beer can/beer butt chicken

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Myth 4: Beer can chicken

"Beer can chicken is a waste of good beer and an inferior cooking method," writes Meathead. The method — inserting a half-full can of beer into a bird's cavity, ostensibly to create a beer-flavored steam and thus keeping the poultry moist and juicy — "is a fallacy. You've just made a beer koozie out of a whole bird." The bird insulates the beer, preventing it from reaching its boiling point — if it never boils, it never steams. In fact, the inside of the bird, plugged by the beer, may tend toward undercooked. "Even if it did boil, the only part of the bird to get a flavor boost from steamed beer would be the shoulders, and that's a big if," said Meathead. "It's just wrong from a hundred different viewpoints."

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I don't necessarily agree with all of the myths on this link, but I definitely do on this one.

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I think the best way to cook a whole chicken is to spatchcock it

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the best thing about the beer can method is you can stand the birds up and fit more on the grill at one time

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any you guys have a preference on a beer to use for flavor?

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steam is 100% water vapor.
there is no such thing as "beer steam"
the chicken is not getting seasoned in any way from the steam from a beer can...it is only getting moisture at 212 deg F

the crab boil you are putting in the beer can is not being vaporized in any way

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