cimorene

The beer bread recipe we ended up using (twice now) is in Australian, which means different sized cups. It's here at Allrecipes Australia, but I'm sticking it down here for the purpose of converting the measurements.

Chef John's Favourite Beer Bread

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (or one packet of fresh yeast)
1125 ml/ 4.6 US cups (560g) plain flour, divided
125 ml/½ cup + 1 tsp warm water
350ml (1½ cups, minus 2 tsp) beer
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons plain flour for dusting

(Paraphrased and tweaked:) Stir yeast into a half cup/250 ml of flour with the warm water at the temperature called for in your yeast instructions. Let it rise in a big bowl, covered, 30 minutes.

Add beer, remaining salt, and flour. Mix until flour is incorporated and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Cover again and rise until doubled in size. (This depends on your environment. 1 hour in our house.)

Scrape from the bowl with a spatula, turn onto a floured surface, flour the top of the dough generously, then form into loaves (or a loaf). Place on a lined baking tray, flour the top, cover, and let rise again 30-40 min.

Preheat the oven to 220 C or 430 F. Put a small pan of warm water on a lower rack to humidify the oven.

Slash the top of the loaf(ves) with a sharp knife. Put the baking tray in the oven above the pan of water and bake about 35 min, or until the loaf is golden brown. Cool completely before serving.