Golden ale as a beer style had a few of our panel scratching their heads initially when we asked them to come up with a dish to match. We could do no better than cite some of the recent Champion Beer of Britain finalists in the Campaign for Real Ale's golden ale category, great beers such two-time winner Crouch Vale Brewers Gold and 2006 runner-up Hop Back Summer Lightning. We're talking hoppy, refreshing beers, and once we'd clarified that our panel went to town.
Phil Vickery, chef and broadcaster: Golden ales to me are primarily summer thirst quenchers, so with a lower alcohol level, say 3.5 -3.8, this also makes then quite easy to match with light easy relaxed summer food. A lot are sold as summer ales also, and aren't too far away from the light lager matchings.
For me, gutsy salads with a bit of kick are perfect. Smoked chicken and smoked bacon with avocado and seed mustard dressing. Roasted elephant garlic with a touch of chilli (Colin Boswells Isle Of Wight) with tons of olive oil on toasted Ciabatta is a great light bite. Then puds, apples I think work well with golden ales, deep filled apple and burnt caramel pie with clotted cream round off a great evening.
- Phil's new book, Britain The Cookbook, is published in September by Mitchell Beazely, price £20.
Rupert Ponsonby, Beer Academy: I find the golden ale category a bit hard to define - a beer like Hop Back Summer Lightning while others are fuller-flavoured. With a hoppy beer, I would pair traditional pub foods such as pork pies, ploughman's lunches, salads, pates and terrines. They would also hum a treat with pork, chicken and chicken pies, Thai foods or leaner steaks such as fillet or rump.
John Keeling, Fuller's head brewer: A beer like Fuller's Discovery is great with light summer dishes - salads and pasta, as it doesn't overpower the food and is really refreshing.
Paul Drye, catering development manager, St Austell Brewery: Golden Ale; to my mind, just shouts summer! and alfresco dining suits this beer down to the ground with seafood topping my list. Try barbequing some large black tiger prawns brushed with sweet chilli sauce and serve with a squeeze of lemon. Or, for the Great British Picnic, make up some smoked mackerel paté and heap this onto some oatcakes with a dab of gooseberry sauce. One of the best golden ales you can get has got to be Golden Valley 4.2% abv from the Breconshire Brewery - with a few of these in your cool box, your balmy summer's day is complete
Ben Bartlett, Catering Development Manager, Marston's Pub Company: The Americans call golden ale 'blonde ale' and it often has a citrus spice. If the marketing was bought up to date it could compete with the large summer lager market. On holiday in Spain with no shoot of a real ale to go with my paella I craved Jennings fabulous refreshing 4% Tom Fool golden amber ale brewed to commemorate the ghost of Thomas Skelton, the fool of Muncaster Castle in the Lake District that has all the characteristics of a light mild and more flavour and tang than a tasteless cerveza.
Melissa Cole, beer writer: Light and hoppy, best served quite chilled and unfeasibly refreshing - golden ales are my summer drink, they are like liquid sunshine. And because of this they complement summer food beautifully - particularly when it comes to kitsch classics; lemon, honey & mustard drumsticks straight from the BBQ, Coronation chicken and prawn cocktail all go fantastically with these golden glories - but there is also so much more scope for them food-wise than this rather unimmaginative stuff.
I think golden ales are the ideal aperitif - I often like to serve them super-chilled in a champagne glass as their intensely hoppy nature gets the palette going beautifully - especially such hop monsters as the legendary HopBack Summer Lightning or the lesser-known, but equally fabulous, Beowulf Mercian Shine.
Or, if you want to pair them with some exciting food, how about a sumptuous John Dory stuffed with aromatic rosemary, garlic and lime and roasted until the skin is crispy and flesh is flaky and to round off a meal how about knocking up a classic key lime pie? Golden ales with their blaring hops and tingly carbonation will be more than equipped to cope with this lusty finish to a fine meal.