Beer and Food - The heat is on

Camra has announced that 2004 is the year of beer and food and is coming up with beer ideas for all food occasions.

This month the organisation suggests some ideas for beer at barbecues: A smoked beer made with smoked malt is an interesting choice for drinking at a barbecue, accentuating the smoky flavours of the food. Wheat beers such as Oakham White Dwarf or O'Hanlon's Double Champion Wheat with their citrussy character are fantastic alongside king prawns barbecued in their shells with lemon squeezed over. Raspberry Wheat Beer brewed by Meantime in Greenwich, is delicious alongside crisp barbecued duck breasts or in a salad dressing to go with grilled meats.

If you barbecue speciality sausages, serve a beer to match - lamb with redcurrant partnered by a malty beer; wild boar or venison with a fullbodied special bitter; pork and apple with a fruity, sweetish bitter like Exmoor Gold. Make your own burgers of minced steak flavoured with horseradish or mustard served with a wellbalanced bitter like Black Sheep.

Serve Charles Wells Banana Bread Beer with barbecued chicken and bananas cooked in their skins on the barbie - use it in a marinade for the chicken, too. For marinades and basting, mix honey beers such as Fuller's Honey Dew or Young's Waggledance with a little real honey to coat chicken drumsticks and lamb chops. Souse pork spare ribs in Wicked Maple Porter or Alaskan Smoked Porter mixed with a little brown sugar or apple sauce or paint gammon steaks with a paste of porter and mustard powder.