Celeriac

Say hello to my little friend

Here is a fillet of celeriac, yes you read that correctly, a fillet of celeriac, which has been smoked, then seared before being braised and presented on the plate, with the grace and elegance of the finest bit of steak. It’s tender, earthy, salty-sweet, malleable, wrong-footing the senses, sending a message whose meaning is clear: what’s the big deal?

Celeriac and I have always had a turbulent relationship. It’s a rough looking brute of a vegetable, a knobbly near globe, a rough-skinned creature with pallid, sick-room coloured flesh. Mashed with roast pheasant or wild duck, yes please, but otherwise, especially grated, I think I’d rather leave the room, but on this evening, in a small restaurant in Brixton, Salon if you must know, there’s the dawning of a new day, the reconfiguration of a relationship, the reconsideration of a long held belief.

And here is now a beer, matched with the celeriac and its other companions on the plate, steamed rainbow chard and pickled walnuts (the latter two words always bring a childish smile to the face, it’s as if I was listening to some low comedian telling a bawdy story which end in the words pickled walnuts).

In fact, there are two beers on the table, one of which is a Sticke Alt from Harpoon, while the other is Baba Black Lager from Uinta. American beers then, which isn’t a surprise as the dinner I’m at has been organised by the Brewers’ Association with the grand idea of demonstrating that beer and vegetarian food can be ideal partners on the dining table (not a new idea, I recall discussing similar matches a few years ago with a beer drinking vegetarian). There are other dishes and other beers, all of which work well, but it’s the celeriac that astounds and atones for its previous wickedness.

The caramel chewiness of the seared steak alongside the rich malt character of the Sticke Alt was an intriguing combination, as if the beer was searching to pick out new flavours (I think of the fingers of a multitude of searchlights roaming the sky during an air-raid); there was also a sweetness about the celeriac that seemed to be intensified by the beer and even during the odd moment a hint of umami, that event horizon of flavours, slipped in and added its own savoury sense of leisure. I tried a few sips of the Baba, which highlighted the earthiness of the chard, but it was the Sticke Alt that married itself to this dish and turned what on paper would seem like a dreary assemblage of plants into something more over-reaching and intense on the palate.

I rather like celeriac. At the moment.

Do I blame Elizabeth David for postwar beer decline?

I’ve had a theory for some time that the decline in beer consumption in the UK was partially due to the influence of Elizabeth David on British middle class cooking habits. Back in the 1950s, olive oil was something you got from the chemist, while aubergines were probably thought to be the vegetal props of red-nosed, low comedians and garlic a salve against those teddy boys who fancied themselves as Christopher Lee. Then comes Elizabeth David with her cook books full of Mediterranean sun — and voila garlic, aubergines and courgettes all feature in the British middle class kitchen. Coq au vin, Greek salad, Navarin lamb — what is the drink that is served alongside dishes like these? Wine of course. This was obviously not the only reason (and actually David is by far my favourite cookery writer with French Provincial Cooking being my desert island cook book), but maybe it added to all those other things that eventually stripped British beer of its dominant status (foreign holidays didn’t just mean lager but also Mateus Rose and Liebfraumilch, both of which could be boozed while sitting in front of the telly). 

This thought occurred to me as I remembered about how one British cookery writer (possibly Arabella Boxer) believed that David’s prediliction for the south stunted the growth of British cooking, which was just showing signs of emerging from its tunnel of Brown Windsor and steamed cabbage. Bit unfair to blame one writer of this decline (and by association the decline of beer), but at roughly the same time (mid 1950s) just as David was weaving her magic on the middle classes, another food writer Elizabeth Craig released Beer and Vittles, totally dedicated to recipes cooked or served with beer (I love the idea of the Weissbeer Zuppe, which suggests one and half pints of ale). The opening line of the introduction has Craig write: ‘if there is one form of cookery that has been neglected more than another in Britain it is beer cookery.’ Back in 1955, did anyone think that this observation was right I wonder?

Things I like about Belgium

I spent most of last week in Ghent researching a gastronomic travel feature that included a visit to Gruut (love the fabulous Brune), various restaurants, churches, bars, sweetshops and a ‘nibbling’ tour, but here are five things that make me love Belgium so much. 

