A beer for all seasonings

If you want to be ambitious and treat your diners to some fabulous flavour combinations between 2 and 8 April, then the sky's the limit with the stupendous range of beers now available.

If your regulars drink ale in the bar but order a bottle of wine with their meal, Beer With Food Week - organised by the Morning Advertiser and sponsored by Greene King - is a chance to blow their socks off by showing them that the hop is sexier than the grape.

It certainly offers greater scope. From intense fruit beers to complex Belgian Trappist beers, roasty porters to India Pale Ales, floral bitters to powerful barley wines and new ingredients like elderflower, honey, ginger, lemon grass and even seaweed, beer can enhance every course.

So why not choose some conversation-piece beers to harmonise with interesting dishes, or create some new specials designed to go with beer?

Beginning with starters, even soup can find a perfect match. A delicate pea and mint soup matched by a flute of well-chilled sparkling raspberry beer, such as Liefman's Framboise from Belgium, is a winner - and the wire-corked, tissue-wrapped bottle has a great table presence.

I recently wowed supper guests with a cold beetroot soup accompanied by another Belgian fruit beer, cherry (kriek). The deep ruby colour and sweetness in the bowl was echoed in the glass.

A simple but sophisticated starter of blinis topped by cream cheese and smoked salmon or asparagus is perfect with a spritzy, citrussy wheat beer.

We all know that beer is better than wine with spicy food, but there are more choices than lager with a vindaloo. A traditional India Pale Ale, as the name suggests, is a match for a curry, strong and highly hopped with a long, dry follow through.

With subtler Eastern flavours such as Thai fish cakes, Malaysian or Chinese dishes, echo the spices with a real ginger beer. Several are now being produced, Salopian Gingersnap and Badger's Blandford Fly included - or St Peter's brewery's Lemon & Ginger Beer.

Honey beer is among the best of the innovations. Try glazing guinea fowl breasts with honey and serving on caramelised root vegetables accompanied by Young's Waggledance or Fuller's Organic Honey Dew. Use the pan juices and a little of the beer to make a gravy.

Neither beer is cloying, both have more hops than honey, and also go well with chicken and

rabbit. Wrap chicken breasts in pancetta and serve on a creamy honey and mustard sauce, or individual rabbit and chestnut pies accompanied by grain-mustard mash.

Game is made for beer

Game is surely made for beer. Serve half a roast pheasant with small roast English apples, and pour a glass of lilting Fraoch heather beer, its

floral flavour coming from heather blooms.

And anything red wine can do for venison, beer can do better. A venison steak with wild mushrooms finds a match in one of the big Belgian Trappist beers such as Chimay, or stay British with O'Hanlon's Original Port Stout which has Ferreira Port added prior to bottle conditioning. With rich, fruity, vinous flavours, it is just right.

Duck goes with cherries, but instead of putting it in a cherry sauce put a crisp-skinned duck breast on the plate, and a cherry beer in the glass.

Lamb shanks seem to be on every menu, so give them a new twist by partnering with an intense raspberry beer, such as Lindemans, bringing out the sweetness of the meat. Or set individual gigots of lamb on a raspberry beer sauce, then to drink go for a dark, malty beer such as Theakston Old Peculiar.

Consider having a themed meal during Beer With Food Week. You could serve Belgian dishes like a big bowl of fresh mussels with frites, and a glass of chilled wheat beer, then the classic carbonnade of beef simmered in a dark Belgian beer, with some in the glass, perhaps a Trappist Westmalle or Leffe Brune.

Wow them with some oompah

Wow them with some of the oompah of Bavaria. Serve a plate of deli meats with rye bread and a dark German lager or bock. Or how about hot frankfurters on mash with a dollop of sauerkraut and a Bavarian wheat beer such as Schneider Weisse or clean pale pilsner like Lowenbrau?

For the pudding course there are pudding beers. A rich dark chocolate torte and glass of cherry beer is a marriage made in heaven, or complement the chocolate flavour with Young's Double Chocolate Stout or a porter with roast chocolate and coffee malt. Crème brûlée finds a champion in St Austell's bottle-conditioned Clouded Yellow, with its vanilla and banana flavours.

With the cheeseboard, beer simply has more to offer than wine. A soft goat's cheese and sparkling raspberry beer are as sensuous as raspberries and cream. The big flavour of mature cheddar is beautifully partnered by an India Pale Ale, in particular bottle-conditioned White Shield, while a rich blue cheese, be it a big Stilton, Gorgonzola or Roquefort, needs a strong, complex beer such as a barley wine, perhaps Robinson's Old Tom or Gale's Prize Old Ale in a red-wax-sealed bottle.

And when you serve fine beer with fine food, do it with panache. Use wine glasses and shot glasses instead of beer mugs and bring the beer to table either in the bottle - many beers are now available in big, champagne-style wire-corked bottles ideal for sharing - or draught beers in a large jug.

Coming soon

Camra's new Good Pub Food guide by Susan Nowak and Jill Adam, published on March 27, contains beer recipes and tips on pairing beer with food.

Countdown to the big week

l Plan your beer and food matches. Source and order any special beers you want to use.

l Make sure you have enough appropriate glasses and plan other table decorations, such as hops; ask brewers of specialist beers for info leaflets and beer mats.

l Book any experts you need - such as a local brewer or Campaign for Real Ale speaker - to give a tutored tasting of beers accompanying dishes.

l Print out menus describing dishes and beer suggestions with a tasting note. Give away recipes for some of the dishes.

l For more ideas visit www.morningadvertiser.co.uk

Coming soon

Camra's new Good Pub Food guide by Susan Nowak and Jill Adam is published on 27 March, and contains beer recipes and tips on pairing beer with food.