Beer vs wine at the Thatchers Arms last Friday

So there we were on Friday night, wine in the ring with beer. An affray at the dining table perhaps: five courses, each one striding to the table like a wanna-be champ, a glass of wine and a glass of beer on each side, trainers of gastronomic ability, jabbing the air, feeling the mood, supremely confident. In the wine corner Tim Atkin, Master of Wine, author and journalist and the wine guy on Saturday Kitchen; I’m in the beer corner. The venue: the wonderful Thatchers Arms, in the middle of the north Essex countryside, a delightful centre of good food and drink (especially beer), whose young landlord Mitch had organised the bout (and let’s not forget the Don King of beer evangelicalism, Hardknott Dave Bailey, the man who set up the whole Twitter campaign that led to this evening). Fresh from winning an award at SIBA, Dave was there with Hardknott Ann, along with a glove puppet who used to be big on British TV until his star waned and he was replaced by Bob the Builder and a myriad other fantasies of the middle aged.

Enough of conflict metaphors. It’s wasn’t a battle, it wasn’t a war, it wasn’t even a fight. It was an attempt to celebrate good food, good wine and — above all from my point of view, good beer. I’ve not met Tim before and I thought him a great guy — he drinks beer as well as wine and there was none of the closed mind syndrome that I have occasionally come across with wine drinkers (admittedly of the more elderly, snobbish variety). 

First up was a carpaccio of venison loin with beetroot and port and mustard vinaigrette — I chose Duchesse de Bourgogne, banking on the sour-sweet character of the beer to lift the flavour of the venison, the sourness interact with the vinaigrette and the earthiness of the beetroot. Tim chose a 2008 Casa Riva Carmenere Gran Reserva from Chile, a good red wine I seem to recall. The winner, as voted by the audience, was beer. Phew, at least I would win one round. Then we had home smoked mackerel fillet with pickled samphire and lemon dressing. I choose Adnams Explorer, though I had toyed with Pilsner Urquell — I wanted a higher level of carbonation to cut through the oiliness of the fish, but also a firm tropical fruit sweetness to counteract with what I thought would be both the salt on the fish and the brininess of the samphire. I wasn’t sure about this match, the mackerel was more smoky than I had imagined, it was delicious but I felt that the Explorer got a bit lost. Then things perked up in my mouth and the beer seemed to act like a complement to the dish, an extra ingredient. Tim chose a 2010 Telmo Rodriguez Gaba do Xil from Spain, honeyed and apple-like — the two of us had chosen similarly fruity drinks. Again beer won, though there was a sting in the tale to come.

Third course was a Sri Lankan red chicken curry with cardamon rice — IPA you might think, but I went for Schneider Weiss, thinking of carbonation cutting through the heat, and the banana and clovey notes adding their own spiciness to the dish. Tim chose a 2008 Cape Barren Estate Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvedre from south Australia. Beer won again and it felt like half time during an Arsenal match with the game in the bag and as a Gooner I know what that means… Mitch announced a recount of the votes for the second course, there had been a mistake and wine had actually won. So now it was 2-1. 

The four course was a lemon tart with raspberry coulis and sadly Adnams’ Sole Bay was trumped by the Moscato d’Asti from Italy that just added another dimension to the dessert (even the Hardknotters agreed on this) Sole Bay is a lovely beer and we were very lucky to have some as I don’t think there is much left in the country. So that was 2-2 and the chocolates were brought on. I had originally thought of Leifmans Cuvee Brut for this finale, but for some reason, disregarding all my normal doubts about matching dark beer with chocolate, I went for Ola Dubh in a 12 year old Highland Park cask. Lovely beer but the chocolate effectively overwhelmed the notes of tobacco box, coffee, vanilla and oak that the beer has, leaving only the bitterness to stand there as naked as the Emperor with no clothes. Tim chose a Lustau San Emilion PX sherry from the Jerez region — I found it too oily and sweet, a torrent of sweetness bursting through the banks of perception and drowning the chocolate. The result, after a show of hands, was a draw for this dish, which I reckon was a good result for the dinner all round. I do believe that that the Cuvee Brut would have stormed away but on the other hand there was a conviviality about the dinner that was light ages away from the recent storms that have beset the world of beer communications. As wine writer Fiona Beckett noted on her twitter feed after the result went out, ‘good result which reflects the truth that neither beer or wine is better, just different ;-)’

Neither Tim nor myself were paid for the evening, and the drinks were provided by Adnams and Slurp, while local food producers also helped. The night raised £550 for Amnesty (Tim’s chosen charity) and Help for Heroes (my chosen one).

Beer vs wine at the Thatchers Arms this Friday

Good grub but it’ll be a bit more sophisticated this Friday

For me beer and food matching is about the occasion when beer intensifies the flavour of the food, adds something to it or alternatively when the ingredients in the dish lift the beer skywards and reveal an hitherto unknown dimension. Or it could be when the two of them collide and come up with something totally new — a gastronomic particle accelerator.

