Bristol Beer Week calling

Bristol Beer Week is coming to its close and from what I hear it’s been a liver wracking success. Last night I was engaged in a beer and food match alongside a 1001 Beers signing at Arbor’s fantastic Three Tuns in the Hotwells area in Bristol. I think it went well, there was good people, good beer and I was overwhelmed by the brilliant food that Ben at Meat and Breadmatched with the beers.

Here goes. Pork belly cured in Saison Dupont accompanied by celeriac puree — the beer’s spiciness and carbonation wrapped itself around the meat, hugged the fat, slapped the puree on the back and insinuated itself into the spices. A celebration. Brewfist Spaceman with mango salad, Asian spices and peanut: say hello to the deep orangey hues of this Italian IPA and it’s a greeting as effective as that between US and Soviet forces when they met on the Elbe in 1945. Cerviche. Bristol Beer Factory’s Southville Hop was used to cure fresh mackerel and then served alongside — what a beautiful result it was. The beer brought out the flavour of the fish, while its hop character of tropical fruit was kept intact. A sensual otherworldly experience somewhat akin to praying awaited with Ampleforth Abbey beer and a slice of well-aged Westcombe Cheddar —there was also a rarebit with the briskness of the beer’s carbonation and its toffee, coffee and dried fruit notes lapping at the well of creativity. Beavertown Smog Rocket was used to braise mussels and then served alongside — yes please, while home cured cucumbers were floured and deep fried as pickle chips before being served with Lindemann’s Cuvee Rene — an inspired match with the soft, gentle acidity of the cucumber lifting the vinousness and sherry like flavours of the beer. Oh look, here comes another triumph: smoked caramel ice cream and peanut brittle served with Arbor’s silky, earthy, bittersweet Breakfast Stout. If man is 5, the Devil is 6 and this match is 9 — the beer almost became a component of the dish, lifted its flavours, acted as a bridge and made the grown men in the room ooh and aah like babies. To finish: how about Triple Karmeliet with foie gras and banana chutney? Yes please.

So when in Bristol head to the Three Tuns at lunchtime and see what Ben at Meat and Bread has to offer (his sarnies are on the bar every lunchtime). And then on the way to the station pop into BrewDog and say hello — Bristol is yet another great beer city and I for one look forward to next year’s Beer Week. 

Ampleforth Abbey Ale

Here’s Ampleforth Abbey Ale, a couple of bottles of which I was sent and jolly glad I am too that I was sent them. Abbey Ale? I’m not going there and I’ve said my thing about the beer style here. So let’s just see what the beer has to say to me. Dark chestnut in colour, I’m reminded of hazelnut influenced chocolate on the nose; as if a hazelnut had met a piece of chocolate while out on the pull and decided that the two of them might be good for each other. Hold on, there’s a sarsaparilla note coming along to muck things up; thankfully all live happily ever after a civil ceremony that David Cameron agrees to following a pub lunch with Nick Clegg. On the palate it’s rich and varnished, vinous and virtuous, with its palatable sweetness kept in check by a raisiny caramelly and nutty character that shows what good malt and yeast can add to the mix. There’s some alcohol but not too much, just enough to get a sense of lift. There is also chocolate and very ripe dark plums with some sugar on them, all of which produce a bittersweet character that enables this companionable beer to dovetail totally with a Thai jungle curry I’d made on the evening of the tasting — the spice of the curry hits the bittersweetness of the beer and all retire happily to a tent in a clearing and discuss future relationships.

Beer and food once more

Come and enjoy a gastronomic beer menu said the invitation. Come and enjoy a menu worked out by Pete Brown and Charles Campion (see below for a few words from him to the night’s MC Nigel Barden) at Great Taste at the Cadogan, a plush old school hotel in the middle of Knightsbridge. Come and enjoy some of the stars of the recent Great Taste Awards. Come and enjoy food and beer in a place where wine is the preferred tipple on the table most of the time. And so I went to the press launch of a menu that included beer in both the dishes and as accompaniment on the table.

Cider, however, instead of beer opened up the evening as glasses of Aspalls’ Premier Cru were handed out as an aperitif before the dining room yawned chasm-like to swallow the diners.

To begin at the beginning there were three starters which each table were encouraged to share: mosaic (ok terrine) of rabbit in beer jelly, along with pickled Scottish girolles and cabbage, cooked in Sunshine from Monty’s Brewery, was paired with Otley’s O-Garden, whose jingle-jangle of spice got the terrine’s spice and sweetness singing along with the unity of the Millennium Stadium as they watch Wales surge forward time and time again. Treacle cured salmon with a beer glaze of Ola Dubh 16 was a tough call and I found the O-Garden bowing down in surrender before the oiliness of the fish (restrained as it was); it was almost as if the beer and fish cancelled each other out and all I was left with was a memory of the texture of the superbly cured salmon. Harmony reigned supreme however with the third starter Cornish Blue cheese, cobnut caramel and beer roasted shallots (Riggwelter). It was almost as if the cheese could not wait to wrap itself around the beer and announce to a waiting world when the baby was due.

