Beer and Cheese and Cheese and Beer

Beer and cheese are perfect bedfellows. This is one of those truths that people scoff at until they actually test the proposition, and then they crumple and weep at the realisation that everything they know is wrong.

I could carry on in this vein for another thousand words, but have a look at this "Cheese Wars" video. If you're a frequent visitor to our humble retail operation, then you'll realise that what we're offering doesn't quite match the structured grandeur of a tasting hosted by the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Companion to Beer. But we are offering a few small glasses of beer to match with some nice cheeses. It's might not be the moon on the stick, but it's a start.

It's hosted by Leigh of The Good Stuff. Ghost Drinker might float in and out. Juffage might give us a song. All this and more could be yours, for the princely sum of no pounds. So pop along, why don't you?

Sweet Treats and Beer

A huge thanks to Leigh of The Good Stuff for his sterling baking odyssey that resulted in some stellar baked goods for our beer and food matching evening. Words can't do justice to how great the matches were, but here goes:

Baked Vanilla Cheesecake with Oakham Hawse Buckler or Summer Wine Teleporter

If there is anything that will convert a sceptic to the cause of beer and food matching, it's this pairing. Rich creamy cheesecake against bittersweet roasted flavours. Exceptional.

Banana and Fudge Bread with Maisels Dunkel or Erdinger Dunkel

This was the pairing that I was the most sceptical of, but as it turns out, I don't in fact know everything. The match of spice, malt and banana in both was a winner, and ,ike a high tea for grown ups, the absorbency of the bred against the fluffy texture of the weissebier was revelatory.

Chocolate Brownie with Mort Subite Kriek or Timmermans Framboise

What's not to like? Rich dark chocolate, set off against a sweetly fruity backdrop, with the bitterness of the brownie and the faintly wild notes of the beers keeping everything lively on the palate. Cracking stuff.

If you came along, please let us know what you thought. If you didn't, shame on you! If you're not in Leeds, and you can bake, why not get in touch with your local bottle shop and suggest something similar? It's fun!


Women! Men! Beer! Cake!


Leigh issues careful instructions: "YOU! CAKE! NOW!"


Jeff, hard at work, clearly looks annoyed that someone wants some of 'his' cakes.

We All Love Beer And We All Love Beer

This is going to be a great year for beer in Leeds. As Sweary Matt points out on his blog, it's North Bar's 15th birthday this year (it's nearly old enough to drink!), the Leeds beer scene is going from strength to strength, and we're hosting the European Beer Bloggers Conference. If you live in Leeds, it would be really easy to look forward to a great year of beer, to put your feet up at home with selection of fine beers purchased from a local independent retailer, or prop up the bar of one of Leeds' fine drinking establishments, and just congratulate yourself. But you know what, let's not do that just yet.

We're beer bloggers, and we blog about beer because we love it in all its myriad glory. We have our own ranking system run by Wikio/ebuzzing, we're a happy community of like-minded souls, and we're a splendid group of people. But something that's been levelled at the beer blogging community is that it's a bit insular - it talks to the converted rather than recruiting new drinkers to the cause. So given that the conference in May is going to be great - we'll take that as read - why don't we try and broaden the scope of the attendee list a bit?

I've been chatting to Leigh at The Good Stuff, and over the next few months, Leigh has agreed to host/organise/curate a series of beer and food tastings at Beer-Ritz in Headingley, Leeds (disclosure - that's my business). The idea behind this is specifically to try and recruit some of the excellent West Yorkshire foodie bloggers to the conference, and also generally to promote beer and/or beer and food together. Leigh is kicking off on Monday 6th February with an evening of baking and beer. I'm sure that Leigh will follow up at some point with more detail, but the poster (designed and executed by Ghost Drinker) tells you all you need to know - come along between 6 and 9pm, and have some baked sweet treats and a mouthful of beer to wash them down. Please do come along, and if you can bring one of our foodie blogging brethren or sistren, so much the better.

FABPOW: Chicken, Chorizo and White Beans with Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale

FABPOW stands for 'Food and Beer Pairing of the Week", as coined by Mark at Pencil & Spoon. It's a nice format, and Mark has the courage to publish his misses as well as his hits, although I've yet to be convinced enough by Rochefort 8 and spaghetti bolognese to actually try it.

