Beer Stew

In my continuing quest to find flavourful, salt free meals, I made beer stew tonight.

3 pounds of stewing beef (I used bison)
1 1/2 pounds of thinly sliced onions
2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 cup of  beef broth (I used homemade veggie broth to avoid the salt, and it worked well.)
2-3 cups of beer
4 minced garlic cloves
2 Tbsp brown sugar
Fresh herbs to taste (I used what I had left from my parents' garden: thyme, oregano and chives)
cracked pepper to taste
1 1/2 tbsp of corn starch
2 1/2 tbsp of red wine vinegar
(I also added about 3 cups of fresh bite-sized button mushrooms.)

Preheat oven to 325F.
Heat the oil in a dutch oven to a high temp on stove until it's almost smoking.  Add meat, and allow to brown (a few minutes).
Remove meat, and reduce to medium heat
Add onion, and let brown for about 10 minutes.  Stir periodically.
Add broth, scrape the sides and bottom of pan as though you were making gravy.
Add meat back into pot, and then add just enough beer to barely cover the top of the meat.
Add garlic, herbs, pepper and brown sugar.  Mix well.
Bring to a simmer on stove
(this is where I added the mushrooms)
Cover, and place the dutch oven in the bottom third of the oven
Let cook for 2 1/2 hours.  Check periodically to make sure that it is lightly simmering throughout.
After 2 1/2 hours, take out of the oven.  Dissolve the corn starch in the red wine vinegar.  Mix well into the stew, cover and set aside for about 10 minutes.

I served this over mashed potatoes with steamed carrots and asparagus on the side.  I don't like beer, but this stuff was delicious.   I'll definitely be making it again.

I hope that there's no salt in beer.  I forgot to check that.