Roast chicken: beer can method

A guy at the meat counter at our favorite grocery store recommended this to me as the absolute best way to roast a chicken. Advantages: skin is not touching pan so bird gets evenly roasted and you don't lose any of the skin by it getting stuck to the pan. The beer gives the pieces of meat right near the can a nice little sweetness, but mostly just keeps the inside of the bird really moist and juicy. It's also really low labor.

Preheat oven to 425F. Take a whole chicken (giblets and neck removed), rub it all over with spices. We did salt, pepper and thyme below. Open a can of beer, drink about 25% of it, put it in a roasting pan upright. Put the bird over the roasting pan so can is inside the cavity of the bird. Roast for 1 hour and 15 min. This takes a while to cook, but prep time is about 5 min. Towards the last half hour, throw some veggies in the oven for roasting. Seriously the best chicken I've ever had in my life.