Roast chicken with stout, rosemary & honey

For this recipe for roast chicken with stout, rosemary and honey, I’ve taken my all-time favourite roast chicken recipe which I’ve made using whole birds and chicken pieces and adapted it using stout instead of wine or verjuice. I really don’t know how to make a more succulent roast chicken.
I played around with the seasonings to better complement the beer, and it turned out to be utterly delicious. The onions and carrots – which roast slowly with the chicken, and the honey add a much-needed sweet element to offset the bitterness of the stout.
The beer adds a rich savoury flavour to the sauce – which is plentiful and reduces to a delicious jus to serve with the meat. It’s so delicious you will grab a spoon and sip it like broth.
Roasting chicken at home in your own oven is one of the most comforting things you can cook. It takes about 5 minutes to prep everything that goes in the pan here.
The 90 minutes in the oven takes care of everything else, and apart from the occasional basting or flipping of the bird, it’s pretty effortless. I can highly recommend serving this chicken with my best-ever duck-fat roasted potatoes. Just make sure you roast way more than you think you will need as they are ridiculously moreish.
My other recipes using Castle Milk Stout
Triple ginger and stout cake with a stout butterscotch sauce
I developed this recipe for Castle Milk Stout – South Africa’s most popular stout brand and I simply love using it in my cooking and baking:
Recipe – serves 4
Roast chicken with stout, rosemary and honey

Ingredients
- 1 whole large free-range chicken trussed
- 1 onion peeled and roughly chopped
- 2 carrots roughly chopped
- 250 ml 1 cup Castle Milk Stout
- 125 ml 1/2 a cup chicken stock (1 x chicken or veg stock cube)
- 1 Tbs finely chopped rosemary + 4 – 5 extra sprigs for the pan
- 2 Tbs chopped parsley
- 4 cloves of garlic crushed
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 3 Tbsp honey
- 3 Tbs olive oil
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 C / 400F.
- Place the chicken, onions and carrots in a deep-sided roasting pan.
- Mix all the liquid, mustard, honey, garlic and herbs together and pour this sauce over the chickens and into the cavity.
- Drizzle over the olive oil and season the chicken with salt and pepper.
- Roast uncovered for 1 1/2 hours and until the chickens are cooked.
- Turn the chicken over halfway through so that the underside gets golden brown and crispy too. Finish it off with the last browning on the breast side at the end
- Strain the pan juices, onion and carrot and use this delicious jus as your gravy.
*This post is proudly sponsored by SAB
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Thanks this sounds lovely. Thought you’d like to know it is to be dinner in Langkawi, Malaysia on Friday!
Cheers!
Liz
I love cooking with beer and stout is one of my favourite beers (along with milds and porters). This chicken looks delicious.
Thank you Sam! This looks like the best idea to fill the gap for festive and holiday food! Can I share it with acknowledgement? C x
Roast chicken has never looked better and I can’t wait to try your potatoes too – they look incredible!
This looks amazing!