Beer Cheese Dip is an easy appetizer that is perfect for game day or when hosting friends.
A combination of your favorite beer, a variety of cheeses, and delicious seasonings this recipe is a welcome addition to any appetizer spread!
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Holly’s Highlights For Beer Cheese Dip
- Flavor: This cheese dip has a bold flavor—the beer can be light or dark which will change the flavor of the dip.
- Difficulty: It’s easy to prepare.
- Ingredient Tip: Medium or mild cheese is not recommended, it doesn’t have enough flavor for this dip.
- Prep note: Shredding your own cheese will make the smoothest dip.
- Serving suggestion: Pair with warm pretzels, tortilla chips, or veggies like carrot sticks.
Ingredient Tips for Beer Cheese Dip
Cheese: Use a combination of sharp cheddar cheese and gruyere. While you can use any cheese, a mild cheese will have a milder flavor (and won’t pair well with a bold dark beer). I highly recommend sharp cheddar.
For the smoothest sauce, shred cheese from a block for this recipe. Pre-shredded cheeses will taste great, but the additives that keep them from sticking in the bag mean they do not melt as nicely.
Beer: Use the beer you like best!
- Dark Beer, like stout or malt, will produce a deep, slightly bitter flavor. Great for serving with your favorite bread.
- Light Beers like ales, pilsners, and IPAs will give a lighter flavor (this is my preference). These pair well with vegetables.
- Non-alcoholic beer works well in this recipe, too, and is great served with any dipper.
How to Make Beer Cheese Dip
- Melt butter, seasonings, and flour (creating a roux) RECIPE BELOW.
- Add beer and milk, whisking after each addition. It will seem thick and almost pasty at first, but as you continue to stir, it will smooth out nicely.
- Once thick and bubbly, whisk in the cheeses.
Holly’s Favorite Dippers!
I often make beer cheese dip for pretzels and serve it warm like a cheese fondue. But the dipper possibilities are endless!
- Bread: soft pretzel bites or pretzel sticks, tortilla chips, chunks of French or sourdough bread, soft breadsticks, and garlic crostini rounds are some of my favorites.
- Veggies: celery sticks, broccoli florets, cauliflower florets, carrots, zucchini rounds, bell pepper strips, and whole (cooked) baby red potatoes.
- Fruits: sliced green apples, pears, and grapes give it the perfect balance with sweetness.
Storing Leftovers
As with most recipes containing dairy, beer cheese dip does not freeze well. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
More Cheesy Favorites
Did you make this Beer Cheese Dip? Leave a rating and a comment below!
Ingredients
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup milk
- ⅔ cup beer
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese 8 ounces
- 1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese or Swiss cheese, 4 ounces
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, melt butter, flour, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and salt over medium heat. Cook for 1 minute.
- Stir in milk and beer a bit at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. Continue cooking over medium heat, add in mustard and Worcestershire, cooking sauce until thick and bubbly.
- Turn off the heat and add the cheddar and Gruyere cheese. Stir until melted and smooth.
- Serve warm with vegetables, tortilla chips or soft pretzels.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Appetizer, Dip, Party Food
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Wow great recipe! Made it as shared, used a blend of cheddars, hot pepper cheese and mozzarella. The beer I used was Rhinegeist Truth, local IPA. Went heavy on seasonings, and used horseradish mustard. It is wonderful!!!!!!!!!!! So much better than anything in the sports bars around here. I think I will put these on everything I eat! So easy to make, thank you !
So happy you loved it, Brenda!
Made this to recipe and was very disappointed. It is as bland despite using decent cheese. Even after adding significantly more cheese and seasoning it wasn’t worth the calories.
Oh no, that is never what we want to hear. Sorry, the dip didn’t turn out as expected, Aubrey! You can adjust the spices to meet your preferences and I would also recommend a darker beer for more flavor!
I tried this today and it’s just so thick. It was already so thick when I was mixing in the milk and beer and it got worst when the cheese was but in. My husband still likes it but when I think of beer cheese dip I think of it been less thick.
Hi Tammy, glad to hear he still enjoyed it. For a thinner dip, you can add additional beer and milk to the sauce or leave out some of the cheese if you find that making it too thick. If using less cheese, I would recommend using flavorful sharper cheese so the flavor is still there!
Made as directed. It was very thick and creamy, way too thick for a good dip consistency. I used the optional mustard and still found it bland.
Hi Erin, for a deeper flavor try swapping out the Swiss cheese for pepper jack, mozzarella, or another cheese of your liking. You can also use a darker beer for a more intense flavor. Hope that helps!
Hi Holly,
I followed your recipe exactly and used Guinness dark beer. I appreciate you pointing out the difference in the beers. This came our perfectly for our taste.
Very good step by step directions!
Thank you for the recipe.
So glad you enjoyed it, Holly! We love switching the type of beer used to change up the flavor as well.
This was an ok beer cheese. I think to make it flavorful, I would add maybe a darker beer. I used Miller Lite. And maybe a pinch of nutmeg or something. It was just missing that wow factor for me.
There is some information in the post regarding the type of beer used. A lighter beer (like miller light) will provide a lighter flavor. Hope this helps:
Light Beers like ales and IPA’s will give a lighter kind of flavor (this is my personal preference).
Non-Alcoholic beers work just fine in this recipe too!