Mains: squab pigeon pie with spinach parcels and butternut squash cooked with Hobsons Old Henry. This was served alongside Purple Moose’s Dark Side of the Moose, which all dark chocolate flavours that encircled themselves around the dark meat and added another layer of flavour, almost as if acting as a sauce. This was a good one. However, I had issues with the roasted sea-bass that had a Quickes Vintage Cheddar and herb crust. I loved the accompanying Bristol Hefe beer broth as the light bitterness of the Hefe meant that there was just enough in the foam-a-like broth for it to work like the sort of dream you don’t want to wake up from. The accompaniment was Bitter & Twisted, which I felt lost out to the cheese and herb crust; my thoughts were that there wasn’t enough carbonation to cut through the dairy-like fattiness of the cheese.

Then it was all the way to the puddings, three of which each table had a taster of: the Beer float Dark Island Reserve was divine when drunk in conjunction with the Ola Dubh 16 as all manner of dark flavours plus a vanilla smoothness and tobacco box adulthood encouraged an air of contemplation. The chocolate, prune and ale brownie (Old Engine Oil) also flew in the face of the oft-repeated assertion that dark beer and dark dessert shouldn’t be on the same table. Rhubarb crumble with beer jelly (Meantime London lager) was a welcome surprise, as the zinginess of Schiehallion lifted the flavour of the crumble and spun it into another dimension of being (and that’s saying something for me as due to being afflicted with a lot of it when young I’m not the greatest fan of rhubarb).

Verdict: a fabulous menu, another step forward for beer and food though a fellow beer-writer made the point to me that maybe it’s generally accepted that food and beer works, and now it’s a question of what beers to use? I thought of Byron Burgers and their craft beer selection for starters. This is thoroughly recommended bit of upscale dining with beer on the table — why not treat yourself?

The menu is priced at £18 for one-course; £23 for two-courses; and £28 for three-courses and will run until the end of September 2012.  There will be an ongoing beer theme running at Great Taste at The Cadogan for the rest of the year, along with the usual wine list.

Grub’s up at Wadworth

Chop chop chop. Sizzle, thresh, rip, roar and panic as the mixture of flour, butter and beer becomes a dough to be laid like a fallen comrade in a tin that will take it to the next level through the medium of heat. We shall remember you forevermore. Chop chop chop, sprinkle, spread, add, stir, splay; chillies, onions, garlic, herbs and currants if you so wish find themselves being tipped over the edge into the series of open coffin-like tins on the shining stainless steel plain of a table. We’re making beer bread.

And so, evidence as if a crime had taken place, bottles of beer stand around like hoodies on the corner, uncertain of what role in life, what path in life, they should take. Empty vessels, others half full or half empty as the mood takes one. Names: Olde Timer, 6X, Swordfish.

Yes, this is Wadworth, a brewery visit no less, with a difference though, the cookery school to be exact, which has the feel of an engine room on a ship as the heat from the ovens clings to the skin with the patience of a sunbeam and the throbbing sound of the air-con adds a deep bass note to the ambience. Yes, a brewery visit, but instead of gathering around the mash tun and asking questions on strike temperature we undergo a physical, 3-D, real-life essay in the making of lunch, under the tutelage of Scott Ferguson, the brewery’s catering development manager.

Stainless steel, chef’s whites, the clan gather of sweat on the brow, what shall we eat today? As well as the bread, there’s rhubarb and raspberry crumble (to which I add Olde Timer, old school strong bitter, a beer that I always enjoy); the macho mash of sausage meat, herbs and garlic along with debris from a downed black pudding, the prism through which we shall see a hefty, spicy, rumbustious, rollicking medieval knight of a sausage roll (I added 6x to the mix); finally, some delicacy, beer batter (Old Henry IPA), in which strips of sole were ducked before their immersion in hot oil.

And then it was lunch. The sausage roll was like a great big spicy mother of a machine gun hammering away, while the sole goujons in their slightly sweet batter were light-footed fauns dancing through a green forest, a contrast of crunchiness and the giving texture of the new potato accompaniment. Oh and the brewery’s recent addition to the keg stout front — Corvus — was a dreamy creamy, bitter, mocha dusted, slightly roasted glass of dark goodness, 

Then there is a book. Ferguson and Wadworth published A Taste of Wadworthshire last year, and, I must admit, having tried out several recipes on this heated, Hussar-light morning of fun, it is rather good and can be bought from the visitor centre — next on the list fruity coronation chicken on beer bread (how apt given the weekend ahead of us) or maybe beer and rum ice cream with chocolate chips? It’s not a big book, but it’s got good photos, robust dishes and a nice feel to it. I’ve got plenty of cookbooks, beer or otherwise, but this is one I will be using. I don’t want to always eat tagine, Szechuan cuisine or whatever some geeky geezer with a blowtorch, tube of Smarties and pheasant feathers has dreamt up.

