Beer Cheese Drop Biscuits

These beer cheese biscuits were another great recipe swiped from the Byerlys website. They are drop biscuits that use beer instead of yeast for a leavening agent. I thought they might be similar to the beer bread I made back in October. They smelled the same in dough form but did not taste anything alike.

The biscuits were different from the bread in that they contained oats and cheese. They also lacked the copious amounts of butter that the bread did. While the bread was delicious in it's buttery goodness, I think if the biscuits had as much butter as the bread did they wouldn't have risen at all.

Of course I made a few changes to the recipe. I used old fashioned oats instead of quick cooking so the finished product was speckled with white spots. At first I mistook these spots for not mixing the dough enough. The old fashioned oats gave the biscuits an interesting extra bit of texture. I also used 3 teaspoons of Penzey's Bavarian style seasoning in lieu of 3 Tablespoons of fresh chives. The Bavarian Seasoning contains crushed brown mustard, rosemary, garlic, thyme, bay leaf and sage. I thought that these spices would complement the extra sharp cheese. The spice combination exceeded my expectations.

I originally made these biscuits as a side for Peach Roasted Chicken. I used my large cookie scoop to portion out the biscuits. This gave me 18 biscuits versus the 12 the recipe stated was the yield. Naturally I had a plethora of extra biscuits. We used the leftover biscuits for another meal of Biscuits and gravy. The first bite was weird because I'd only ever had plain buttermilk biscuits from a can for biscuits and gravy, but then the spices really grew on me.

I'll definitely be making this recipe again. It will be interesting to play with the flavors by changing the beer, cheese and spices. This is a recipe with endless possibilities.

Byerly's Beer Cheese Drop Biscuits
2 cups flour
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
3 tablespoons chopped chives
1 cup pale lager beer

Lightly grease baking sheet. In large bowl, combine first 6 ingredients. Stir in cheese and chives. Add beer; stir until soft dough forms. Drop by spoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet. Bake in a preheated 400 F oven until light golden brown (14-18 min). Serve warm. Amount: 12 biscuits