There are some basic guidelines to cooking with beer (choose darker, malty beers to add sweetness and hopped beers to counter richness), but experimentation in the kitchen is also key.

For example, when Helton first began making shepherd's pie, as former co-owner and chef of The Family Wash in East Nashville, she used Guinness, a stout beer. Then she tested a local brew that was also lighter, Yazoo's Sly Rye Porter. She said the musicians who frequented the Family Wash noticed the difference immediately — and liked it. "They said, 'What have you done?' "

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