When I saw a recipe for Stout Beer Pickled Onions my mind immediately thought of Hammerton’s Pentonville, which is a super delicious Oyster Stout.
As someone who eats pickles on an almost daily basis, I get through a lot of pickled onions, so I always have a jar on the go. I decided to rustle up a batch of these, using some shallots that were knocking around the place. They are really good! It’s an unusual flavour, but I like it. Next time I think I would go the more traditional route of salting some pickling onions and leaving them overnight, then rinsing them, rather than using the shallots un-pre-salted. But the stout and vinegar pickling brine itself, is damn good!
The recipe I based mine on is here: Stout Beer Pickled Onions at One Tomato, Two Tomato and I might try this with one of the Hammerton pale ales next time. I slightly varied the amount of stout to vinegar, as I didn’t want to use just part of a bottle, and I was making a big batch of pickles, but everything else was more or less the same as Tammy Kimbler’s recipe. Here’s my version.
850g shallots or pickling onions
3 bottles Hammerton’s Pentonville Oyster Stout (330ml each)
740ml white vinegar
3 tablespoons sea salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons mustard seeds
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
3 teaspoons juniper berries
Bring vinegar and beer to the boil, add remaining ingredients and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Remove from the heat and add shallots. Let sit for a while until cooled down then pack into sterilized jam jars with the spices.
Tammy recommends storing in the fridge for a month or more. I think maybe if the onions / shallots went through the salting and rinsing process first, they would last longer? I need to ask a pickle expert about that one!
The Hammerton Beer Cookblog 