I've not written much about food and beer lately, but this was such a great match that I had to. As you can tell from the previous couple of posts, a shipment of beers from Stone Brewing has landed recently, so there's quite a bit of it about (if you look for it, that is). Arrogant Bastard Ale (7.2%abv) is one of those beers that really ticks all the boxes for me - strong, full malt profile, very well hopped, but still slightly sweeter than it is bitter. In fact, here's what I said about it in "500 Beers":

"The air is filled with the bristling aroma of a million zesty, peppery hops drowning in a sea of honeyed caramel, as a wave of Demerara sugar, tropical fruit and more bitter, resinous hops crash onto your palate. What did you expect from a beer with this sort of name? Magnificently uncompromising"

Great, eh?

If I'd stopped and thought about it, I'd have figured out that it would go well with a big, hearty tomato-based stew. As it turns out, this was a happy accident. If you can't get Arrogant Bastard, you could use, err, no, I can't think of a good substitute, sorry. But anyway, this is great one-pot comfort food for dark, wet evenings.

Chicken, Chorizo & White Bean Stew (Serves 2, with leftovers)

Finely chop a medium onion, fry in olive oil for 5 minutes
Smash and chop a clove of garlic, and add to the pan and fry for 2 minutes.
Slice about 10cm of thin chorizo into 20 slices (i.e. about 5mm each). Add to the pan and fry for 5 minutes.
Add chicken - either a couple of small diced breasts, or 4 whole or boned thighs.
Add a sprig of rosemary.
Add a tin of chopped tomatoes.
Simmer until the chicken is done.
Add a tin of drained butter beans, mix and warm through.

Serve with crusty bread and butter, and a large glass of Arrogant Bastard Ale per person.

Jamie's Italian, Leeds.

Look, I know it's not a fashionable opinion, but I like Jamie Oliver's media persona. I think he's a good cook, genuinely curious about food, and has his heart in the right place. So bear with me, there is a beery theme to this post, but it comes a bit further on.

We went out for lunch today, to Jamie's Italian in Leeds, and with a 20 month old nipper in tow, you get used to eating a bit early - say, midday. He likes to have a nap early afternoon, and so we can either (a) eat while he's asleep or (b) lounge around reading the papers while he's asleep. Needless to say, (b) usually wins, and being of Spanish descent, I'm quite militant about taking well-behaved kids to restaurants. We got there just after midday, and we were about the fifth young-childed family into the place. Hey, they have high chairs, so that means they welcome families. Just for the record, a few weeks ago, we went to North Bar while he was asleep in his pushchair. As parents, we know what's appropriate.

Overall, the food was pretty good. There were a few minor blips, and service was a tad slow, but I'd happily go back. The main surprise came when the starters were cleared and we were asked if we wanted more drinks with our main course. I asked what beers they had, and was told "We have Stella and mwahmwahmwah". Not recognising the second, I asked the waitress to repeat what they had. "We have Stella and mwahmwahmwah. Oh, and we also have a bottled real ale". Ignoring what mwahmwahmwah might actually be (I saw it being carried around, but didn't recognise it), I said "Great, I'll have a real ale". I didn't even ask what it was - I was just so delighted that they had some real ale in a bottle that I plumped for it. Well, you have to send the right message, don't you?

I had plenty of time to speculate about what it might be - there was a slightly-too-long fifteen minute gap between starter and main, which with a toddler may as well have been a week. Might it be a celebrity beer brand? A local classic? A modern icon? Surely it wouldn't actually be, like, proper bottle-conditioned beer? But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is our waitress, and our beer is.... Cropton Yorkshire Warrior.

I hadn't tried this previously, and to be honest, I don't mind it. It's an ordinary brown beer par excellence. In fact, an OBB deluxe - it had a lovely full-bodied nutty character that I really enjoyed. But crucially, it didn't do anything for the food we were eating. And I'm not sure it would have done anything for any of the dishes on the menu. And I'm not sure which part of the restaurant's demographic it was aimed at. In short, it was a great gesture at putting a locally-sourced quality product on the menu, but one that fell a bit short of actually delivering. For my money, a better bet might have been one of the low %abv golden ales from Ilkley Brewery - beers that are both accessible to the real ale fans, and would also compliment almost any food you care to name.