• In the Belga Queen, after I have finished my glass of Boon Kriek (memorably matched with cured trout and a blue cheese sauce), the waiter asks if I would like a glass of draught Rodenbach because it comes from his home town. ‘It would make me very happy if you had one.’ And it made me very happy and went well with the shrimp croquettes, while the Boon Mariage Parfait was a dream on the right side of the bed with the Charolais tartare.
• Then there are the two middle aged women in the Surinamese restaurant Faja Lobi where I go for a restorative lemongrass soup — one is drinking Westmalle Tripel and the other is drinking Orval. No big deal, no need to go on about women and beer, it’s a given — where did we go wrong in this country?
• Then there is the guide who takes me on a gastronomic tour around old Ghent on Tuesday morning and tells me how her grandmother is a big lover of Westvleteren and that she uses two cars (and two separate license plates) so that she can get two cases of beer when they are available; about how her dad comes from Poperinge and likes Hommel and about how her mother loves Westmalle Tripel and might have had one not long after she was born (the guide that is). At 11am, after we have visited a butcher and a cheesemaker and she says how about a beer…
• When I arrive at my hotel, the manager is having a drink which is Chimay Bleu, I don’t see many hotel types in this country doing that (oh and isn’t having a coke with a meal a sort of infantile breast-sucking gestural reaction — I noticed a couple of English-speaking corporate types doing it).
• A man and his marital problems and his lovely dog buys me three Rochefort 10s in the pub and that is what pubs/bars/whatever are about — stories, beer and instant friends. 

Oh and on the way home at the Raven in Bath, the landlord goes around offering a meat pie free because an order was mucked up. Art Brew’s Monkey IPA is a decent English-style IPA as well. 

Stuff the detox — here’s some grub with beer

Here’s something different: venison with Kriek sauce and Trappist mushrooms

I live on Exmoor where the red deer roam and provide sustenance for the table. Beer and food is slow to take off here but one of my locals offers beer choices on its menu, while I’m going to be working with a couple of other chefs in the area on developing a beer dinner (as well as a beer vs wine event). Who knows this particular favourite might end up on the table — the Chimay-marinated meat is flash fried and then served with a robust sauce based on Liefman’s Cuvee-Brut Kriek alongside mushrooms that have been cooked in the reduced marinade. I usually accompany this dish with Abbey de Roc’s rich and bittersweet brune or with my old standby Orval, a beer that brings so much to the table. Here goes then, if you do decide to do the menu and it works, call me Delia.

Four venison haunch steaks, 6-8 oz each

330ml bottle of Chimay Red

Juniper berries

8oz of mushrooms (if you can get wild mushrooms all the better)

Several fat cloves of garlic

Seasoning

330ml bottle of Liefman’s Cuvee-Brut

3 oz of brown sugar

7 fl oz of chicken stock

One shallot

Butter/olive oil

Seasoning

Marinate haunches in Chimay Red for up to eight hours, along with two/three crushed juniper berries. Keep marinade and pat meat dry with kitchen towel, put to one side. Sprinkle potatoes and parsnips with sea salt and roll in extra virgin olive oil before putting into oven to roast. Give mushrooms a quick fry in butter (or olive oil) with chopped up garlic cloves and add Chimay marinade; boil until reduced. Check for seasoning.

Meanwhile make sauce. Chop shallot and fry in small pan until soft and translucent. Add rest of ingredients in small pan and boil until it thickens. Check for seasoning. This should take four/five minutes.

When everything feels close to readiness flash fry the venison on both sides (use either butter or olive oil depending on your predilection, butter adds a nice sense of unctuousness though the reward for such extravagance is 40 extra crunches in the gym). I like my venison near raw and tender, but you might like it as charred as Joan of Arc at the stake. Sprinkle with the tiniest amount of sea salt. Place on plate with potatoes, parsnips and mushrooms, spoon sauce on the meat, pour beer and eat and drink to your heart’s content.

PS Another good dish to aid digestion during this dark and dank month would be cassoulet with Toulouse sausages, duck confit, pork and haricot beans topped with breadcrumbs — with this dainty feast I think I would pair several bottles of Hardcore IPA.

