Photo : Arby’s

I know, we’ve devoted a lot of pixels to Arby’s new sandwiches lately, but show us another fast-food chain that’s dishing up sous-vide duck and curly fry-topped sandwiches. The Meat Train rolls on with Arby’s latest test sandwiches, currently available in Minneapolis; Augusta, Georgia; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Original Beer Can Chicken sandwich and The Tall Boy Sandwich are both made with Miller High Life beer, but not in the way the sandwiches’ names imply.


Beer can chicken is less a recipe than a methodology that involves impaling the poultry on a can of beer, usually a 16-ounce tallboy, then roasting it. It works for two reasons: the beer steams and keep the chicken’s insides juicy, while the bird’s propped-up position means that all its surfaces are evenly exposed to heat.

Alas, it doesn’t seem like that’s exactly what’s happening at Arby’s. The company describes the smoked chicken as “beer-marinated,” which would imply the beer is used as a brine rather than as part of the traditional beer-can-roasting method. Still, beer-marinated and smoked chicken sounds tasty; the Original sandwich is further topped with melted cheddar cheese, crispy onions, pepper bacon, lettuce, tomato and garlic aioli. The Tallboy includes the same as well as pit-smoked ham and crispy chicken fillet.


And next time Arby’s announces another stop for the Meat Train, you’ll surely read about it here.