But still, it was great to find someone in a chain restaurant saying the words "bottled real ale". File under: "the revolution continues"

Now Drinking: Daas Ambré

I've got a vague mistrust of organic beers. It always seem to me that their flavours are somehow compromised by their reliance on organic ingredients*. And it's not just me - this article about birds preferring non-organic food to organic is food for thought.

I've tried the two other beers in Daas range (Blonde (6.5%abv), and Witte (5%abv)), and they've left me a bit cold. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with them, but they seem to have sacrificed body for elegance, and rightly or wrongly, I attribute this to their organic credentials. To me, they are a touch lightweight, although the importer tells me that the beers have been reformulated and now are a bit more full-bodied. Only tasting them will tell.

However, body is something of which Daas Ambré (6.5%abv) has plenty. This copper-brown beer has a big aroma of slightly scorched caramel, and a faintly spicy, yeasty note. On the palate, caramelly sweetness is the order of the day until a little earthy hop character shows up late in the day to keep all that malt in check.

For me, this is the pick of the Daas range, although I should say I haven't tried the new Blonde and Witte. It's a big, uncomplicated slab of Belgian abbey ale, perhaps a bit too big to drink in any quantity, but sure to shine if paired with food - I'd suggest bread with paté or rillettes (and a pile of gherkins, for preference). Best of all, I didn't even suspect it was organic.

*the exception to this rule is Manchester's Marble Brewery, whose beers are organic and uncomparably delicious.

Birra del Borgo Beer Dinner

"I see you have some of the best Italian beers", said Leonardo di Vincenzo, brewmaster of Birra del Borgo, grinning and pointing at a range of Peroni beers. He'd popped up to Beer-Ritz, the shop that I manage (but don't own), the morning after the Italian craft beer dinner, and had decided to ignore the two metre long stretch of his own lavishly packaged beers on the bottom shelf for the rather less impressive trio of Italian macrobrews.

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to be invited to the Italian craft beer dinner at Leeds' excellent Cross Keys pub. It was really a showcase for the astonishing beers of Birra del Borgo, although there was a pre-dinner aperitif of Amarcord Gradisca slipped in at the start, a perfectly decent dry, faintly herbal pilsner. Then the fun began.

The first beer, Duchessa (6.2%abv), is a pale golden ale made from spelt (a variety of grain). Leonardo was at pains to point out that the fruity character of the beer (and it really did taste of mango and pineapples) was largely down to the quality of the grain. The beer itself has a relatively neutral hop character, allowing this juicy fruitiness to shine through. It was paired with a delicious pea soup with shredded ham hock and a poached quail's egg, then on to the next beer: Baladin Open.

Open (7.5%abv) is an IPA-style beer, with two distinguishing features. It's a pale copper-gold IPA with a surprisingly easy-drinking character for its strength, full of tangerines, grapefruit and a faint pepperiness. It's other unique selling point is that it was marketed as the world's first open-source beer: the recipe was published and people were invited to make their own version of it. If anyone has done this, and got anywhere near the original (or bettered it), I'd love to hear about it. (Now I think of it, that may be as good a place as any to start with my home brewing - hey, why not reach for the stars?).

A royal pair of beers were served around the main course of chicken breast stuffed with goat's cheese, served in a wild garlic sauce (the recipe for that wasn't made available, sadly, but that would have made it an open source sauce). ReAle and ReAle Extra (both at 6.4%abv) are a demonstration of how sometimes mistakes can be good things. They are two beers brewed to the same recipe (give or take about 1% crystal malt), but ReAle Extra has the majority of its aroma hop load added right at the end of the boil. This was originally the result of a mistake in the brewhouse, when Leonardo was distracted from his honest toil of brewing by an unspecified distraction (there may have been beer drinking involved). The original version (ReAle, meaning 'royal', but clearly typographically altered to suggest real ale) is the winner, for me, being stuffed full of juicy marmalade notes, although the popular opinion is the the Extra is a better beer, having a drier, herbal, spiced lemon character. I can't imagine either would disappoint, should you track some down.

Pudding of poached strawberries served with strawberry ice cream and a black pepper tuile biscuit was good on its own, but was kicked into overdrive with a glass of KeTo Reporter (5.2%abv), a sweetish dark porter brewed with the addition of fresh Kentucky tobacco leaves (hence 'Ke To'). Yes, I know that it sounds as though you'd say "bleurgh, there's bloody TOBACCO in this beer!", but the sweetly spicy influence of the wicked weed is a background note, and although noticeable, never dominates.

