Beer matching with Hook Norton: Spoilt for choice in the Cotswolds

15-Dec-2009 - Last updated on 13-Dec-2011 at 10:18 GMT

Matching beer - particularly cask ale - with food to bring out the best in both is not exactly a new phenomenon. In certain quarters the exercise is...

Matching beer - particularly cask ale - with food to bring out the best in both is not exactly a new phenomenon. In certain quarters the exercise is a key element to the food offer. After all, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ales in the UK crying out to be paired up with a great plate of food.

But there is still a long way to go to persuade many customers and - let's face it - licensees that it is worth the mental and physical effort of pairing up ales and dishes. Wine with food, many get. But cask ale? There's still some convincing to do.

However, there are those who are upping the beer and food matching ante. With a little incentive, say by a brewery creating an award for the pub in its estate that best matches one of its beers and a food dish, things might start to move in the right direction.

Hook Norton Brewery, based in the Cotswolds village of the same name, has taken this route. Managing director James Clarke and his colleagues decided to include a 'Best beer with food' category in the brewer's forthcoming Hooky Awards.

The 'Hookys' are an already well-established event on the Hook Norton calendar, recognising a number of areas of good pub practice, such as Best Kept Cellar, Best Exterior and the pub which achieves the highest Cask Marque score.

Launchpad

Clarke sees the beer and food matching element of the competition acting as a launchpad to get more tenants across its estate involved in the activity on a day-to-day basis and to highlight to licensees that by promoting Hook Norton's ales in this way it can help drive customers into the pub, and drive sales of the wet stuff once they're in.

Some of Hook Norton's pubs have held beer and food matching events for a while and they've been very successful and proved very popular, says Clarke. But with the new category in the Hookys he hopes to widen the appeal.

"The idea of matching beer and food in our pubs has begun to take off and our licensees are getting into it. It helps raise awareness of our beers and their pubs," he says.

"We wanted to make it something more concrete, something beyond individual tasting sessions held in a few pubs. Hence the decision to add a category into our Hooky Awards."

Judging the candidates

And of course when you have more than a dozen pubs entering such a category - one of eight for the forthcoming awards - you've got to have judges to judge the proposition.

And how gruelling can it be, colleagues of mine asked when I told them I'd been invited to join Clarke, Hook Norton operations manager Jo Hyde and local businessman and bon viveur Russell Harrison, to sample the delights of what the best of Hook Norton's pubs had to offer? I agreed. After all, it sounded like the jolly of all jollies. Little did I realise quite how hard it would be.

What struck me as we drove through the Oxfordshire countryside was quite how seriously the pubs involved took both their food and the quality of their ales.

The licensees were given carte blanche to choose a dish of their choice to go with a Hook Norton ale, also of their choosing.

The pubs were judged on the quality of both the beer and the dish offered, and how appropriately the two were matched.

All used locally-sourced produce as much as was humanly possible or in the case of seafood ingredients, shipped from domestic fishermen in the shortest time possible.

I was impressed by the range of produce used in dishes. Venison, fish, shellfish, beef, lamb, pork, ham, and an array of vegetables - many cooked better than I've tasted in some Michelin-starred restaurants - were offered.

Beer choices

The licensees' choice of beers also showed a lot of thought had gone into proceedings.

The balance of flavours across food and beer was often enhanced when one least expected it, say when a stronger ABV ale such as Hook Norton's 5.3 per cent Flagship was paired with a staple yet delicious combination of ham, eggs and homemade bubble and squeak.

Hook Norton's standard Hooky Best Bitter and the brewer's light and refreshing Hooky Gold went superbly with fish dishes, while something robust like 12 Days, its 5.4 per cent Christmas seasonal ale, paired admirably with a slow-cooked fillet steak. Even Hook Norton's mild, which is known as Dark but is soon to be re-badged with its former moniker, got a look in.

Despite the heavy schedule - it's hardly surprising that I probably put on half a stone in two days, such was the quantity of food and beer consumed - each dish together with the accompanying beer made an impression. This was a testament to the dedication of the licensees and their kitchen staff.

Such was the quality of food and drink we encountered the final judging process was as difficult as it was enjoyable.

A winner emerged, though the pubs will have to wait until the Hookys in April to learn who came out on top.

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The beer and food matching candidates

Coach & Horses, Banbury

Food: Cromer crab bruschetta and scallops with watercress, fennel and pink grapefruit salad (right)

Beer: Hooky Bitter

The Reindeer, Banbury

Food: sliced honey roast ham and free-range egg with baked beans and bubble and squeak

Beer: Flagship

The Bell, Adderbury

Food: ploughman's