Are some beers brewed with meat? I've heard this urban legend that when Guinness changed their brewing equipment at some point, people started to complain that the beer tasted worse. According to the legend, it turned out that before rats were getting into the barrels, drowned in them and thus gave Guinness its "unique flavour".

That legend aside (although I would also be interested to hear opinions on that), are there any beers that are deliberately brewed with meat or meat products? What does adding meat to the brewing process achieve?
Bacon Beer

I've heard of beers made with rauchmalt - smoked malt, where the brewer has "dry hopped" with bacon or bacon flavored soya to give the beer a bacon flavor and aroma - allowing the bacon and the smoked malt to enhance each other. One commercial example is Bacon Maple Ale from Rogue, which features a variety of smoked malts (over different woods) plus applewood smoked bacon.

Cock Ale

Here is a recipe for ale made with chicken broth:


  PERIOD: England, 17th century | SOURCE: The Closet Of the Eminently
  Learned Sir Kenelme Digby Kt. Opened, 1677 | CLASS: Authentic 
  
  DESCRIPTION: A drink of ale, chicken broth, &amp; sack 
  
  To make Cock-Ale. 
  
  Take eight gallons of Ale, take a Cock and boil him well; then take
  four pounds of Raisins of the Sun well stoned, two or three Nutmegs,
  three or four flakes of Mace, half a pound of Dates; beat these all in
  a Mortar, and put to them two quarts of the best Sack: and when the
  Ale hath done working, put these in, and stop it close six or seven
  days, and then bottle it, and a month after you may drink it.


And PS: the Guinness meat story because of finding rats in the fermentation tanks or barrels is a myth. Or to put it another way, even if it did ever did happen once, it's not practiced now. It's hard enough for bacteria to get into the fermentation tanks or barrels, let alone something as big as a rat! (Nowadays they use stainless or aluminum kegs.)