Yule cheer

Beer comes into its own in the festive season, says Sue Nowak, and with the many seasonal brews there's something to pair with most Christmas dishes

There's no place better than a pub at Christmas: roaring fires, beams bedecked with hops and holly, twinkling lights - and all those brilliant beers just made for yuletide festivities.

Happily for licensees, it's also an extended season.

Many pubs now serve a special Christmas menu right through December, ideal for the annual office bash and big family parties.

In my view, we brew the best Christmas and winter ales you can drink anywhere - dark, strong, spicy and feisty. This really is the time to put gorgeous bottled beers on the table for diners to share - bottles with fun labels and names like Myrrhy Christmas, Mincespired, Cold Turkey, Santa's Wobble, Rosy Nosey,

Bah Humbug, Wassale and - my all-time favourite - Rudolph the Red Nose Rein Beer.

If you're serving an aperitif, instead of sparkling wine why not go for a flute of well-chilled spritzy raspberry beer? Wonderful with a few canapés. Or revive mine host's great tradition of mulled ale, and hand round hot chestnuts with a Christmas beer glaze.

A light starter such as cold smoked salmon with blinis can be beautifully set off by very cold wheat beer, a slice of lemon on the rim of the glass. Or the creamy sweetness and fuller flavour of a yuletide soup like chestnut with Stilton could be enhanced by a honey beer.

Classic Christmas beers, fragrant with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves, really are the spirit of Christmas. These are big, full-bodied beers, often with abvs of 7% or 8%, making them a match for rich main courses from turkey with stuffing to roast goose, rib of beef, or golden crusted pies crammed with game and pickled walnuts.

Choosing your Christmas beers

But other beers can equally grace the festive board. With turkey you might enjoy a winey, slightly sour cherry beer such as Liefman's from Belgium, looking the part in its red tissue wrapping, and cutting across any greasiness.

For such a big occasion, a giant, wire-corked bottle of one of the Trappist greats, Chimay Blue (also known as Grande Reserve) at 9% abv would be fulsome. Serve it in big-bowled wine glasses.

Roast beef is still the choice of many,

especially in the run-up to Christmas. For a special occasion get a succulent joint of forerib and flavour the Yorkshire puddings with a touch of grated horseradish. Then serve with a Yorkshire bitter: Theakston Old Peculier, dark, complex and a robust 5.7% abv, would be my choice.

Proper ginger beer is the drink for roast pheasant breasts with date and walnut stuffing. O'Hanlon's award-winning Port Stout, full of roast malt flavour and real port, is perfect for venison with cranberries and wild mushrooms. And O'Hanlon's now also brews one of the world's classic bottled beers, Thomas

Hardy Ale, formerly produced by Eldridge Pope, and an absolute must for the cheese board or post-prandial tipple.

For the pudding course, use some beer in the preparation. Dried fruit steeped in barley wine for 48 hours does wonders for Christmas pudding mix (some breweries sell puds containing their beer), or stir a drop of that Christmas ale into luxury mincemeat for open mince tarts served with a dollop of liqueur cream.