Cheer for beer

Beer With Food Week is fast approaching ­ from 14 to 20 March ­ and with it the opportunity to generate extra income, promote your pub and raise the profile of beer. Susan Nowak and MAX GOSNEY look at different ideas on how your pub can get involved

1Invite a local newspaper reporter and photographer to your pub to sample a beer dish you have devised for the event.

Provide details of other dishes/menus/beers you'll be serving so they can publicise it before 14 March. Also consider running an advert for the event.

2 Early during Beer With Food Week get local radio/TV to do a live piece at the pub, sampling food and beer, talking to your chef, getting customers' comments ­ it will bring in custom for the final weekend.

3 Print a list of beery things you'll be doing that week and distribute it round the pub and places like tourist information centres and shops.

4Devise two or three beer dishes (including a vegetarian option) to serve alongside your normal menu, and start advertising them on the blackboard now. Or serve a different beer dish every day so diners will come back. Dish up an eclectic mix of both traditional and contemporary dishes. Go for offerings like a classic game pie flavoured with any remaining winter ale or a warm chicken and bacon salad with honey beer dressing. Give descriptions of each dish, including the beer used.

5Encourage diners to drink beer with their meals ­ both beer and non-beer dishes ­ choosing them to complement the food. By testing dishes in advance you can get "guinea pigs" to choose matching beers.

6List beers for the week on your blackboard, with tasting notes, abvs, prices, names of breweries and suggestions for accompanying food.

7Buy in bottled beers to extend your draught-ale and lager range. There is a worldwide selection, from fruit beers to smoked Alaskan; some are wine-bottle size for sharing, and many now have the brewers' food suggestions on the labels. Or go regional, linking local breweries' ales to the dishes and products of your area.

8Challenge your local butcher to make a beer sausage which you could feature with mash as one of your beer dishes for the week.

9Serve and sell items containing beer, from chutney to mustard, cheese and fruitcake.

10Host a three-course beer dinner ­ why not try a cold starter or dessert such as beer paté and fruit beer syllabub, which will make it easier.

11Put big-bowled wine glasses rather than tankards on the table, and serve jugs of draught beer or ask your supplier about getting branded beer glasses for speciality beers.

12St Patrick's Day falls on the Thursday of Beer with Food Week. Great chance for a steak and oyster pie with stout.

13Nothing is better with cheese than beer, so during the week hold a beer and cheese pairing event or offer a couple of beer-matching suggestions with your cheeseboard.

Greene King's challenge to wine

Greene King is determined to reclaim beer's place as the natural partner to food. The Suffolk brewer plans a week of promotional activity this March to challenge the ascendancy of wine on pub tables across the UK, says Greene King managing director Rooney Anand.

"It is important that, as an industry, we redress the balance and get beer back as a focal point. We are keen to join forces with anyone dedicated to putting beer back on the dining table.

"Beer With Food Week is the industry's chance to challenge the perception that good food should be accompanied by wine. With the excellent variety of food most pubs produce and the diverse range of beers stocked, now is the perfect time to let the public know about the wonderful array of tastes and flavours that can complement each other."

Pubs can register on www.beerwithfood.co.uk to be part of the campaign, and taking part is easy.

Pubs can hold events such as food and beer tastings or create new menus to highlight the different beer and food matches ­ it's that simple.

"The industry must get behind this campaign, as we need to shout about the importance of beer with food to the consumer," says Anand. "We are dedicated to getting beer back on the dining table and Beer With Food Week is the catalyst needed to increase the profile of beer within the industry and the media alike.

"The success of Greene King's specially brewed Beer To Dine For proves that members of the public are willing to try beer with food. Beer With Food Week will give licensees a platform to educate their customers and the opportunity to sample some great beer and food."

What pubs are planning

l Partnering pints with pies will be on the menu during Beer With Food Week at the Norway Inn in Perrnarworthal, near Truro in Cornwall.

Head chef Alan Poole will be offering customers tips on matching foods to various beers produced by St Austell brewery, which owns the pub.

Suggested pairings include 4.2% abv Tribute Ale with sausage & mash (£8.95); 5% abv Clouded Yellow Wheat Beer with chef's ocean pie (£9.95); 3.7% abv Tinners Cornish Ale with navarin of lamb (£10.50); 3.4% abv St Austell IPA with traditional steak pasty (£3.95); and 5% abv HSD ale with a vintage Menallack Ploughman's (£8.95).

All of the ales have been carefully selected to bring out the best flavours of their accompanying dish, according to Poole.

l Beer will be the latest alcoholic ingredient to be embraced by chefs at the Forth Inn at Aberfoyle, near Stirling, in Central Scotland, in March.

Landlord Phil Crowder, who has been freeholder at the pub for seven years, will mark Beer With Food Week with an ale-infused menu and plans a follow-up selection of dishes featuring optics from the bar.

He says: "As we are in a tourist location, I'm hoping the beer-themed menu boosts our trade during a quiet time. We've also got plans to run a menu featuring spirits and have successfully trailed a salmon dish with a 60-year-old malt as part of the sauce."

Head chef Mike Clayton's beer-inspired creations include fillet steak, served with onion marmalade, fondue of potato and an Old Speckled Hen with blue cheese sauce (£16.75) and venison served with apricot mash and a Newcastle Brown Ale jus (£12.95).

All dishes will be served with an accompanying beer, that features in their preparation.

Clayton says: "Traditionally chefs cooking with wine would serve that wine to partner the final dish. We're applying that concept with beer."

l The beer-with-food trend continues to thrive, according to Russell Allen, owner of the Fountain Hotel in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire.

The pub will celebrate Beer With Food Week with new menu additions, including Yorkshire Peculiar Bangers & Mash-am (£9.95), a dish featuring Theakston's Old Peculiar-soaked sausage and Theakston's-laced mash. The Fountain will also be listing its beef and ale pie (£8.95), made using 3.6% abv Fountain Ale supplied by the Wye Valley Brewery.

Ale-themed dishes will be promoted on the pub's specials board during Beer With Food Week and the event is likely to raise huge interest among customers according to Allen.

He says: "When diners walk in they love to see the theatre of the bar and its beer taps. We give them a free sample and recommend beer with food matches. It's a growth market."