Shepherd's pie is the nation's favourite

British Pie Week always takes place in the first week of March and, this year, it runs from Monday 5 March to Friday 9 March.

A study from Wren Kitchens (using Google's search data) found that Shepherd's Pie is the nation's favourite pie, achieving a huge 90,500 searches across the UK, on average each month over the past year. Also, Bristol was the city where the pie was most popular.

In second place was the shepherd's sister pie, the cottage pie with 74,000 average monthly searches and it was most popular in Plymouth, Devon.

Coming in third was fish pie, which had 49,500 monthly searches and the residents of Norwich particularly favoured it. 

In the lead up to British Pie Week, Mitchells & Butlers brand Vintage Inns wanted to "cham-pie-on" the classic dish by quizzing its Facebook fans to find out their pie preferences.

Savoury fillings

When given just one choice between a wide selection of savoury pie fillings including chicken, fish, steak or vegetable, the results were in favour of a traditional steak pie with a majority of more than 50%.

Almost three quarters (70%) believed it is what is on the inside that counts with the filling proving more important than the pastry.

Some 88% agreed they would mostly enjoy their pie in a pub next to a roaring fire after a long countryside walk and more than one third (36%) would rather not cook their pie at home and head straight to the local pub for it instead.

Brits also crave the gravy as almost one fifth (18%) of voters stated they would have it with every single kind of pie.

Pubs and brewers also took to social media, to highlight their pie offers.

Social side

The New Forest pub in Ashurst, Hampshire, is offering diners a choice of pies.

The pies at the Three Greyhounds in Allostock, Cheshire, are handcrafted.

The Kingfisher in Northwich, Cheshire, celebrates British Pie Week and 'Best Friend Night' this week with a buy one, get one free offer.

Butcombe Brewery paired beers with pie.