Homebrew IPA Beer battered haddock and chips

First time deep frying — and I went straight for one of the classics: proper beer-battered haddock and chips. The batter was made using my homebrew double IPA, which turned out to be an inspired choice. The hoppy, carbonated beer creates an incredibly light, crispy batter that fries up golden and shatters beautifully when you bite through it.

Beer batter is one of those things that sounds complicated but is actually very simple. The carbonation in the beer creates bubbles in the batter as it fries, which gives you that characteristic lightness — and using a hoppy IPA adds a subtle bitterness that cuts through the richness of the fried fish perfectly. For the fish, I used fresh haddock loins — a proper chip-shop choice, with firm white flesh that holds together well in the fryer and has a sweet, mild flavour that works beautifully with the crispy batter.

The results were genuinely excellent — crispy, golden batter with perfectly cooked haddock inside, served with proper chunky chips. Deep frying at home gets a bad reputation but it’s really not complicated: a good thermometer, oil at the right temperature (around 180°C), and dry fish going into the batter are the three keys to success. Using homebrew beer in the batter made it feel like a proper full-circle cooking moment — from grain to glass to batter. Definitely doing this again.