Beer cheese dip was fantastic! Thank u!
Thank you for trying again Cheryl! So glad you loved it!
I made it as it stated and it was bland with no flavor. It was thick and creamy, just hardly any flavor. Would not recommend if you want the authentic beer cheese flavor.
Sorry that you didn’t enjoy it as much as we do Debra. We find it very flavorful. Did you use all of the spices listed? Did you use a sharp cheddar (rather than a regular cheddar)? Sharp cheddar will give a much stronger flavor than regular cheddar. Adding the optional mustard also enhances the flavor.
I need to say that I’m not good at the tech stuff. I made these scones and they were so good. I did shred the butter and then put the scones in the freezer for a few minutes before cooking. Thank you for my introductory to scones and I will be following your other recipes.
So glad you enjoyed them, Cheryl! Welcome to the wonderful world of scones :)
Was excited to try this. Very dissappointed. It was too bland. Will not make it again.
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it Jeanie, we made it yesterday too! Did you use sharp cheddar and gruyere/swiss? What type of beer did you use? This recipe really needs the sharper flavored cheeses. I hope that helps.
I’m so excited to have found you on Pinterest! I was searching for a home made baked fries recipe last night and found yours! (they came out great, BTW!) Of course I noticed links to other recipes and I was hooked!! Spent quite a while last night going through your recipes and getting “pin-happy”! And I’m back at it today!
I haven’t tried this one yet, but plan to in the near future. I’m just curious about the milk…what kind do you use? Whole, 2%, skim? Can heavy cream or half & half be used?
Thank you so much for sharing these great recipes!
Thanks so much for your kind words Dana, I’m so glad you found me too! I most often use 2% because it’s what we have in our fridge. The thicker creams can be used but you may need to thin it out a bit with extra beer (or even broth). Enjoy!
Hi Holly,
So I just made the beer cheese and it came out quite grainy/gritty. I did end up using fat free half & half. We rarely have regular milk in our house. We always have unsweetened vanilla almond milk, FF 1/2 & 1/2 , and heavy cream. The almond milk is not usually good in heated recipes, so I opted for the 1/2 & 1/2 as it usually does well for me. I followed the recipe exactly except for the milk. I used mozz, white sharp cheddar, and gruyere cheeses, and the beer was Guiness extra stout. Any ideas what would cause the grittiness? maybe there’s a way to fix it? It’s tastes pretty good, I think.
Thanks so much!
Oh no Dana. Overheating the cheese can cause the cheese to separate or become grainy. There are some types of cheese (that are more aged) that can have a bit of a gritty texture from crystals that form in the cheese.
DO NOT I REPEAT, DO NOT USE SWISS CHEESE. If you are short on types of cheeses, just double down on what you have. Swiss cheese was overpowering
Sorry that you foudn the swiss cheese overpowering. The recipe calls for only ½ cup of gruyere (or swiss cheese). We don’t find the addition of the swiss cheese to be too much, but if you’re not a swiss cheese fan, sticking to other cheeses works well. This recipe is easy to adapt to your personal tastes!
Followed the recipe and used Swiss in place of gruyere. It tastes fine but it’s gritty. I used whole milk, yuengling beer, and grated all the cheeses. Any idea why it turned out this way?
Oh no Cindy, how disappointing. Overheating the cheese can cause the cheese to separate or become grainy. There are some types of cheese (that are more aged) that can have a bit of a gritty texture from crystals that form in the cheese.
Can I make this a day ahead and reheat in my crockpot on low?
I haven’t tried reheating it in a crockpot but I can’t see any reason it wouldn’t work. It’s a small recipe so you’ll want to ensure you’re using a little crock pot and stirring every now and then as it warms. Once it’s hot, I’d suggest turning it down to warm so it doesn’t overheat which can cause the cheese to separate.
We made 2 versions of this, one with stout and one with IPA. Followed the recipe exactly and found both to be extremely bland. Added some more cayenne, some Worcestershire and smoked paprika which helped a bit, but ended up throwing about 80% of it away.
This was my first time making beer cheese. It came out pretty good and was so easy to make. Next time I’m going to use a dark ale for that extra bite
Amazingly delicious. I used bud light and colby jack with cheddar, a little more that called for, but it turned out amazing. 10/10 would make again.
I haven’t made your dip yet but I am definitely going to when I have the ingredients. I do have a question though. Can your beer cheese dip recipe be frozen? Thank you! Jan
Hi Jan, since there is a lot of dairy in this recipe it does not freeze well.
I assume you’re counting the spicy brown mustard as a “seasoning,” since the directions don’t indicate when to add that ingredient…? Even though in the list of ingredients, it is not listed with the seasoning.
Whoops! Thanks for catching that Bre, the recipe has been updated.
I made your cheese dip as directed, the only two items I swapped was smoked mozzarella instead of regular mozzarella and 2% milk instead of whole milk. Unfortunately we are not milk drinkers in our house so we had to use what the neighbors had. That said, my question is that it seems the consistency of the beer cheese is watery on top and thicker towards the bottom half. Any ideas why this would happen and how to fix it, as this turned out pretty tasty?
Hi Tylamarie, you will want to make sure everything is incorporated well at each step, and serving it in a mini crockpot or fondue warmer and stirring it often will help to keep the dip from separating.