Billings Breweries Bread Blog: Thirsty Street

January 28, 2024

Thirsty Street Brewing Company is another downtown Billings brewery and is located in the former location of Yellowstone Valley Brewing, AKA The Garage. Like several others breweries in town, Thirsty Street is a great supporter of the Yellowstone Rim Runners' Run Turkey Run race held on Thanksgiving morning.

The menu here is quite eclectic and ranges from common ales like ambers, browns, IPAs but also features sours and brewed cocktails like their excellent Mountain Margarita. They also serve wines, non-alcoholic drinks, snacks and, as of this entry, Michelle's Pantry will be opening soon to offer small bites.

Thirsty Street is not just a brewery but also an event venue with regular music events on their indoor stage along with ping-pong and trivia nights. It's a really fun place.

When I perused the menu, the Cardigan Salted Caramel Brown caught my eye and I knew right away what bread with benefit from its addition: New York Deli Rye. The recipe here is adapted from Peter Reinhart's great book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread."

I stopped by to taste it again and could just smell the aroma of the beer and bread together in my oven.

The Ingredients

The Starter

1 cup sourdough starter - see the Procedure note below*

1 cup rye flour

1/2 cup Cardigan Salted Caramel Brown beer

1/8 teaspoon instant yeast

8 ounces onions, chopped

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

The Dough

3-1/2 cups (16 ounces) bread flour

1 cup (4.5 ounces) rye flour

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) brown sugar

2-1/4 teaspoon (1/2 ounce) salt

2 teaspoons (1/4 ounce) instant yeast

2 teaspoons (1/4 ounce) caraway seeds

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) vegetable oil

1-1/2 cups (12 ounces) Cardigan Salted Caramel Brown beer

1-3/4 cups (8-1/4 ounces) additional flour

The Procedure

The Starter *

I used some of my sourdough starter in this recipe but if you do not have one, just add 1/2

cup of flour to 1/2 cup of water with a pinch of instant yeast. It will benefit from sitting in warm place for bit or you can just use it right away in place of the sourdough starter in this recipe.

To make the starter for this recipe, I first sauté the onions in the oil. Just cook them long enough to soften and then remove them from the heat before they brown. Let them cool before combining them with the rest of the starter ingredient. Stir and cover with plastic wrap and let this ferment for and hour or two until it bubbles.

The Dough

Add the dough ingredients to the starter except for the final 1-3/4 cups of flour. Stir either by hand or in a stand mixer. Once everything is wetted, let it stand for 5 minutes or so to soak up the moisture. Now start the kneading process as explained on the first page. I used my dough hook in my stand mixer. Add the remaining dough as you go to develop a good, strong dough. It might be slightly sticky.

The Ferment

Give the dough a shot spray of oil and cover with plastic wrap. Set it aside and let it double in size. When I made this it was late in the day so I placed the bowl in my garage where it was in the mid-30°F overnight. You could also use your refrigerator. The longer cold ferment helps develop more complex flavors.

The Proof

My dough had doubled overnight. I brought it inside and let it it warm up at room temperature, about 70°F. It awakened in 3 hours and was rising again. I placed it on my countertop and degassed it by punching it down and separated it into 3 equal pieces that I formed into long loaves. I placed these on parchment-covered baking sheets, sprayed lightly with oil, and covered with plastic wrap. I let them rise for just over an hour.

The Baking

After slashing their tops, I baked them at 375°F in a convection oven for 17 minutes. I thought they might be browning too quickly so I reversed their order on the baking racks and lowered the temperature to 350°F, letting them bake another 16 minutes. When they were done I let them cool before slicing.

The Illustrations