Gosh, that's a lot of words about a small, new(ish) Italian craft brewery, and I still have about the same again to write about some upcoming events they have planned. Watch this space.

Many thanks to Giulio at Vertical Drinks, Leonardo of Birra del Borgo, and the staff at The Cross Keys for an excellent evening.

POSTSCRIPT: During the dinner, The Cross Keys was showing the Italy vs. Paraguay match on a big screen at one end of the room. Although I'm not a fan of big-screen TVs showing football at dinner, one of the more admirable things I've seen this year was Leonardo introducing one of his beers while Paraguay slammed home the opening goal against Italy. He watched it happen, but didn't bat an eyelid. Total class.

Beeramisu with Great Divide Oak-Aged Yeti Imperial Stout

I know, I know, what sort of a guy am I if I can't finish a bottle of Great Divide Oak-Aged Yeti Imperial Stout in one sitting? And more to the point, isn't 'beeramisu' the sort of thing that starts out as a play on words, and then someone thinks "hang on, I'll give that a go"?

The Yeti was left over after opening it the previous night to go with pudding - hot chocolate fondant and vanilla ice cream. The missus unexpectedly asked for a glass of stout, and I like to oblige, so it was opened anyway. I was fairly sure that I wouldn't finish it - it was the fourth beer I'd opened that evening, so I hoped that I wouldn't be finishing it on my own. And in my experience, these big beers tend to stand up to being left open overnight.

It was a delicious match, as American imperial stouts tend to carry a bit more residual sugar and seem a bit sweeter than any others. The oak ageing is apparent, not so much as a toasted vanilla flavour, but as a slightly wild edge. My note for it says "Black and unctuous. Creamy chocolate espresso on the nose, with a slightly wild note. Huge, sweet on palate, berry fruits (?) , liqueur-like – stands up very well to chocolate deserts with ice cream – but on its own, massive, complex, bittersweet and slightly funky. Huge, absurd, but very enjoyable. Persistent bitterness."

Beeramisu has been on the list of things to try for a while, and so I didn't feel bad about leaving half the bottle, In fact, I felt pretty damn good about it, as I knew it was going to make a great dessert. If youve never made this, give it a go - it's very simple, and doesn't require any fancy skills other than plenty of elbow grease.



Beeramisu

You'll need: a pack of finger biscuits, two eggs, 200g mascarpone, 50g caster sugar (I used unrefined for a slightly vanilla edge), two eggs, and some imperial stout - the bigger the better.

Put a layer of finger biscuits in a shallow bowl, and add enough imperial stout to make them soft, but not too sloppy. They will soak up a surprising amount, so do this in stages.

Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs, and beat the caster sugar with the yolks until creamed. Beat the mascarpone into the creamed egg yolks. Clean the whisk, and then beat the whites until they reach soft peak stage - gently creamy, just stiff, but not yet lumpy. Fold the creamed yolks and the stiff whites together, and when they are a uniform mixture, pour over the stout-sodden base.

Top with cocoa powder or grated chocolate. Chill for 30 minutes, or anything up to 4 hours, and serve with more of the same imperial stout.

Beer and Curry (well, Halcyon and Kedgeree)

Because I'm such a frightful ponce, I like to try out food and beer combinations. I like to think that sometimes, you can get something that's greater than the sum of its parts - the beer and the food enhance each other, and you notice things in each that may have slipped by unnoticed. And of course, because I'm such a frightful ponce, I couldn't possibly do something as simple as compare a couple of IPAs over a chicken jalfrezi. No, tonight it's Thornbridge Halcyon (7.7%abv) and kedgeree.

I won't write a great deal about the beer, as I sort of cover everything I want to say about it in the video. But I will say that after a long chat on the phone with Kelly Ryan, one of the brewers who helped create Halcyon, it's clear that they are both a brewery who like to push the envelope a bit, and are quite open about what happens when they try to do that. Kelly didn't pretend to be delighted about having a lot of very loose sediment in the bottle, but neither did he think it was the end of the world. In fact, as I show in the video, there's nothing wrong with the sediment, and I'm almost sure it was more strongly-flavoured than the brighter glass of beer I drank afterwards. Who knows - maybe some of those flavour compounds are lipophillic and bound to the lipids in the yeast cells. Yes, I know I'm good, but I didn't figure that one out myself - egg-headed, Segal-bodied Stuart Howe of Sharps planted the seeds of it here.