Harmony: it’s akin to the moment when the woodwind, the strings and the brass all come together in one grand symphonic hug, perhaps during Schubert’s ninth symphony or a great shambling moment in Elgar’s Bach Fantasia when all seems lost, when all seems chaos, but as the instruments all seemingly topple over order asserts itself and all is harmony — or maybe I could point you in the direction of Sonic Youth and the Jesus and Mary Chain who were good at that sort of beer and food matching, as was the sound I once heard when crossing Waterloo bridge and the sound of a helicopter flying over dovetailed beautifully with the rat-a-tat bludgeoning of jack hammers on the South Bank.

For me then it’s about bringing flavours together and getting on with each other — and it doesn’t always happen in beer and food. I made moules marinières once with Pedigree and the long boil gave a harsh bitter note to the broth; cheese — artisanal Cheshire — as I found out the other night, with a Czech Svetly Lezak does not work, the dairy fats seem to separate and become hideous individuals — or Dairylea at the very least.

It’s not rocket science, it’s not the black arts — it’s trial and experiment, punk rock, Sebastian Junger hitting the dirt in a hole in Afghanistan, your favourite jeans, frayed and frowning at the damage that time has done. It’s beer and food. 

All this is just a preamble to the food vs beer event I am co-hosting with Saturday Kitchen’s Tim Atkin on Friday night at the Thatchers Arms in Mount Bures, Essex. There are a few tickets left so if you want come along then call landlord Mitch on 01787 227460 — it’s also all for charity, we’re all giving our services free, while the beers and wine are being donated by Slurp Beer and Adnams. And as something to whet your appetite here’s the menu with the chosen beers.

Carpaccio of Venison Loin & Beetroot with a Port & Mustard Vinaigrette 

Duchesse de Bourgogne 

Home Smoked Mackerel Fillet with Pickled Samphire & Lemon Dressing 

Adnams Explorer (though I did toy with Pilsner Urquell)

Delicate Sri Lankan Red Chicken Curry with Cumin, Chilli, Ginger, Tomato, Black Mustard Seeds Cardamom Rice & Poppadums (medium hot)

Schneider Weisse

Lemon Tart with Raspberry Coulis

Adnams Sole Bay

Homemade Dark Chocolate Petit Fours

Harviestoun Ola Dubh 12 Year Reserve

Beer talks

Beer for men?

Back into the fray I go, tonight a corporate beer and food tasting somewhere in the northwest of the English regions. Looking forward to it, a chance to spout off, hang around, drink beer and tell people about it, talk like I’m in the pub. But on the other hand, in a quiet moment, when all is still, it does make me wonder why those of us that communicate about beer feel that that we have to talk about it in front of crowds (and then there’s an easy answer: it’s a living and it can pay well and like most others in the confined world of beer writing it’s something to do with ego masquerading as education — but then I never understand why beer writing has to be about education as well; rather than educate, I have no intention of making people disown what they drink, they can find their own way to it, which they will — and surely education is what breweries pay their marketing people for; in fact that is a beef of mine at times, beer writing can sometimes come across like being beaded by the drunk guy in the pub who knows a little more than you do, and what do you do but nod your head, cut out the white noise and get back to what you enjoy doing, a drunk teacher perhaps). People will come to good beer without people prodding them on the chest and saying you must drink this. 

For over a decade I have been doing beer talks, a variety of ups and downs, sometimes all of it coming together at the last minute, a bit nervy at times, I remember some occasions when I used to take a deep breath, pretend I was doing something worse like parachuting into D-Day before pushing the door open into the pub where 10 strangers were waiting for me to tell them about beer — and then I remembered (only a couple of years ago — doh) that I used to stand up in front of people and sing, albeit hiding behind a microphone and in company with three other guys (including DJ Harvey on drums) — and that made all the difference. Being in the band, I eventually had fun, though my first gig (as just the guitarist) was a bit nerve-wracking. There was nothing like the adrenalin you get when a song is going good and people (all three of them) are starting to dance (you have to talk with Zak Avery about making money through music). So after all this I still wonder: why do beer writers decide that they need this extra curricular work?

Pete Brown was on the radio the other day, while Marverine Cole was tittering along with Alan Titchmarsh on some show from the Midlands, though all C4 could find for their otherwise excellent piece on craft keg was a ‘drinks writer’ who writes a lot about wine and who then got his dispensation confused with his production (on the subject of craft keg, or whatever you want to call it as I refuse to call it a revolution, it won’t overturn the order of things in the rather confined space of beer but it will offer another choice — the revolution will be a matter of consumer choice as well as being televised). Maybe the people they wanted were in Denver (and before anyone asks, it’s not something I would like to do, I have no desire in being on the telly). Maybe it’s the nature of the beast with any specialist writing: Michael Jackson had his beer hunting committed to film, while Roger Protz was a regular face on some food show a few years back. Maybe it’s just the case that is such a specialised subject the media need experts.

