You cannot go wrong with a beer butt chicken. I make this about once every 2 weeks and my family never grows tired of it. I usually use about 2-3 limes and stuff one of them (or an onion) in the top to keep the steam in the chicken. I also season the beer (you can use sprite or 7-up as well) with some lime juice, garlic salt, and chopped onions. I have never covered the chicken with foil or basted it and it always comes out nice and golden brown on the outside and juicy on the inside. I have also made gravy out of the drippings and it was amazingly good.  -  27 Nov 2005  (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)

I decided to make this meal and then as I started to prepapre to cook I thought I realised I did not know what I should do with the chicken or beer can. After looking at the reviews and no one else raised this question I thought I was left out of a very special cooks secret. So for all those in the dark as I was you place the can in your required baking dish/tin, opened ease the chickens bottom (sounded better than my first choice) over the opened can, resulting in the chicken facing the skies whilst resting on a can of beer. I am going to give this one tops marks although my chicken really had very little citrus flavour the meat was so very moist that with adjustments in flavouring not only the inside of the chicken but also under and on the skin this could be great. Good luck  -  20 Jan 2006  (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)

We've made a number of beer-can chickens, so I spiced this one up a bit. It turned out great and was probably the best one we've ever done. I made a basic barbecue rub (paprika, salt, pepper, brown sugar, onion and garlic, etc.) and added a bit of chile powder and cumin to the rub as I thought the Mexican spices would go well with the lime juice. I loosened the chicken skin (just dig your fingers in), put the rub under the skin and on the skin, and poured the lime juice under the skin and into the cavity. I stuffed the lime skins in the cavity as directed. I let it sit in the refrigerator for an hour to let it soak up the rub. I opened a can of Really Cheap Beer, poured some out, added some of the rub to it, and lowered the chicken onto it. (We have one of those handy beer can holders from Bed, Bath and Beyond or Linens and Things. They really make the whole process a lot easier.) Instead of putting it in the oven, I put it on our gas grill, set for indirect cooking, and cooked it until it reached 180 degrees--about 2 hours. The skin looked really dry, but the inside was very moist and tender. Delicious!  -  26 Jul 2005  (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)