7 and 9 as they become available in my town's store.  The store does stock such imports as Heineken, Peroni and Holstein, but I don't have the money to use them as cooking stock.  

Here's a photo of a beer flight at  Les Trois Brasseurs in Montreal, Canada, to get you started.