I like doing tastings because I like meeting people and because — it’s a major reason I go to the pub — I like spending time talking with people, whether it’s about beer, sport or whoever has been sleeping with whom. Beer makes for good conversation except when it becomes didactic and it’s not just the CAMRA souls who get that way — I have seen a messianic gleam in the eye of those most indifferent to CAMRA when they have got going on beer. 


And so all this leads me to mention that come October 28, myself and Melissa Cole will be taking part in a wine vs beer dinner at the Thatchers Arms in deepest Essex, thanks to the kind invitation of landland Mitch. For the wine side, Tim Atkin will be pitching for the grape (and who knows who else will pull their cork out) and Melissa and I will be bigging up barley. The menu is done and we’re now thinking about the beers. It’s for charity as well so that’s another plus. Tickets are £35 and it will be a well worth doing do. So why not come along and see beer and wine writers do battle royal in the most hospitable way (in a pub) — and to think I was just going to write about the Pretty Things’ Jack D’Or. Funny thing beer, you never know where you go with it. 

Beer and terroir: a retrospective view

Was interested to catch a glimpse of some of the tweets between Tim Atkin and various beer bloggers yesterday; one thing stuck in my mind: something said about wine having a sense of place but beer not so much. Terroir in other words. It led me back to my 2005 book The Big Book of Beer, in which I wrote a page about the terroir of beer, where I argued you could have a sense of terroir for beer. I thought I would reproduce it here with one caveat: it was written in 2005 and was very much of its time, if I were writing now I would come at it from a different angle, but I do like the idea of the effect of salt-laden north-easterly winds of East Kent Goldings.  

‘Terroir is the term used to describe the effect of the local environment, history, farming practices and climate on the product. In the world of wine, the very concept of terroir adds value, prestige and romance to certain vintages. Winemakers can tell stories about steep south-facing slopes, granite soils, low rainfall and all-year sunlight that have oenophiles turning claret with excitement. Can beer be said to have a similar terroir? Most certainly. The ingredients of beer have a terroir, that magical attachment to place. Here’s Kentish hop grower Tony Redsell on the effects of the local temperature on his hops: ‘The exposure to the salt-laden north-easterly winds in March, as the character of the hop is being developed, gives an East Kent hop that unique aroma, which is just that little bit different from common or garden (yard) Goldings or Goldings types.’ Taste and savour Shepherd Neame’s Master Brew or Spitfire to experience this uniqueness. For richer hop aromas we have to travel further west to Herefordshire and Worcestershire, where breweries such as Teme Valley, Hobsons and Wye Valley make use of the hops grown on their doorsteps. The rich clay soils in the area help to produce these lush hoppy scents. Here the Fuggle hop is king (though other hops are also grown). This is a magnificent bittering hop, which adds a sensuous earthiness to beer, but also contributes a tropical, grassy aroma. In East Anglia, both large and small brewers use locally grown barley that is also malted in the region. Beers such as Adnams Best Bitter and St Peter’s Suffolk Gold possess a richness and maturity in their malt flavours, which could be ascribed to the rich low nitrogen soils of the region. Then there is the water of Burton, gypsum-rich and hard as iron, which was ideal for sparkling pale ales in the 19th century, making this Staffordshire town the centre of brewing. Until Burton’s water could be replicated chemically, beers brewed in the town had an identity that could be ascribed to terroir. Brewers might not be able to ascribe the qualities of their beers to the angle of the sun on the mash tun or whether it was raining when the fermentation took place, but the raw materials of our favourite beers all have a story waiting to be told, whether it’s hardy hop bines struggling in the cold winds of East Kent during March and April, when the flavour and aroma of the hop begins to form, or sturdy stalks of grain taking their time to mature as another summer sea fog rolls in along the north Norfolk coast.’

Beer or wine? Come to Hay-on-Wye to find out

Cheese and beer at Marble — yum

Once upon a time I used to treat wine with the reverence that we treat beer with. In 1993 I went to several wine classes and tastings conducted by Serena Sutcliffe and David Peppercorn, bought wine magazines and laid down a few bottles. However, that time has long passed and I rarely have a glass these days — maybe the odd Rioja or a Cahors, but that’s it. It’s not that I despise wine, but I don’t have any room for it in my drinking life. Which is why I am looking forward to this coming Wednesday where I will be doing a wine vs beer tasting at Kilvert’s in Hay-on-Wye. We have a six-course dinner and I have chosen a beer for each course, while Julian Risby from Marston’s has chosen the same amount of wines. I’ve got Otley’s Saison Obscura, Anchor Steam, Aventinus, Orval, Boon Kriek and Hardknott Granite, while Julian has put up Riesling, Tempranillo, Semillon-Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Rose and Port. It should be fun and if you fancy coming along for an evening of good food, beer and wine then the details and the menu can be found here.