LIKE GARLIC bread, wheat beer is looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion by those who believe the Europeans are trying to bring us down from within with their strange continental ways.
However, Pub Food will have no truck with xenophobes, and so this month we asked our beer and food matching panel to exercise their gastronomic grey matter on the subject of which dish they would serve with a wheat beer.
Ben Bartlett, catering development manager, Marston's Pub Company: Wheat beers have a unique yeasty tartness and suit fresh fish and shellfish. Prawns, crab, oysters, crawfish and lobster all partner a beer such as German Erdinger Weißbier 5.3% alc.vol. This top fermented beer has a large amount of wheatmalt, some barleymalt, hops and yeast. It is brewed in strict accordance with the Bavarian purity law dating from 1516, the oldest law governing foodstuffs anywhere is the world.
It is important to serve this beer correctly. Special tall wheat beer glasses allow room for the foam or 'head'. Rinse the glass in cold water, shake and drain it, hold the glass at a 45° angle and slowly pour the beer. Leave some beer in the bottle and wind it to get all the yeast in suspension and then top up your glass. Prost!
Paul Drye, catering development manager with St Austell Brewery, was incredibly busy opening a new pub, so his wife Angela stepped into the breach with a recommendation. Try making a lovely shepherd's pie using Cornish minced spring lamb, season with a great abundance of fresh parsley and thyme, topped with buttery mashed Cornish potatoes and wash this down with a glass of Clouded Yellow from St Austell Brewery 4.8% abv .
An award winning, quite unique wheat beer, Clouded Yellow derives its name from a migrant butterfly found visiting the UK during the summer months - the herby flavours of the beer complement the fresh herbs used in the shepherd's pie - a great hot dish for outdoors! Angela pp Paul - currently multitasking by opening one a new pub in Mevagissey and sorting the menu out on the Scillies, thereby miraculously creating an eight day week. Thanks, Angela!
John Keeling, Fuller's Head Brewer: Wheat beers are quite versatile and can be matched to a variety of foods. I'd suggest trying them with fatty meats such as salami, some oily fish dishes and also chicken.
Richard Fox, chef and broadcaster: From a gastronomic perspective, I prefer the Belgian wheat beers as they tend to have coriander and curacao orange peel amongst their ingredients. As such they're fabulous with all manner of fish dishes from a simple baked sea bass to a Malaysian Laksa or Thai green curry.
The citrus flavours in the former two dishes such as lemon grass and kiffir line leaf along with coriander match perfectly with the beer while its light fresh effervescence cleanse the palate - making every mouthful as fresh and vibrant as the first taste. For a true artisan wheat beer try and get hold of Watou from a speciality beer supplier. www.foxfoodandbeer.co.uk/
Rupert Ponsonby, Beer Academy: The addition of wheat (normally 25-50%) to a barley beer, and the use of those canny wheat beer yeasts, seems to make wheat beers lighter, sweeter and more fragrant.
German wheat beers tend to be fuller and sweeter. The 5% abv versions - such as Schneider Weiss - are sweety floral and honeyed, and fab with sweeter foods such as salads, humus, sweet peppers, fish pate, salmon, chicken and in particular pork; whereas the 6.5%+ abv wheats such as Schneider's Aventinus ooze with ripe banana and clove flavours, wonderful with gammon and sweet puddings.
Belgian's lighter style of wheat beers, often with orange peel and coriander as epitomised by Hoegaarden or Celis White, are great with guacamole, mussels, whelks, fish terrines and salads.
Dutch style wheat beers, such the new flip-top Grolsch Weiss, seem to sit happily between both those styles, and have the body to reach beyond salads and fish to include new territory such as oysters or fish curries as well; but be careful to serve them very well chilled
Melissa Cole, beer writer: My first experience of a wheat beer was when it was served to a sceptical me about 10 years ago with sushi, at the time another first, and I haven't looked back since; so with the summer approaching and, at the time of writing, the England cricket team doing well your attention could turn to al fresco dining and light refreshment in the form of the filtered wheat beers like Sierra Nevada's Crystal Wheat.
The clearer wheat beers can be deliciously refreshing and citrus and to match them I still don't think you can't beat pan-Asian cuisine such as with sushi, sashimi or a vibrant Thai salmon salad with a tongue-tingling sweet/sour/salty/spicy dressing, with crunchy slivers of carrot, beansprouts, sugar snap peas and pea shoots.
But if we're looking at the colder days - such as the recent test at Headingley where I could be found freezing various extremities off - I would opt for the deeper, sweeter, heartier hefe with something like a slow-cooked shoulder of pork in milk.
This Italian favourite - which is flavoured with cinnamon, sage, rosemary, garlic and lemon peel - should be served with the crispiest of saute potatoes and a big helping of curly kale.
The aromatics in the pork will really complement the clove and orange characteristics of most hefes whilst the honest, earthy flavours of the potatoes and kale will dampen the often overwhelmingly sweet bubblegum notes in hefes and stop it from becoming too cloying.
Next month: What's gorgeous with golden ale?