Sorry to go back to the slow cooker topic, but use mine a lot. I have found a few recipes though that I used to do in the oven that do not 'transfer' (sausages in Newky Brown) for example. It needs the quicker heat of the oven to turn the beer into the 'treacle like' sauce. Did not work in the slow cooker as the beer stayed liquid. You just need to 'play' with it and find out what works. One thing I would stress is, cook your onions first, don't put them in raw as some cook books suggest, as they come out raw.