The Halcyon wasn't a perfect match for the food - I think that maybe a hopfen-weisse would be a better match - but it did the job pretty well, acting as an admirably spicy, citrussy cut against the spice and smoke of the kedgeree. Irritatingly, a chicken jalfrezi with a load of mango chutney would have been near perfect with Thornbridge Halcyon


Kedgeree for two.

Cook a couple of handfuls of rice (I like basmati and wild mixed). Towards the end of cooking, add a couple of handfuls of peas. You can also steam the fish over this - 300g of undyed smoked haddock will do it. And you can either boil a couple of eggs in here also, or poach a couple of eggs to go on the dish at the end.

Fry two finely sliced onions with half a finely diced green chilli, until the onions are golden. Add ground cumin and ground black pepper to taste (about half a teaspoon of each). Add the rice, peas, flaked fish, the chopped boiled egg (or top with a poached egg), and a handful of chopped coriander. Stir, season, serve.

Now Drinking: Stone Old Guardian Barleywine-Style Ale

In one of Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' books, he creates a scenario where a spaceship lands behind the sight screen at Lords cricket ground, but nobody notices it because the human brain has developed a technique of filtering out anything that it thinks is Somebody Else's Problem (SEP). This is essentially what I've been doing with this bottle of Stone Old Guardian Barleywine-Style Ale (11.3%abv) - not filtering it out as a problem, but just as a beer for another time.

But not today. Oh no, today, I've earned a beer through honest toil. I've got my jeans dirty, my hands covered in soil, and have planted a lot of herbaceous perennials in our narrow border. Feeling faintly emasculated by knowing what a herbaceous perennial is, but more to the point, hungry and tired after a bit of fork-wielding, I decided I needed nourishing, not only with food, but also strong ale.

There's something about strong beer that really hits the spot. I wrote about Schneider Aventinus Eisbock as being nourishment rather than refreshment, and so it is here. Maybe it's the unfermented sugars acting as a carbohydrate load - certainly, Old Guardian is sweet, but with enough hops to give it a (more or less) balanced drinkability. That said, this isn't a beer for the novice - you really need to know what you're letting yourself in for here. But it's a great barleywine, showing that classic interplay of malt sweetness and hop bitterness. World class, in fact.

And the food? Well, cheese on toast doesn't sound like anything special, and maybe that's the point. Some dried bread, a bit of melted cheese and some good beer - it sounds almost monastic in its simplicity. Maybe that's what's going on here - an honest recharging of the soul, lifting the spirit after a day's work. Once in a while, it's good to feel like you've earned a beer.

Birthday Round-up: What Have We Learned?

The lines are closed, the votes are in, and the general consensus is that my splendidly self-indulgent 40th birthday bash as outlined here was a great success. Everyone drank beer, and almost everyone liked almost all of it.

There were a few hiccups, of course. The Mort Subite Oude Gueuze raised a few eyebrows, and I was happy that there was a jug of cassis on hand to soften it for those who found it a bit challenging. It was a great reception beer though, and went well with all of the canapes.

I had the duck confit terrine to start, served with Chimay Premiere, and it was a killer match. The richness of the duck and the tang of the pickled beetroot worked brillantly with the soft fruitiness of the Chimay. Even a hardened wine veteran gave it a go, and pronounced it a great success.

My main of pork with apple and vanilla sauce was good, although the Schneider Weisse was a bit heavy for it. Grolsch Weizen might have been a perfect match - oh well, you live and learn. However, everyone went nuts for the cheese course, served with 2005 Fuller's Vintage Ale, and rightly so. The beer had just the right amount of age on it, with an incredibly smooth richness to it, malt and hops integrated into a seamless fusion of flavour that was somewhere between ale and some sort of crazy sherry/port hybrid. Sensational.

By the time dessert rolled around (and I use the term rolled to reflect my physical state as much as anything else), everyone was past their best - the cheese course had done them in. But my match of Black Forest gateau and Ola Dubh 40 was great, a good flavour match, although perhaps a tad on the rich side for anyone without a bovine complement of stomachs. I left some cake and finished the beer, the only sensible thing to do under the circumstances.

