Beer and Food - Cheese with Beer?

Mention that combination to the uninitiated and you may raise the odd eyebrow, but as Sue Nowak reveals, the right match will tantalise the taste buds.

If you're going to hold a beer and cheese pairing, use the very best cheese and ale you can get - that was my message at last month's Great British Beer Festival, where I held a cheese and beer tasting.

In matching British beers to British cheeses I sought prime examples of both - for instance, it wasn't just any old Stilton; I demanded Colston Bassett.

If you think about it, real ale and real cheese have much in common - most of the best are unpasteurised, both are traditionally farmhouse products, and the bread to accompany is fermented with yeast - another link to beer.

I often tell people that beer is just as good as wine with food. But if you're talking cheese, it's actually far better.

Wines can be too acidic to go with cheese, which can be quite spiky itself. But a well-crafted ale will somehow wrap itself around a cheese - balance brings out its flavour.

It's no coincidence that they share buzz words such as nutty, spicy, fruity or biscuity.

If you want to hold a tasting, don't have more than six, ending with the biggest and strongest. Get people to smell and taste the beer first, then the cheese, then go back to

the beer. You should find new flavours with the second sip.

Possible pairings are almost endless, but here's my half dozen, in the order served:

1 Y Fenni - means Abergavenny, where it's made. A Cheddar style cheese actually containing Welsh brown ale, and mustard seeds, giving it sweetness and bite.

With it I chose Fraoch Heather Ale, flavoured with the blooms of bell heather - that floral fragrance with just a hint of spice made a delightful, non-combative foil for the cheese.

2 Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire is a big cheese in the cheese world, multiaward winning, with a superb buttery, mellow, lingering flavour. The creamy head and roast dryness of a

good porter was the perfect contrast

- in this case Vale's Black Beauty porter.

3 Lincolnshire Poacher - a well-rounded, mature, Cheddarish cheese, smoother than west country Cheddar. A good IPA is

a fine match and I served one of the best - classic, bottle-conditioned Worthington White Shield, which brought out the nuttiness in the cheese.

4 Stinking Bishop - A fabulous, runny, big smelly cheese that should clear the bar in 30 seconds. Initially, I went for a big strong beer, but the two did not gel.

Instead, I found a good, fruity traditional bitter at under 5% abv (I chose Badger's Tanglefoot) tamed the beast.

5 The "pudding course" - raspberries and cream. Delicate, creamy Ribblesdale goat's cheese was incredibly sexy with

Belgian Framboise, a deep pink almost syrupy beer, served well chilled.

6 Finally, that Colston Bassett - a goliath from Nottinghamshire, creamy, succulent, tangy. And the "port" to go with this Stilton was Gale's historic Prize Old Ale in a

wax sealed, corked bottle - a socking 9% abv, full of rich dried fruit and malt. A pairing that left my tasters purring.