So the other day I had beer-can-chicken for the first time.  And it was pretty good, but I’m not sure the beer did anything to the chicken.  Certainly I couldn’t really taste it.  Now I was in the company of beer geeks at the time (aren’t I always?) and we got talking about how to make the chicken taste more like the beer.

Godspeed, you mad bastard.

We generally agreed that a good strong-flavoured beer would be best option, but what to use?  I wasn’t going to waste a good Imperial Stout or Barleywine on cooking.  I toyed with the idea of using more La Trappe but then someone suggested the obvious: Yeastie Boys Rex Attitude.  But of course!  So simple but so genius!

Now I have an interesting relationship with Rex.  I both love and hate it, sometimes within the space of the same glass and sometimes simultaneously.  Overall though, I’m fond of Rex.  Not because I like drinking it, but because it’s utterly-nutterly-butterly bonkers.  It’s unique and it’s insane and for that I’m glad it exists.¹

So I resolved to making rex-beer-can-chicken.  Now there’s an obvious problem with this plan, which is that Rex doesn’t come in cans.  I got around this simply by purchasing another canned drink, emptying it and filling it with Rex.  For aesthetic reasons, I wanted to use a can of something really shitty, like Lion Red, but I was at the supermarket, and I could only really get cans of fizzies, so I went with lemonade.

There’s no way this can go wrong.

Methodology:

• Drain the can of lemonade/other beer/whatever.  Drink this with ice, Gin and a squeeze of lemon (optional).  
• Season your chicken with a little oil, salt and fresh-ground pepper.
• Fill the empty can halfway with Rex Attitude.
• And er, well…  Shove it up the chicken’s bum.  Yup.
• Stand the chicken on the end of the can.  Now I had trouble keeping the chicken upright, so I used a couple of bamboo skewers to keep it standing:

Do you ever find yourself wondering if you’re completely ‘normal’?

• Now roast it in the oven/bbq for however long (according to weight) at whatever temperature (according to oven/bbq or whatever).  

I was going to drink the rest of the Rex, only needing half the bottle to fill the can.  But then a thought occurred to me: gravy.  I got busy preparing some spuds.  Very quickly, I knew something was different from a normal roast chicken.  A smoky, slightly burning smell started permeating the kitchen.  I think it was just some spilled Rex on the roasting pan boiling away, because it disappeared fairly quickly (or I got used to it). It was sort of pleasant, but also vaguely reminded me of stale second-hand smoke.

Anywho, an hour and a bit later and after putting on the vegetables, the chicken was ready.  I pulled it out and set it aside to rest.  Frankly, it looked a little scary.

I dub thee “Chickenosaurus Rex”!

I then got busy with the gravy.  Now I’ve heard it said by Christians that if God gives you a gift, it’s your duty to use it in the service of the Lord.  If this is true, I should probably give up beer-tending and become an Evangelical Gravy-Preacher, because my gravy is god-damn magical.  I’m known amongst my friends as the Gravy Wizard and I’m frequently contracted to make gravy at parties.

Now lets get one thing straight.  Repeat after me: “Gravy does NOT come from a packet”.  Got that?  Cool.  Here’s how I made gravy:

• Take your pan with all the lovely drippings from the roast.  Pour them off if there’s a lot sloshing around in the pan.  Otherwise, put it on the stove top and turn it to low.  
• Sprinkle flour into the pan a little at a time and whisk it about until you’ve soaked up all the liquid.  It should make a thick paste when all the oil has been soaked up.
• Once the flower is looking all nice and browned, add more liquid a little at a time, while whisking to thin it out.  I used Rex.  It turned out I didn’t need to save the rest of the bottle because there was still some left in the bottom of the can from the chicken’s bum.
• After a lot of whisking, the gravy should look nice and glossy.  If you’ve whisked it enough, there shouldn’t be any lumps.  I seasoned it with a little soy sauce, lemon juice and fresh-ground pepper.

So how did the Chickenosaurus taste?  Well, only the meat nearest the can had picked up the Rex flavour.  That was probably a good thing though, because it wasn’t particularly a good combination.  It wasn’t bad per-se, but it did kind of taste a little like I’d used cigarette ash as a spice rub.  Oh well.  It was a neat experiment and we lives and learns, doesn’t we?  On the other hand…

The Rex gravy was delicious: rich, subtly peaty and a little tart from the lemon juice.  It was great on the chicken but I suspect it would be even better on beef.  So the experiment was worth it in the end.  Rex gravy: I’m going to remember that one!

I’m not entirely sold on the whole beer-can-chicken idea.  The meat was very moist, but I suspect a broth or even a brine would work just as well.  Next time I might just baste the chicken frequently in beer.  Maybe a Rauchbier like Smok’in Bish or Smoko.  Then again, they do have guinea fowl at More Wilson’s.  And quails.  And I was looking at those extra small energy-drink cans at the supermarket…