This is nothing to do with the recipe, being a nice display of meat
in a Prague shop windo, especially relevant given the news from Ceske Budejovice yesterday

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

Wadworth’s Beer Kitchen

A Saturday afternoon in Devizes many years ago and a mate stood outside the closed gates of Wadworth’s brewery and shouted. He was outside and wanted to get inside. Drink had been taken that day and my mate was notorious for his inability to withstand the rigours of a Saturday afternoon session (once when we decided that an afternoon in Wetherspoons was preferable to standing in the rain at Highbury I went to the toilet leaving a perfectly sensible if inebriated man and came out a few minutes later to find him arms and head on the table snoring soundly). There were three of us and we moved on as you do. A flitter of remembrance from that Withnail-like afternoon briefly disturbed the otherwise smooth concourse of my thoughts the other week as I sat in attendance at the Bath Priory Hotel, this time in the company of several journalists and folk from Wadworth’s, plus the hotel’s head chef Sam Moody coming and going with each course. The occasion was the launch of Wadworth’s new range of bottled beers that have been specifically brewed to be drunk at the table, hence the Beer Kitchen name.

When I think of Wadworth it’s always 6X that springs to mind — out there always, riding the highways of free house and pub company, on the bar counter, ubiquitous, like Pedigree or London Pride. I’ve always enjoyed it, but I also enjoyed Henry’s IPA in and around Devizes and Old Timer when I could find it (back in 2005 the then head brewer Trevor Holmes told me that they occasionally put this beer into whisky barrels). I presume that 6X for those elite drinkers who rarely drink the same thing twice is a sort of OXO cube of suburban sterility that is to be avoided at all costs (or drank surreptitiously just in case their mates find out). Beer Kitchen is something different, being a selection of bottled beers (filtered and lightly pasteurized) produced on the brewery’s micro-plant, kit that originally came from a brewpub called the Farmers Arms.

Here are the five beers we were presented with: Wheat Beer, IPA, Orange Peel, Barrel Aged Strong Bitter and Espresso Stout.

The wheat beer was first, served as an aperitif alongside a goat’s cheese canape. The nose had a light ripe banana note that immediately anchored it into the Bavarian tradition. On the palate it was sprightly, go lightly, offering a hint of apple and an element of Riesling like fruitiness. With the canape it was marvellous, wrapping its arms around it — friendly, engaging — and lifting the flavour to a higher plane. We also had it with the first course, a crab mayonnaise with tomato jelly. Again this worked with the beer lifting up the accompanying tomato jelly and emphasising a pesto note in the mayo I’d not felt at first, a terrier rooting around in the undergrowth having caught a sniff of a downed pheasant that everyone else had missed. Scoffed fast, it was.

Then it’s Moody again, young and bounding in, and telling the ensemble that one of his favourite matches is IPA and chilli crisps. And that’s what we had, an IPA that is — is this Wadworth’s first attempt? No crisps, but on the plate tempura chilli squid. Taken on its own, cheerfully and considerate, I found that the beer had an earthy, orangey, mandarin nose, plus a grassiness that took me back to an early memory of primary school when the grass was cut prior to a football match and we all had grass fights and I got in trouble cause I grabbed a lad and put it down his back. Bitterness took a bow on the palate along with a decent mash up of generic spiciness, which helped to scoop up the chill; the sweetness of the seafood along with the spices were lifted by the beer, which didn’t douse the chilli but kept it within a gorgeous parabola of flavour: orange/satsuma/fieriness/bittersweetness and even a hint of macadamia nuts made this a very satisfying match.

So far so good, as it continued with the Orange Peel Beer, which yes has orange peel in it. It easily slipped into character with roast duck and orange puree, and while I thought the idea of orange and orange might turn everyone tango it did seem to work. Maybe it was the beer’s earthy marmalade oranginess providing a contrast with a more delicate orange, a bit like Laurel and Hardy — both humans but different shapes.

It didn’t all work, the Whisky Barrel Aged Bitter I thought was a work that still continued to be in progress — it was served with Montgomery Cheddar and Barkham Blue. The latter has a complexion and texture with an accompanying saltiness that was sensational on its own. Maybe given some time ripening away in a cool store the beer will be able to weave its magic in a more accomplished way (for time solves all problems).

Finally there was the pudding, Dark Chocolate Mousse and cherry compote. Served on a piece of slate — wish I’d known this was going to happen as we’ve got loads of slates down in the garden and I could have bought a few. This was a creamy mocha espresso brood of a beer, embracing and heartily slapping the creamy chocolate notes of the pudding on the back with the sweet cherry contrasting with the bitterness of the coffee beans and the earthiness of hop notes. It was a mouthful of darkness and I wasn’t frightened. There were also blackcurrant notes and a reminder of toffee infused with blackcurrant juice, chewy, luscious, kirsch like mixture at times; toast like even with blackcurrant and toffee and jam. A great match. You might like to try it sometime.

