The new menu was revealed to food and drink journalists and bloggers at the group’s Exmouth Arms site in Euston earlier this week and aims to encourage customers to try more beer varieties.
Pub Love’s new menu follows the reveal of its partnership with delivery firm Deliveroo, covered by The Morning Advertiser earlier in the year.
Burger and beer pairings on the menu include the Farmyard with red ale, the Juicy Bastard with an IPA, the Chef’s Burger with a porter, and the Fish & Chips burger with a real ale.
Founder and boss
Founder and boss of the six-site pub group, which focuses on hostels, beer and food, Ben Stackhouse, said: “This is the first of the six menus where we have paired burgers with a beer style. The pairings are our opinion and you can disagree with that.”
Advice on pairing was given by ‘beer peddler’ Rob Young from specialist beer distributor Cave Direct.
He said: “Beer and food pairing have become a really big thing. It’s quite an interesting one to look at because beer is more complex than wine. It has four ingredients, rather than the two that are in wine.
There are sweet, dry, juicy and many other flavours in beer that aren’t often there in wine, Young added.
No right or wrong answer
“When matching beer and food the thing you do is either compare flavours or contrast them, but there’s no right or wrong answer, it’s really down to your opinion.
However, Young set out some basic rules to think about before setting up a beer and food pairing menu.
He said: “Wheat beers often go with fish, ales and hoppy beers go with cheese and red ales tend to go with pulled pork.
“Today, the porter has been matched with the Chef’s Burger, which has dried beef in it. There are flavours in the burger that will go together, because there’s a stout in the burger.”