Look, I know you're reading this blog because you're interested in beer, and unless something terrible happens to you, you've got a birthday coming up within the next twelve months. Why not find a local restaurant who will let you bring beer in for a corkage charge, buy a copy of The Brewmasters Table, and put a menu together with the restaurant? Have yourself a cheery beery birthday - it was more fun than I ever thought it could be. Just don't give people a choice of what to drink.

That picture of a ravaged plate of cheese and a spent bottle of Fuller's 2005 Vintage Ale lines me up nicely for a report on a visit to Chiswick's finest. Watch this space.

Sam Adams Imperial Stout with Baked Vanilla Cheesecake

This sort of joins up with the post from 10 days ago, in that it's another imperial stout, and I'm having to plough through the cellar at the moment and try to finish up some of the beers that I want to drink while there is still snow on the ground (and in Leeds today, we have about 3 inches on the ground).

I could have paired this with any of 4 or 5 imperial stouts, but the Sam Adams one leapt out at me, mainly by being at the front of the shelf. Sam Adams produce a huge range of beers, but the only one we see regularly here is their Boston Lager, imported by Shepherd Neame. Despite a few phone calls and a bit of gentle cajoling, it seems as though Sheps aren't going to import anything but Boston Lager in the near future. A shame, but there we go.

The imperial stout is part of Sam Adams' Imperial series - basically, smaller runs of bigger beers for the more niche end of the market. It's a great departure for a big and successful brewer, and makes you wonder why more people don't do something similar. It puts me in mind of Carlsberg's response to the burgeoning microbrewing scene in Denmark - they just started brewing characterful small batch beers, which were embraced by the Danish beer geeks.

The match of imperial stout and vanilla cheesecake isn't rocket science. Both the beer and the dessert are fairly big and chewy, with similar textures, but contrast hugely on the flavour front. But although they contrast, they also highlight the commonalities - the lovely rich creamy vanilla quality in both of them. As you'd expect, the imperial stout is stuffed full of chocolate and espresso character, very clean and slickly executed, as all Sam Adams' beers tend to be.

It's a big gutsy pairing, not something to eat at the end of a large meal. We had this after a fairly light supper, and in calorific terms, it was the bigger half of the meal. It makes perfect sense to me - go easy on the salad to leave plenty of room for dessert and an impy.



POSTSCRIPT: I had another chunk of cheesecake a few nights later with a Stone Russian Imperial Stout, which is a much bigger, wilder beast altogether - lots more burnt and smoky notes going on than in the Sam Adams. If anything, this wildness made it an even better match.

A Certain Way With Chicken Livers

If I was feeling really motivated and focused, I'd pretend that this is the first in a monthly series of recipes, with suggested beer matches thrown in. However, I can't imagine for a second that I will actually get around to doing this once a month, but the other evening I pulled off this tasty, hearty meal, and dug out a couple of great beers to go with it.

The beers that I tried with this are Greene King Strong Suffolk Vintage, and Orval. Both have an earthy quality to them that works well with the hearty nature of the chicken liver and cabbage. The tartness of the Strong Suffolk marries up with the earthy flavours, and the sweetness of the onions brings out the sweetness in the beer. The peppery dryness of the Orval works against the richness of the dish, cutting through nicely, but still bringing out the earthy flavours. I've said earthy a lot there, but I can't think of a better adjective to describe the wholesome, wintry goodness of this.

Ingredients: 2 medium onions, 2 rashers bacon (I used green back, but collar or streaky would be fine), 400g chicken livers, 5 or 6 large Savoy cabbage leaves, 4 medium potatoes (scrubbed, skin on)

Scrub the potatoes, cut into quarters and put on to boil.

Peel the onions, then cut them in half top to bottom, and slice them finely. Caramelise them - cook them very slowly with butter and oil for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown and reduced in volume by half. Set aside.

Drain the potatoes, and cut them into rough dice. Set aside.

Cut the bacon into thin slices and fry. Set aside with the onions.

Shred the cabbage fairly finely, and fry in the bacon fat left in the pan. Cook quickly for a few minutes, then set aside with the bacon, potatoes and onions.

