Beer's dining boom
Wine may appear to be the drink of choice when it comes to dining, but beer is in the process of reinventing itself in an effort to take top slot. Tim Hampson reports Linking beer and food isn't new. But brewers stung by falling sales and the public perception that their products are dull, down market, fattening and the chosen drink of louts want to change beer's image. Lunch still may be a swallow for many punters at the bar, and advertising and marketing of beers may be dominated by images such as the cunning lass in the Carling advertisement in which a long-tongued lad licks his way around a flat or the politically incorrect and slobbish John Smith's promotion. But beer and food is the new black. And, it is with green eyes that brewers count the column inches in national newspapers devoted to promoting wine. As Morning Advertiser columnist and editor of the Camra (Campaign for Real Ale) Good Beer Guide Roger Protz said in a recent article: "Wine has ruled the roost for too long. If more women and younger drinkers are to be attracted to beer, pubs have to get the message across that fine beers are every bit as good with food as wine." And there are good business reasons for doing this. Marston's has just launched Pedigree and Old Empire India Pale Ale in 800ml bottles for serving at a table on the back of research that finds that consumers are looking for alternatives to wine at mealtimes with more than a third of people choosing beer over wine and other drinks. Beer was the most popular drink overall, with 57% of women, and 91% of men who took part in the questionnaire saying they drank it more regularly than wine. A further 44% of women said that occasion was the main influence in their choice, while 49% of men opted for beer with dinner. In the on-trade especially, drinking is increasingly driven by occasion rather than ritual. Marston's says the rising number of people eating out at pubs in the UK, together with the improving quality of pub food, provides the ultimate opportunity for great British beer to reclaim the territory wine has dominated for years. This sentiment is supported by Rick Payne, marketing manager for Badger Ales. He says: "Matching beer with food is a great way to get more consumers to join the real-ale category as well as increase the repertoire of the traditional ale drinker. Hall & Woodhouse has matched its beers with food for all sectors of the market from traditional English dishes to modern European cuisines. "Badger ales complement a variety of food. Tanglefoot is renowned for its fruity notes, balanced with a smooth hoppiness, and [for its] biscuity flavour, with a slightly spicy finish great with meat dishes, especially the traditional Sunday roast dinner. Badger Original Ale has a malty and biscuity aroma, balanced with a subtle hop flavour. This ale goes well with meat dishes steak, pork chops, beef casserole, as well as the traditional English shepherds pie. Fursty Ferret, with its floral hop and toffee, citrus notes, perfectly complements hot spicy dishes like chilli." Hall & Woodhouse has also put together recipes that incorporate Badger Ales, these include Fursty Chilli, Blandford Thai using Blandford Fly as the main ingredient, Pappardelle with Pork and Apple Sausage using Tanglefoot ale as the main ingredient, Badger Golden Champion Salad Dressing and Fish Tempura in Blandford Fly batter. Fuller's head brewer, John Keeling, is taking the beer and food message directly into pubs. At the company's head brewer's roadshow, which tours pubs within the Fuller's estate, Keeling has been promoting the beer and food combination. His message is that it is all down to experimentation and he has been recommending that people try to develop their own beer and food combinations by starting with beer and cheese in the pub or at home. Most people would often perhaps drink wine with an after-dinner plate of cheese in a pub, but Keeling believes that beer matches cheese far better. It has advantages over wine as a lunch-time drink with food, in terms of alcoholic volume. Keeling says: "Although people have enjoyed a pint of London Pride with their steak pie in pubs for years, beer-and-food matching didn't extend much beyond this for some time and it has been a long-held misconception that wine is a perfect match with food. "However, I am of the belief that beer has the advantage over wine when it comes to accompanying food. This is chiefly because beer is made with more ingredients and so obviously carries a wider range of flavours. Also because of the lower alcohol volume, beer is far more suitable as a lunch-time drink with a meal. "At my head brewer's roadshow, at different pubs around the country, I have been encouraging attendees to experiment for themselves, starting with beer and cheese and progressing from there. We do not have a prescribed idea that one beer must go with a certain food, but are keen for our customers to discover for themselves some interesting matches. "One way we are also encouraging this is to try to look at the glassware in which we serve our beer. By making available a wider range of glassware to drink a bottle of beer from in a pub, we can begin to educate our customers about the differentiation between beers and highlight an ale as being, for example, an after-dinner drink. There are some great-tasting beers out there, which can be all the more enjoyed when combined with certain foods." John Brice is an award-winning beer writer who runs the Frog & Toad in Gillingham, Kent. And his success at running a modern but traditional beer pub is recognised by Camra, as the Frog & Toad has been the Medway Branch's Pub of the Year for the last three years. He is a great believer in not just the virtues of beer and food, but the fact that if you market them properly, it brings in the customers. John Brice says: "I run a Beer Society for the Castle Club in Rochester one of the oldest gentlemen's luncheon clubs in the country. Four times a year we sit down to a meal cooked in beer and served with beer. We also get a guest to talk about beers. All the recipes come from Sue Nowak's book. It's a great success. A lot of the members want copies of the recipes and want their wives to try them. "At the Frog & Toad we have 30 different Belgian bottled beers as well as the normal range of beers we have four real ales at any one time. Up until now we've just done monthly special suppers with a different theme Chinese, Indian, Malayan and Italian. However, the most popular have been the cooking with beer evenings. They've been so successful that we're now going to start cooking three days a week and the beer recipes will be frequently featured. "Often people are surprised that you can cook with beer. They know all about cooking with wine, but when you mention beer they look at you rather oddly. Then when they taste what can be achieved, they become converts," he says. Shepherd Neame of Faversham, Kent, has organised a series of beer dinners. Chris Gregson of Shepherd Neame says: "We held one dinner where we paired a crab and avocado starter with a Chinese-style Sunlik lager, a rich lamb casserole with Bishop's Finger strong ale, followed by a trifle with a Belgian rasp-berry beer. "It really worked. The bitter, astringent flavour of the Bishop's Finger cut through the richness of the lamb perfectly, while the acidity of the raspberry beer was just what you needed to refresh the palate after a mouthful of cheesecake." Brewing giant Interbrew, which owns such leading brands as Boddington's and Draught Bass, has also organised beer dinners. After one dinner at the Belper Arms, Newton Burgoland, Leicestershire, many of the women present said they didn't normally drink beer, and had never tried the ones on the menu, but afterwards they said they would now serve them at home. Interbrew UK's Vikki Balmer says: "We have been working with retailers to expand beer's relationship with food as a way for them to develop incremental sales and add value to the consumer's experience in outlet. Beer is perceived as less formal, more sociable, more relaxed and ref