I got the feeling that this was a real attempt to introduce food and beer in an honest way (like their Beer Kitchen range), a way that I don’t always recognise elsewhere when TV chefs or wandering minstrels with silly names go all beer cooking on us cause there’s either a sponsor or some advertising sandal wearer has said beer is the cook thing that month. You might not like 6x and think the Wadworthshire ad tag a bit Ambridge, but beer needs the old school guys as much as it needs the tyros and tyrants of taste. 

The next challenge? This will be for Ferguson and Wadworth to get this idea of beer cuisine out to their pubs, a idea that becomes as natural as the use of salt and pepper. Licensees of all schools have for too long adhered to the Führerprinzip nature of thinking that wine is the only gain in town. It isn’t.

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).

Light and dark

BeerandfoodBeerandfood BeerandfoodBeerandfood…Say it enough times and it becomes the most natural thing in the world — as natural as wineandfoodwineandfood even. So here we are on Saturday evening in the marvellous Kilverts in Hay on Wye and a woman who has come to the ‘beer vs beer’ dinner at which Mark Dredge and I are sparring partners tells us that she had bought a glass of wine into the dining room with her but after tasting some of the beers on show she will be staying with beer (the glass of Chardonnay, well I presume it’s Chardonnay, it’s honeyed yellow, limpid in the glass, stays untouched for the rest of the dinner). Another woman says that she has to find a way of getting her friends back home to taste beer and the debate that follows as Mark and I discuss why we matched a variety of light and dark beers with dishes such as a creamy Stilton-soaked risotto, fresh succulent sardines and a rumbustious beef Wellington is like a gust of fresh air and the sound of heavenly trumpets to Mark and I as we sit back stuffed and replete with some of the best grub I’ve yet to have in a pub. The evidence? The Stilton and roast shallot risotto is served with Orval and Rochefort 6 — a battle of the Trappist beers. In my opinion Rochefort 6 adds sweetness to the dish, while Orval (my choice) lets the sunshine and showers of leathery Brett and bright orange citrus embrace the dish; the bitterness also helped to cut through the creaminess. Second round: sardines with a deconstructed ratatouille. Crumbs this was a tough one, the oiliness of the sardines and the acidity of the ratatouille; I choose Otley’s black IPA Oxymoron, while Mark went for Jever Pilsener. I wasn’t convinced by the Jever and thought it accentuated the oiliness, though I wasn’t too convinced by the Oxymoron and its dalliance with the food either. The dark notes might have been too much. The conversation ebbed and flowed across the table, beer its current — said time and time again, these are good beers in their own right. Goose Island IPA (me) and Aventinus went forward to the match with the beef Wellington, both of which fitted gorgeously — the choice of the IPA was seen as slightly dubious by some, but the generous orangy, Muscat notes and the generous bitterness more than stood up to the fabulously cooked beef. Aventinus, however, shaded this contest and I suspect if it had been my choice for dark beer then that is what I would have picked. Finally pudding, a chocolate fondant with bucks fizz ice cream (a revelation in itself) — me: Waen’s Porter House Blue which is made with fresh blueberries — some added in the mash, others added at the end of the boil, a porter/stout hybrid that has a slight sweetness at the end. Meanwhile Mark went for a Boon Kriek, which went down a storm with the audience though Porter House Blue also had its fans. We asked everyone to mark the matches out of ten and for each dish until the pudding you could have put the proverbial cigarette paper through the results, for instance 35 against 36 for dish one. But the pudding saw the Boon Kriek saw Mark really pull away, though I was impressed with the first Waen beer I have tried (they’re a brewery whose beers I want to research more). And the result? Mark won, but beer and Kilverts were the real winners on the night — if you are anywhere near Hay do get down today or tomorrow for the end of their beer festival. And I’d welcome all comments on the matches. 