Separate the lobes of the chicken livers, and cut out any fat and connective tissue. If any of the lobes of liver are particularly large, cut these in two. Fry the livers until just cooked (about 3-4 minutes - they should still be slightly bloody at this point).

Add the onions, bacon, cabbage and potatoes back to the livers, and mix well to heat through. Season with a little salt if needs be, and plenty of black pepper. The livers should now be pink, but not bloody.

Serve with either Greene King Strong Suffolk or Orval. Or, if you're of a curious mind (as I was), serve both.

POSTSCRIPT: The Orval was a fairly aged bottle, bottled a couple of years ago, and was quite bretty. It really stunk of barnyards, which is of course a euphemism for cow shit and damp barns. It was initially at the upper limit of what I can tolerate for brett, but this blew off a bit over 10 or so minutes, revealing the classic, dry, peppery Orval character

It's my party (and I'll specify the drinks if I want to)

Hooray! I'm going to be 40 years old in 9 days time. To celebrate, I'm gathering a dozen close friends together at Leeds Corn Exchange, aka Piazza by Anthony (pictured left). We're going to have some excellent browsing and sluicing, in a private dining room at the venue. They've allowed me to specify the menu (from a variety of options), agreed to a very modest corkage charge for the beers that I want to bring, and have a huge amount of poncey Riedel stemware for us to drink from. Depending on your point of view, this is either a splendid way to celebrate my birthday with friends, or an irritating and toe-curling evening of poncing it up with beer. I don't mind what you think, but I'm looking forward to it.

I've got matches for most of the food, although am still a bit stuck for an aperitif to serve with the canapes - if you have any ideas, then please, fire away. And if you're really stuck for something to do right now, feel free to have a bash at suggesting beer matches for the food - although I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to do, I cross-referenced most of the dishes with Garrett Oliver's "The Brewmasters Table" [beer matches now posted against food].

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I've suggested food matches for all of the courses, with an option of two very different dessert beers that should work well with any of the puddings. I've asked my friends to have a go with the beer matches, although if they choose to drink something else, that's fine (I suppose).

Canapes (6/7 of each, first come first served)
Cauliflower Trifle
Pea Veloute, Coconut
Crab with Gazpacho Espuma
Potted Crayfish and Spiced Bread
Roast Chicken Wings & Shaved Mozzarella
Ham Hock & Mustard Caramel
- served with Mort Subite Oude Gueuze

Starters
Terrine of Duck Confit, Pistachio & Pickled Beetroot - served with Chimay Red
White Onion Risotto with Coffee and Parmesan Air - served with Duvel
Shellfish Soup - served with PJ Fruh Kolsch

Mains
Lemon Sole, French Beans, Brown Shrimp Butter - served with Hoegaarden Wit
Roast Pork, Sage Parmentier, Apple & Vanilla Puree - served with Schneider Weisse
Sirloin Steak, Mushrooms, Onion Rings - served with Sam Smith's Nut Brown Ale

Cheese
3 different cheeses - hard, soft and blue - served with Fullers Vintage 2005

Desserts
Poached Pineapple, Cardamom Ice Cream
Black Forest Gateau, Cherry Ripple Ice Cream
Baileys and Chocolate Cheesecake
- choice of Mort Subite Kriek or Ola Dubh 40yr Old

Now Drinking: Gadd's India Pale Ale

Oh. My. God. I've just had one of those peak beer experiences that you read about and think "Oh piss off, that never happened". I'm doubly delighted that it's happened with a Gadd's beer, as a few days ago, I was a bit less than complimentary about one of Eddie's beers - hey, it's not fun, but you have to call it as you see it.

Anyway, tonight I made enchiladas. It's very easy, and if anyone is interested, I'll give you the recipe. It's veggie too - we try to eat veggie a few times a week. As I served the food up, I thought "Damn, I wish I had a nice hoppy beer to go with this". I think spicy food works really well with hoppy beer, so I went and had a rummage, and found a lone bottle of Gadd's India Pale Ale lurking in a case of Innis & Gunn beers (we'll be having them with a tarte tatin in a few days).

With the food already on the plate, I just wanted to pop the cap, pour and eat. As I took the cap off, there was a gush of foam, and a momentary thought of "Christ, these Gadd's beers are turning out to be a nightmare". Then I notices there was something in the foam at the bottle mouth. With a brief thought of "Christ, these Gadd's beers are turning out to be thoroughly pestilent", and then a moment of realisation - "Christ, that's a whole hop!"

