Beef Stew with Paprika and Beer

This was served with the french onion soup. Christ this always feels like a buttload of ingredients. Taken from Pioneer Woman

3 T oil, 1T butter
2 # stew beef
1 onion, diced
3 cl garlic minced (I went and doubled this)
BURR AMURRKA YEAH (1 bottle of Dogfishead 60 minute, to give me an excuse to buy a 6-pack)
1 Q chicken stock
2 c water
1 T Worcestershire
2 T tomato paste
0.5t smoked paprika (fancy shit from Europe)
0.5t salt (yeah, right.)
pepper
1.5t sugar
4 carrots, roughly cut
4 small red potatoes, roughly cut

1. Pat dry and sear that meat. No, don't salt it. Yes, that's right. No, don't overcrowd the pan. Yes, that's the smoke alarm.
2. Cook off your onions, and then garlic, deglazing as you go.
3. Use a bit of the beer to deglaze, making sure to get all the bits off the bottom of the pan. The original recipe has you just deglaze later, but I found I would lose a hefty amount of drippings. This way I can control where and how much liquid I use to deglaze. Now I've said deglaze too many times. Dee glaze. Dee. Glaiz. D'glaiz. Sorry. You can add the rest of the beer now.
4. Add in the worcestershire, tomato paste, paprika, sugar, salt, and pepper and let mix in with the beer.
5. Add in your chicken stock. I've changed this from the original beef stock recommendation, for a couple reasons. First, I found most store-brand beef stock blows chunks. There's generally less variety, and a good beef broth is generally more expensive than a good chicken broth. Also, compounding the same flavor on top of itself feels a bit much. I'd rather let the beefiness come straight from the meat itself.
6. Whoops, got off track there. Simmer that for 1.5 hours, with the cover partially on. Your stew should have a thicker consistency.
7. Add in your carrots and potatoes, then simmer another 30 minutes. The liquid should ideally cover all of the vegetables. Add some water if this is not the case.
8. Remove from the stove, serve, enjoy, etc.

To be served with cheese, crackers, and french onion soup. This is consistently freakin' delicious.

I've taken a liking to this recipe, to the point where I am looking at how I can reduce the price of this. The biggest problem is the quantity of meat and the beef stock. Almost all the other ingredients I keep on hand. I tried using a cheaper cut, but I hate being at the whim of sales. I'll have to look into making my own beef bouillon, perhaps.