IPA Day with Wadworth’s India Pale Ale

Even though it’s International IPA Day all over the known world I’m giving beer a break today but here’s my own contribution to this most beloved of beer styles (types?) — a week ago I went over to the Bath Priory Hotel to sample some new beers from Wadworths (the Beer Kitchen range). I will report on the evening in full in several days when I get the time (it was a fascinating night of beer and food matching from a brewery often dismissed with the word 6X), but for the moment in the spirit of IPA day here’s a few words on one of the Waddies’ beers, their 6.2% India Pale Ale. It was introduced by the hotel chef Sam Moody who started off by saying that IPA and chilli crisps was one of his most favourite food and beer matches. Crisps weren’t on the menu though, but tempura chilli squid with roast lobster compressed melon and coriander salad (Moody had gone away and thought about the beers and came up with a great menu). The beer itself had a gorgeously earthy, orange blossom and ripe satsuma nose plus a dustiness that made me think about a hay barn during a spell of dry weather. The palate was orange-satsuma-fiery-dry-bittersweet all in one big mouthful with a hint of macadamia nuts also somewhere in the mix. It was gratifyingly bitter with a good mash-up of spice and the sweetness of the seafood and the spices were both lifted to greater heights of sensuality by this luscious beer, both the beer and food offering uplifting hymns of praise to each other’s gustatory strengths. And in the finish the spice and bitterness were still clanging away with all the fury of Quasimodo going off on one of his bell-ringing jags. Great stuff. 

Badger beer but no badger hams on the menu at River Cottage

Chop. Chop. Tear. Pull. Chop.

Glass of beer, quick swig, wipe of brow. 

Chop. Tear of skin, peep of flesh, smell of gut. Swig of beer. 

I do like pheasant. Especially when I’ve got a set of kitchen implements that cost more than the car outside our house. 

Chop, wipe, swig — we’re in a kitchen at River Cottage, stations piled with gleaming kit, various (carnivore-eating) journalists seeing their first ever dead animal, and the freedom to cook with beer. Badger idea. Good one at that.

But first, back to the night before, a cosy meal at the River Cottage, the cottage industry set up within spitting distance of Lyme Regis by Hugh Whatisname. Swig of beer, Stinger it is, minty grassy aroma, earthy in that it makes you think of the land, good impressions, hard to pin down, bit like the stink of the farmyard that manifests itself in a good red Burgundy, elemental, herbal and fresh. 

Food. Try this with the Stinger we’re asked. Ham rarebit or maybe hot smoked pheasant breast. Carrot and cumin hummus with which the Stinger seems to act as if it were champagne, scrubbing the palate clean of the creaminess of the hummus, before letting the flavours of carrot and cumin come through.

 Sit down, ladies and gentlemen. Another glass. Golden Champion. Sweet elderflower notes grabbing a slice of smoked pollock and taking it for a twirl around the electric ballroom of the mouth. Sound of heavy boots on the polished floor as the smokiness of the fish thumped and trumped its way through the delicate sweetness of the beer. A pass but only just. 

Then there’s deer on the plate: roast loin of venison, slow roast shoulder made into faggots, fallow I’m told — knock knock who’s there, why it’s the Poacher’s Choice, Badger’s strongest beer. A riot of health shop liquorice and a groan of roasted grains and sweetish stone fruit: it lifts the slow roast shoulder and exhibits a JS Bach-like moment of counterpoint, sweetness of the beer against the meaty saltiness, well-toasted toastiness just shy of being burnt in league with the deep, dark urgency of the liquorice. 

Meanwhile we’ve a glass of Pickled Partridge alongside, shoulder to shoulder, a band of two bottled brothers, this beer, not so sweet, currant cake fruitiness, acts as a chaperone for the venison as it disappears down the throat. 

Then pudding. Not for me, but all around, sticky toffee pudding alongside Blandford Fly; as they might have said in Friends if it had been about a gang of bottled beers hanging about instead of irritating thirtysomethings: the ginger one. I’m told it took a peek beneath the skirts of the toffee coating. 

Next morning it’s back to River Cottage. Kitchen. Pheasants. Stations. Chef’s briefing. A haunch hanging up. Provenance. Prepping. Chop. Evisceration. Spill a handful of herbs and vegetables into the stock of pheasant, mallard legs, venison and salted belly pork. Guys, we are told, you will chose a beer and then prepare and cook your lunch. 

Away we go, Exmoor Jane and I, a bottle of Poacher’s Choice. Reason. The making of rowanberry jelly each summer gives us the making of a sense of being close to the land. Sweetness, hence Poacher’s Choice. And by golly it works. 

Elsewhere BWOTY Pete Brown is adding spices to his stew, and the beardless Melissa Cole is deep frying parsley. No matter, oh and we all make a fruit cake, ours with Badger’s cider. Rather nice, all those currants, sultanas and cinnamon. 

And then it’s food. Eat, drink, eat, drink. Merry.

Badger move into a new brewery soon and there are signs that they might be looking at having a bit of fun with some limited edition beers. Dark and strong, more hops, I said, oh yes, but and then I said Brett? Hey this is England, yon fool I told myself.

Oh and I once interviewed a man who ate badger before it was placed on the proscribed list in the 1960s. What was it like I asked? A bit like pig, though stronger in flavour he replied. And being from Bridgwater, no doubt he had a glass of Starkey Knight & Ford to wash it down his gullet.