I've no idea what variety of hop it is - Eddie, if you're reading, maybe you can tell us. But it added a fantastic spicy, earthy edge to a beer that I've had before and thoroughly enjoyed. It was an IPA++. And it was exactly the beer that I wanted to drink, at exactly the right time. And it was such a fantastic bonus to know that, at the point of production, someone had taken the time to push a whole hop cone into a bottle, with the simple thought in their mind that it would bring a greater amount of pleasure to the drinker.

And it did. So thank you.

Tapas Con Cerveza de Brooklyn

Look, I know this won't come as a surprise, but I love Brooklyn Lager. Everyone loves Brooklyn Lager. It's the fall-back of the beer-lover, a bit like draught Guinness in pubs - you know what I mean, if it's all kegged crap, and maybe one dodgy looking handpump, Guinness is usually a safe bet.

We had a day out today, and went to check out Distrikt in Leeds. It's a bar that serves tapas, rather than a tapas bar. It's underground, moodily lit, and quite cool. I have to say that my hopes weren't that high, until I saw the beer and food menus.

Put simply, they had Brooklyn Lager. This is a mark of sense and taste on any bar menu. It's easy to drink, but has plenty of slightly caramelly malt and floral dry-hop charater to make it interesting. It also goes well with anything, as we were about to demonstrate.

Now, you can argue that I should have gone for a Spanish beer, and they have quite a few of them, all of the golden lager variety. This works well in Seville in the inferno of a mid-afternoon lunch. But it doesn't cut it in Leeds on a cold, wet Friday.

The food was Spanish with a Middle Eastern influence. If I was being kind, I'd say it was a nod to the Moorish ancestry of Andalucia. If I was being unkind, I'd say it was a lot of really tasty looking stuff all thrown together. That's not terribly unkind really, is it?

We ordered five small tapas plates; dukka dukka spiced chicken, merguez with red onion jam and skordalia (garlic mash, FYI), squid stuffed with red pepper and chorizo risotto, aubergine gratin with rocket pesto, and petit Lebanese pizza with lamb, pine nuts and pomegranate. I won't go on, but they were all great, and good value at £3-£4 each.

Through it all, Brooklyn Lager kept it's head. The lemon-pepper rub on the succulent chicken wings, the bite of the red onion jam, the creaminess of the risotto-stuffed squid - the beer coped with them all, enhancing, contrasting, and making the food shine more brilliantly than it might have done without it.

Two tiny criticisms - cold plates for the tapas meanthat bite-sized portions go cold quickly. I could have just eaten faster, I guess. Plus the flatbread for the lamb pizza was a tab lumpen. But these are minor quibbles.

I love Brooklyn Lager, and I love it more with this sort of spicy, toothsome, bite-sized food.

New Year's Day Lunch

We're off out for lunch at a friend's house shortly. They, like us, have a toddler, and so have also been up since 5am after an early night.

We're having roast pork, and so the dilemma is what to take with us to drink. Not which beer - classically, weissebier would be the answer, although I've got a magnum of La Chouffe in the cellar that's a few years old, and I bet would be great with a big, sweet, fatty shoulder of roast pork - but whether to take beer or wine. By a happy coincidence, both bottles are dated 2005.

I know, it seems like heresy to mention the W-word, but most of the people I know aren't massive beer fans. The notion of turning up with a huge bottle of strong Belgian beer is as alien as turning up asking if I can fry some baby stoats as a starter - it might be tolerated, but only just.

Maybe I'll take along some smaller bottles of interesting beer as a way of breakng the ice. These are the same people who came to dinner when I had the mini-kegs from Sharp's in the fridge - they know what I'm like, and I'd hate to disappoint them. I've got a few of the BrewDog "dubplate" white label Trashy Belgian left - that should put an edge on our appetites.

Or maybe I should be a good guest and take beer and wine, and let them decide what they want to drink?

POST-LUNCH POSTSCRIPT: Frankly, the La Chouffe kicked the arse of a bottle of pretty good Puligny-Montrachet. I've got a lot of wine in the cellar that I'm no longer enthusiastic about drinking. Make me an offer.