Beer and Food - Get ready for Beer With Food Week
The Morning Advertiser and PubChef are calling for licensees and pub chefs to get involved in the first Beer With Food Week.
This week-long promotion, from 14 to 20 March 2005, is dedicated to promoting beer as a great accompaniment to food. In recent years, wine has knocked beer off dinner tables. Beer can be as good if not better than wine with some dishes and this event is about celebrating its rightful place at the dinner table.
The event is being sponsored by Beer to Dine For brewer Greene King. We hope pub chefs will get involved by designing new dishes to complement the beers their pub offers and that licensees will take part by promoting beers with meals on their menu and by hosting special beer and food events during the week. Beer With Food Week provides an excellent opportunity for pubs to drive extra beer sales, to raise awareness of their food offer, improve pre- Easter trade and gain publicity. For more information on how to get involved in Beer With Food Week visit www.beerwithfoodweek.co.uk
Views on Beer With Food Week:
Richard Fox founder of the UK's first beer and food consultancy the F&B Partnership: "Beer With Food Week is a great way to link two really good things taking place in pubs. The food in pubs is the best it as ever been and there is a fantastic range of beers available, from microbreweries' cask ales to imported beers. At the moment, these two things are not linked and there is such a big potential for pubs to do so."
Phil Vickery, celebrity chef:"Beer With Food Week is a fantastic idea. It's not just about training pub staff about beer, but also getting the public to understand more about it and the range of flavours it offers. We need to be more like the French in our approach to beer and value it like the French value their wine."
Marcus Welford, the Olive Branch, Clipsham, Leicestershire: "People do not have to stick with wine when they enjoy a meal and I think the concept of drinking beer instead is starting to catch on. We supply customers with a list of the different beers available and recommend what goes with different types of food. "It's a question of marketing beers properly and pointing people in the right direction; for instance, suggesting that a rich game casserole would probably sit well with a nutty brown type of beer."
Michael Bedford, chef/owner, the Trouble House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire: "I don't think we are too far off the day when beer lists will share a table with the wine list at many pubs."
