Beer bites back
When Jay Rayner, restaurant critic for the Observer, visited the Spotted Pig in New York recently, he told his readers: "Naturally, this being a gastropub, we didn't feel the need to drink beers."
Ironically, the beers in the Spotted Pig that Rayner declined to drink are made by the Brooklyn Brewery, whose head brewer, Garrett Oliver, is the author of a book published last year called The Brewmaster's Table - Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food.
Oliver gave a talk last month at the launch of the Good Beer Guide at the Lamb in Lamb's Conduit Street, London, at which beers were matched with food in a brilliant fashion - grilled sardines with Young's bitter, for example, which brings out the citrus notes in the ale.
For Rayner's burger in the Spotted Pig, Oliver might have recommended an American brown ale, or a pale ale or alt bier, which would certainly have gone better with the Roquefort topping than wine. For his companion's monkfish, weissbier or a helles lager would have been perfect.
The belief that wine is the only drink to accompany food is, sadly, widespread. John Band, drinks analyst at research company Datamonitor, says his organisation has charted a move from drinking in pubs towards drinking with meals in restaurants and gastropubs - a move which it believes has encouraged people to shift from beer to wine.
However, not everybody thinks this way. Last weekend, for the second year running, chef Jean-Christophe Novelli presented a five-course meal using beer and accompanied by beer at the Campaign for Real Ale's 2004 champion beer awards lunch in the Porter Tun Room at the Brewery in Chiswell Street, London.
Drinking beer with food is an ancient tradition in Britain. Until the early decades of the 20th century every brewery produced a "dinner ale" or "luncheon stout". In 1894, Baedeker's guide to London told visitors from abroad that "beer, on draught or in bottle, is supplied at almost all the restaurants", and "is the beverage most frequently drunk".
So where did it all go wrong? The First World War, with its restrictions on beer production to save grain for food, might be to blame. Beer was in short supply in Britain, while wine was not. It actually became patriotic for the middle classes to drink wine, and in 1917 the Ministry of Food asked hoteliers to put up notices urging guests "to refrain from drinking beer, in order that there may be more for the working classes".
By 1934, the anonymous writer of A Book About Beer complained that beer was looked upon as "coarse, common and low", and this idea seemed to percolate through to the heads of expensive restaurants.
At last, however, the tide is turning, although it's the supermarkets that are noticing the change, not restaurants. Tesco's ale sales have soared by 20% in the past year, as shoppers opt for a bottle of beer with their meal instead of Chardonnay or Rioja. The supermarket gets increasing requests for advice on beer and food matching.
The Dorset brewer Hall & Woodhouse has just launched a range of recipe cards which show local dishes designed to accompany its ales.
Maybe restaurants need to take heed, or they might start to lose sales to the eating-at-home business. Beer belongs on the dining table, so perhaps it's time to put it back there.
Martyn Cornell is the British Guild of Beer Writers' current Beer Writer of the Year