Chef Sam Moody 

Steak Wine Kilverts Beer

What does steak taste of? What does the king of meats taste of? King? Well it’s the meat that brings out the macho in men, the men who want it rose, rare or as crisp as Joan of Arc at the stake. I don’t really do steak, I prefer duck or mackerel or salade niçoise, but in the interests of work I have steak tonight. And as I sit here at a table in a hotel overlooking the Atlantic on the Lizard, I wonder about the taste of steak: there’s a sweetness, a meatiness (whatever that means), a saltiness and then there’s the texture — I had mine rare and it yielded in my mouth, supple, flexible, eager to crumble; mastication: a thoughtful few moments as I chew, break down the flesh and think about what I am tasting. It brings forth gastric juices, so maybe a steak is juicy perhaps? But then it’s nowhere as juicy as a ripe mango when the juices are as ubiquitous as a bucket of mini Stephen Frys exhorting all and sundry to do something they would rather not. And then what to drink with it? In the interest of research, I have an Australian Shiraz, plummy, spicy, tobacco box-like, cigars, it says on the wine list. Oh and berries as well. A mouthful before the food arrives — the tannins leap out, whack my mouth around its metaphorical head and then sit there squatting, evil grins on their faces. But then drunk with the steak, the flavours come forth, like a coach encouraging a runner/footballer/cricketer to do their best, a motivator, the voice in the head that says you can go faster, hit harder, never give in. And when the steak is gone the wine becomes tannic once more, oaky, woody, not so complex or as full of flavour. So what does a steak taste like? The reason I ask this question is that on Saturday night myself and Mark Dredge will be hosting a beer vs beer dinner at Kilverts in Hay on Wye, part of the beer and literature festival that Ed Davies has put on for bank holiday weekend. Pete Brown is there on Friday night hosting a beer dinner, while Mark and I are doing talks on Saturday afternoon (myself on the upcoming book Great British Pubs and Mark on hops, while Pete’s also there on Saturday as well). Mark and I have made things difficult by limiting ourselves to either light or dark beers for each course, so for instance I have chosen Orval for a stilton and shallot risotto, while Mark has chosen Rochefort 8. The second course is a tough one: sardines and ratatouille with which I have struggled but am trying Otley’s O Roger (and I am not entering any debates about whether it is a Burton, IPA or fruit beer);  Mark will be going for a Jever. But the main reason I have written about steak is that the third course is beef welling with which I have decided to drop from a great height either a Sierra Nevada Torpedo or a Goose Island IPA (Mark: Aventinus). Finally Waen’s Porter House Blue with fresh blueberries from the Anglo Welsh border added in the mash and at the end of the boil will be taking its time with the chocolate influenced pudding (Mark: Boon Kriek). It will be fun so if you are in the vicinity why not drop in, Kilverts is a great pub and if books are in your blood then Hay will soothe and flow through your views with the softest of touches. See you on Saturday. 

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.

Beerwriters’ din-dins and awards

The annual British Guild of Beer Writers awards and associated slap-up feast was held on Thursday night, featuring a wonderful pairing of beer and south Indian food, prepared by Sriram Aylur, the Michelin-starred chef at Quilon in London. Simon Jenkins was crowned Beer Writer of the Year, an excellent choice whose work can be read here, while other beneficaries included Brewers’ Guardian editor Larry Nelson, Mark Dredge and the ever chirpy Zak Avery. Oh and I won a silver in the Best Journalism in National Publications category (an award which I have won three times now); if you’re interested here are several links to the work I submitted — my DT piece on beer, an All About Beer piece on Brit craft lager (plus recommended beers here) and a review of the Sheffield Tap. The rest of the awards can be seen on Pete Brown’s blog. And if the food and pairings below whet your appetite (they were matched by Messers Brown and Avery) then don’t forget to put your name down for next year’s do when it’s announced, it sold out rather quickly this year.

British Guild of Beer Writers Menu 2010

Popadums with coriander chutney

to drink...

Jever Pilsener

Hailing from Friesland in Northern Germany, Jever is a wonderfully dry and bitter pilsner-style beer. These characteristics make it a perfect aperitif, and its herbal hop character matches well with the condiments accompanying the popadoms

Crab cakes with soya bean chop

Crab claw meat tossed with curry leaves, ginger, and green chillies and cooked on a skillet - served with minced spiced soya bean stuffed with fresh mango yoghurt

to drink...

Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat Ale

Brewed in Chicago, 312 is a lightly-hopped wheat beer. Delicacy is often a euphemism for blandness but here the lightness of touch in the beer helps lift and expand the spicing in the food, which in turn brings the beer to life

Black cod with Quilon salad

A subtly spiced baked cod served with Quilon Salad – the chef’s creation of mixed greens with pink grapefruit, patty pan dressed in lavender and kokum infusion

to drink…

Chimay Red

This Trappist ale may seem an unlikely pairing for baked fish, but there is something about the soft, berryish sweetness in the beer that marries well with the subtle spicing of the fish. A Belgian classic, repositioned by contemporary pairing

Lamb biryani with spinach porial

Lamb cooked with traditional malabar spices in a sealed pot, with basmati rice served with pachadi and a lamb sauce. Accompanied by a spinach porial of shredded fresh spinach cooked with mustard seeds, whole red chillies and freshly grated coconut

to drink...

Badger Blandford Fly 

Dorset may seem like an unlikely source for a beer to pair with lamb biryani, but the forthright ginger character of the beer, coupled with its slight sweetness, is a great foil for the richness and gentle heat of the biryani

Bibinca

A Goan speciality served warm with vanilla ice cream

to finish...

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout  

People are always taken aback by the intense, espresso-like appearance of this imperial stout, but for all its bluster, it’s a perfect dessert beer. A soft sweetness is balanced by a long bitter chocolate, mocha and vanilla finish

What to swig with jugged hare

The end of the shooting season and what better dish to celebrate it with than jugged hare, a pungent, gamey, earthy dish that my family loathe but I love and descend on from above at least once every winter. And then what beer shall be served alongside? I cracked open a Cantillon lambic, thinking of that old wine and food adage — champagne goes with everything and lambic is close enough to champagne (I have got a five-year-old bottle of Deus cooling in the cellar but I am saving it for a special occasion), so ipso facto crack open a bottle of Cantillon that I have had for at least 12 months. Its effervescence scrubbed the palate clean between mouthfuls and it was sharp and funky; they worked together but it didn’t enhance the dish, so I opened a bottle of Lost Abbey’s Ten Commandments. This was a revelation as the pepper and rosemary spice in the background melded and moulded itself around each mouthful of hare with its coating of a rich sauce slightly sweetened by the addition of homemade rowanberry jelly. If Moses had been around he would have thought ‘bugger the exodus, give me a glass’. And afterwards its old spice mellowness also worked well with the chocolate cake I’d bought half-price from the Co-op en route back from my Sunday lunchtime beers. The chocolate creaminess of the cake and the spice and warming alcohol of the beer got on famously like they’d been pals forever and I toasted the hare.

What beer writers eat

The British Guild of Beer Writers dinner was last Thursday and you can read some of the thoughts of the well-deserved winners here, here and here, but you might be interested in the beer menu of the night (complete with tasting notes), which was brought together by myself and Mark Dorber.

Black Shetland Mussels and Margate clam chowder with chilli
MEANTIME PILSNER, Greenwich
With the clam chowder the Meantime Pilsner helps to highlight the clean fennel flavours and provides a counterpoint to the cream, while bitterness and carbonation scrub up the palate nicely.


Smoked venison with goats’ cheese, fig and apple juice terrine
DUCHESSE DE BOURGOGNE, West Flanders
The venison dish is über-complex with apple juice, fig sweetness, beetroot and red wine vinegar, smoke and cheese fattiness to deal with. An immediate flavour hook of acidity is needed to tie in, cut through and contrast. The Duchesse achieves this with its intensely fruity sourness balanced by aged oaky/malty flavours and spiciness.


Slow braised rabbit leg in a roasted rabbit saddle, white beans puree and chunky chips
RINGWOOD’S OLD THUMPER, Hampshire
An expressive and classic strong pale ale with buckets of complex apple skin fruitiness and layers of rich malt flavours. It matches the succulence of the rabbit perfectly and gives us the classic game and fruit/delicious savouriness.


Baked Camembert cheese with soused black grapes and breadsticks
FULLER’S VINTAGE ALE 2005, Chiswick
This mature barley wine has marmalade malt richness and good underlying acidity to balance the high butter fat of the Camembert and some funky horse blanket/brettanomyaces acidity to add to the farmyard appeal.


Chocolate tower, walnuts, Tonka beans and caramel
FLYING DOG’S GONZO IMPERIAL PORTER, Maryland
Coffee, chocolate, cola, vanilla, plus an appetising bitterness, lifts the whole combination into a heavenly dimension.