Beer and food: Ale and arty fare

Thwaites licensees get creative with beer-based recipes.

One of the most enthusiatic promoters of the beer and food opportunity is Blackburn-based brewer Daniel Thwaites, which for the past couple of years, has encouraged its licensees to experiment with its diverse range of beers.

Last year it ran a competition for pubs in both its managed and tenanted estates to come up with ways beer could be used in the menu. Now, using the recipes people sent in, Thwaites catering development manager Judi Houghton has put together a recipe book (pictured). "All our pub managers will be given a copy and we're thinking about selling it to the public too," says Judi.

"All the recipes - even the desserts -- have got beer in them and, hopefully, it will bring our brands to the front of people's minds. We already do beer and food matching cards for pubs which tell people which beers go well with which foods."

Tracy Banks of the Boatyard in Hoghton, Lancashire, is one of the licensees who had recipes included in the book. "We always try to have something with beer on the specials board," she says. "At the moment we've got homemade mulled ale plum crumble using a Lancashire strong brown ale, and that's proving very popular. We've also had a Thwaites' steak and ale pie and we do our fresh fish of the day coated in chef's own beer batter."

Having a varied range of beers helps when you are matching. "We have Thwaites Thoroughbred as a guest beer at the moment," says Tracy, "and we're recommending that with beef and carved meats. We also have a weisse beer which is often drunk with our spicy food. It's a nice fruity beer, and we recommend it with a nice hot chilli.

"Doing food with beer has been a way to increase sales to women in particular," she continues. "We use nicely shaped half-pint glasses which are a bit more elegant than a pint glass, and we find women prefer those. We try to have weekly meetings, training sessions or a tasting to train our staff in selling beer with food."

Another Thwaites licensee who is exploiting beer with food is Kay Duckworth of the Wheatsheaf in Ness, Cheshire.

"Most of the dishes we serve in the pub are homemade," she says. "At the moment we're doing Hell's Chicken, which is chicken breast stuffed with brie, wrapped in smoked bacon and topped with sweet chilli and a sauce made from Kaltenberg Hell premium lager. We're also doing a Liberation Lamb, which features Thwaites' Liberation Ale sauce.

"It's about trying to use our beers and get them onto the specials boards, and getting customers to talk about them. It raises interest in the ales when they see them on the menu. They say 'Oh, what's Liberation Ale?' or ask what Kaltenberg Hell is. It certainly helps create an awareness of what other beers we have.

"We also have beer and food guides on all the tables featuring the beers we do and what kinds of food they go well with."

Recipe idea​

Using beer as an ingredient in your cooking - and making sure you shout about it on the menu, is a great way of planting the beer with food idea in your customers' minds - as well as delivering a tasty dish. Ask your brewer or beer supplier for recipe ideas. Meanwhile, here's one from Scottish & Newcastle.

Prawns in crispy beer batter​

Serves six

Ingredients

• 150g plain flour for batter
• 4 tbsp plain flour for coating
• 300ml Kronenbourg Blanc
• 2 tsps paprika
• dash Tabasco
• dash balsamic vinegar
• salt & pepper

Method​

Peel prawns leaving tails intact. Split backs and de-vein.

Tip 150g of flour and paprika into a large mixing bowl, makea well in centre and gradually beat in the beer, Tabasco and vinegar until you have a smooth batterCoat prawns with remaining flour seasoned with salt and pepper

Dip prawns in the batter and deep fry in batches for two to three minutes

Drain well on kitchen paper before serving.

Beer pays chocs a complement​

• King Cobra:​ a secondary fermentation in the bottle gives this strong lager extra body and fruitiness plus a spritziness on the tongue
• Valrhona Caraibe:​ a 66 per cent cocoa dark chocolate blended from Caribbean beans and fermented for six days before sun drying. Its flavours include dried berry fruits, almonds and fresh hay
• Valrhona Guanaja:​ a 70 per cent cocoa aromatic choc from South America. Intense, fruity, floral and slightly dry with liquorice notes and a long finish.

If you want to scare a sommelier, just say chocolate. The delicious delicacy is a devil to match with wine - and it's one challenge where beer has definitely got a head start.

The obvious matches are with a stout or porter, which use highly roasted "chocolate" malts in their brewing.

Alternatively, a fruit beer such as kriek or framboise, as well as providing familiar flavour combinations, has the acidity to cut through the creaminess of the choc.

But lager? There were a few raised eyebrows and even a couple of "yucks" when Cobra announced it would be celebrating Valentine's Day by matching its new King Cobra bottle conditioned lager with posh chocolates from Valrhona at a party on the London Eye. But somehow it worked.

"I found the beer accentuated the flavour of the chocolate which just made the chocolate taste even better - not what people would expect," said Russell Hind of The Chocolate Society.

George Philliskirk, chief executive of the Beer Academy, went into a little more detail. "The warming effect of the eight per cent alcohol in King Cobra complements the rich, smooth texture of the Valrhona. The dryness of the beer - all the carbohydrate is fermented out in the secondary fermentation - and the hop bitterness complement perfectly the slight bitterness of a top-quality chocolate.

Get a touch of glass​

As with so many things in life, success in linking beer and food is all about using the right tool for the job. As a marketing strategy "straight glass or jug?" simply won't cut the ice any more.

Many brewers now offer branded glassware. For the most part, these are variations on the pint glass theme.

Beautiful Beer, the industry initiative which aims to encourage drinkers to choose beer on more occasions, has felt the need to develop a stylish stemmed glass, etched with the campaign logo. These glasses are ideal for diners sharing a large bottle of beer with a meal, or for those who prefer a more elegant drinking vessel to sup their ale.

There's no doubt that glassware is an important factor in persuading more women to order beer and Beautiful Beer's research also says that many men choose wine when they're out for a meal simply because the light of their life won't drink beer.

To help pubs reshape such attitudes, we have two six-glass sets of Beautiful Beer glasses to give away.

To get your name in the hat to win a set, send a postcard with your pub name and address to Beautiful Beer Offer, John Porter, The Publican, Ludgate House, 245 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 9UY, or email pubfood@thepublican.com.

Closing date for entries is March 6, 2006.