Beer with food

A post on Zythophile's blog about someone brewing Belgian ales that go with Japanese dishes got me thinking about beer and food pairing.

The idea of matching beer with food always reminds me of Andy Capp in the famous Geordie comic strip saying to his long-suffering wife Flo, "How many times do I have to tell you? Pale ale with fish, brown ale with meat!"  You can overdo it of course, but there are foods that go particularly well with beer. A pint of bitter and a pork pie is my own favourite, closely followed by a pint of mild and a cheese and onion bap. 

Graham Greene in the memoir of A Sort of Life describes the simple pleasure of stopping at an inn for bread and cheese and a glass of bitter. The supper of kidneys, toasted cheese and milk stout that Captain Mainwaring, Sergeant Wilson and Corporal Jones enjoy in Dad's Army looks pretty appetising too.

Tsar? Da!

I opened a bottle of Russian Imperial Stout which I won at a Stockport CAMRA do earlier.

Tsar from the Buxton Brewery is more brown than black, despite what the photo below looks like. Most stouts have a coffeeish aftertaste; Tsar has it in spades in the aroma and up front when you take the first sip. It also drinks a lot lighter than its 9.5% strength.

It's quite ironic that a Derbyshire brewery is brewing a Russian Imperial Stout - Thornbridge in Bakewell also brew one - given that strong London porters really broke into the Baltic market in the 1820's after tariffs ended the export of Burton ale to St Petersburg.

Around and around

Two CAMRA publications dropped through my letter box this morning, Beer magazine and What's Brewing?

Between them they've got pages and pages of letters and articles on the key questions facing beer drinkers: can multinational companies brew craft beer, why doesn't everyone like Wetherspoon's and why can't CAMRA promote Guinness?*

These debates are endless because no conclusion is possible. With craft beer, it's like the bit in Alice Through the Looking-Glass where Humpty Dumpty says "When I use a word,it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."; with Wetherspoon's and Guinness it's a question of personal preference.

* The answers are: there's no such thing; because most of them are soulless barns full of geriatric alcoholics; it's keg.

Elland first in land

I'm pleased to see that Elland 1872 Porter has been chosen as the CAMRA Champion Winter Beer of Britain at the National Winter Ales Festival which began today in Manchester.

1872 Porter from the Elland Brewery in West Yorkshire is a beer I've drunk many times, both at beer festivals and in pubs. It's got a lovely, liquoricey bitterness to it that really goes with the more roasty flavours you associate with stout. And at 6.5% you certainly know when you've had a few pints of it.

Buddy cheek

Anheuser-Busch InBev have lost their legal bid to stop the Czech brewery Budvar using the name Budweiser in the UK with the Supreme Court ruling that Budvar can continue using the name here alongside AB-InBev's beer (in the US, they have to sell it as Czechvar).

I think the best word to describe AB-InBev's legal attempts to stop Budvar using the name Budweiser is chutzpah. Front, nerve and brass neck too. Budweiser means "from Budweis", the German name for České Budějovice, the Bohemian city where beer has been brewed since the 13th century.  Adolph Busch started brewing his Budweiser beer in St Louis in 1876.

It's not as if anyone is going to confuse the two, certainly not if they drink them.

1863 and all that

The London Underground is celebrating its 150th birthday this month. The Football Association is also preparing to mark the 150th anniversary of its first meeting in October 1863.

More important than either of these two though is another milestone: 1863 is when Hydes started brewing in Manchester. They now brew a beer called 1863 that they claim is a bitter but I'm pretty sure is a rebadged light mild. I'm going to one of Hydes' flagship pubs at the weekend and will raise a pint to toast their birthday.

Manchester, so much to answer for

People in areas of North Manchester and Salford are now living in "extreme poverty" according to a new report.

Harpurhey in North Manchester and Langworthy in Salford are amongst the country's most deprived wards in terms of joblessness, income and crime. The report's recommendations - free public transport for the unemployed, more help with food and energy costs and a living wage - are all fine as far as they go but poverty in Manchester and Salford has structural roots as well.

The truth is that nothing has replaced the engineering factories and docks that closed down here in the 70's and 80's. You can see that if you walk round some of these areas and look at the boarded up houses, shops and pubs. The only long-term answer is for the Government to invest in jobs and housing.