Guinness Lamb Stew

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When you need some hearty comfort food, it doesn’t get better than this Guinness lamb stew! Tender chunks of lamb shoulder simmer in a rich, flavorful stout broth with potatoes, carrots, onions and barley to make one satisfying meal. You will love every cozy bite.

A bowl of Guinness lamb stew on burlap with herbs and beer to the side.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Ingredients
Step-by-Step Instructions
Recipe FAQs
Expert Tips
Perfect Pairing
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Perfect for St. Patrick’s Day dinner: In addition to my beloved Guinness corned beef, this Irish stew adds a festive touch to any St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

Leaves you satisfied: This is one loaded soup. With that thick broth, plenty of lamb, barley and vegetables, you won’t feel hungry after devouring a big bowl.

Easily serves a crowd: You can get about eight servings out of one batch, and if you need even more, doubling the recipe works perfectly.

Bonus: If you love this Irish lamb stew, make sure you also try my slow cooker Guinness corned beef!

Ingredients

Lamb: For the lamb, we use the shoulder cut. After slowly simmering, the meat breaks down and becomes perfectly tender. If you find pre-cut lamb stew meat, you can also use that.

Guinness: This is an Irish stout. If you’d like, you’re more than welcome to substitute another dry stout, but I like to use Guinness to keep with the Irish theme. A porter also works.

If you’d like an Irish lamb stew without the beer, that’s also an option. For a nonalcoholic Irish stew, simply replace the Guinness with beef broth or stock. You could even do half beef broth and half coffee to add those deep, rich notes that come from the stout’s roasted barley.

Barley: Make sure you pick up pearl barley — not hulled barley.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Now let's show you how to make Guinness lamb stew. We sprinkle the lamb shoulder with salt and black pepper and cook over medium-high heat in a large Dutch oven or stockpot until brown. Then we flip the lamb to brown on the other side and set aside on a plate (photo 1).

Browning the lamb pieces in a large Dutch oven on the stove.

Step 2: For our next step, we turn the stove to medium heat and cook the bacon to render the fat and brown the meat (photo 2). Once browned, we remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and leave in the bacon fat. While I love using bacon here, you can also substitute it for pancetta.

Browning the bacon until the fat renders in a large Dutch oven.

Step 3: From here, we whisk in some flour with our bacon fat to make the roux (photo 3). This is what will give us that thick stew broth. To give it a nice depth of flavor, we whisk the roux until it turns a light brown color (photo 4).

A collage showing the process of whisking the flour until it turns brown.

Step 4: Now we add onions, carrots and tomato paste to the pot and stir the vegetables until the onions soften (photo 5). After a few minutes, we also stir in some fresh garlic cloves.

Stirring together the onions, carrots, tomato paste and garlic to soften the vegetables.

Step 5: With our vegetables ready, we pour in the beer (photo 6), scraping the brown bits on the bottom of the pot to loosen. This is called deglazing and helps develop the flavor of our Irish stew.

Pouring the Guinness into the vegetables to deglaze.

Step 6: We also pour in some beef broth or stock and add the reserved lamb shoulder, bacon, herbs and salt (photo 7). For the herbs, I like to use thyme, rosemary, sage and bay leaves. Now we bring the mixture to a boil, cover and bring down the heat to simmer the stew, stirring every so often.

The herbs tied in a bundle on top of the stew before simmering.

Step 7: After simmering for an hour, we add the potatoes and simmer for 15 minutes (photo 8). We then add the barley and cook for another 30 minutes.

Adding the potatoes to the stew after simmering.

Once the potatoes and barley are soft to our liking, we remove the herbs, top with fresh parsley and dig in to one cozy, comforting Irish meal. Don't forget the Irish soda bread!

An aerial view of the Guinness Irish stew with a bottle of beer in the corner.

Recipe FAQs

Does Guinness stew taste like beer?

Don't worry -- it will not taste like you're drinking hot Guinness! No one wants that. The beer simply adds a depth of flavor, thanks to that wonderful roasted barley. Even non-beer lovers will gobble up this stew.

Is Guinness stew bitter?

Not at all. Just like this dish doesn't taste like beer, it also doesn't have the bitterness some associate with a stout. It's just full of rich, complex flavors.

Can you make ahead of time?

Absolutely, this lamb stew is perfect for make-ahead of cooking for simple entertaining. Keep in mind, the vegetables and barley may absorb some broth while refrigerating, so you might have to add more beef stock if you want more liquid.

How do you store leftovers?

Store your leftover lamb stew in an airtight container in the refrigerator for three days. You can also freeze it for three to six months, though I find the vegetables are at their best prior to freezing.

Expert Tips

Make prep extra simple: Ask your butcher to cut the meat for you. We want 1- to 2-inch chunks with the excess fat removed.

Substitute beef if you’d like: While I love the flavor of lamb, it can be harder to find, and some people don’t love the gamey flavor. Instead cut beef chuck into cubes and cook as you would the lamb.

Instant barley also works: If your store is out of traditional pearl barley, you can substitute the instant variety instead. Just make sure you adjust the cooking time according to the package’s directions.

For carrots with more of a tender-crisp bite: I prefer my carrots soft, so I add them earlier. However, if you’d like your carrots to have more of a bite, add them with the potatoes.

Perfect Pairing

Our beer pairing is obvious here, right? Put that Guinness to work and enjoy a pint on the side! The flavors are clearly tailor made for each other.

Prefer a wine pairing? This rich stew calls for a pinot noir. The fresh herbs and gamey flavor of the lamb matches the earthy quality of a pinot noir perfectly. If you prefer a bolder wine, a cabernet sauvignon also makes a great choice.

And, of course, you might be in the mood for a festive cocktail. My Irish mule and Irish whiskey smash are just what you need.

For a hearty Irish meal, I hope you make this Guinness lamb stew. You'll just love that flavorful, herby beer-spiked broth full of tender bites of lamb.

Cheers!

A bowl of Guinness lamb stew with bread and beer in the background.

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