Czech mates
The White Horse pub travels lock, stock and minus a few barrels to Prague's Staropramen brewery to show them how Brits pair beer and food. Fiona Sims reports.
Time is running out. Mark Dorber, publican of the multi-award-winning White Horse in London's Parson's Green, is supposed to be presenting a selection of beers at a dinner for a bevy of beer writers in Prague in a couple of hours - and his beer is stuck at customs in Belgium. Apparently, officials don't quite understand that the beers are tasting samples and not for sale.
Dorber's chef, Australian-born Heidi Flett, plus sous chef for the night, wife Sophie Dorber, have already checked out the ingredients in local shops for the British-themed dinner. The venue is Na Verandách - a pub belonging to Staropramen - the city's biggest brewery.
Staropramen has helped fund the past five beer dinners at the White Horse, which began two years ago as a forum to open up discussion about beer and explore the possibilities of matching beer and food.
"It's a way of talking about beer intelligently," says Dorber, who caught the beer bug after reading Michael Jackson's books on the subject in the early 1980s.
"The aim is to bring a wider range of beers to a bigger audience," he says.
To mark the last of the brewery's sponsored dinners, Staropramen has flown out a British contingent - made up of journalists, including beer writer, broadcaster and guest speaker Jackson (who gets as much attention in the Czech Republic as his pop-star namesake), a Sky TV crew, and the folks from the White Horse.
In fact, so sure is the brewery about its product, it lines up a tasting of the competition before dinner. The conclusion? There's Czech lager and Czech lager.
Budvar 12°, Gambrinus 10°, Pilsner Urquell 12° and Herold Dark 13° were certainly the highlights. Staropramen came out well, though, winning a thumbs-up for its 10°, 12° and dark lagers. Indeed, the latter were a hit with myself and the Sky TV reporter, who, after a couple of days sampling the city's dark lagers, are now convinced that if the dark Czech lagers were launched in the UK, they could be as huge as Hoegaarden.
"Actually, we did launch them in the UK a while back," explains Bass Brewers brand manager Ian Ward (Bass bought Staropramen in the mid-1990s). "But people thought it was stout and that it would taste bitter."
It doesn't, at all. Think chocolatey-toffee hops and a creamy, caramelised malty finish. In fact, it has all the ascetic appeal of Guinness but none of the bitterness. And it's more stable than light lager.
After the preprandial tasting it is on to the main event. But there's another hitch: Dorber has just been informed by delivery service DHL that the bottles he needs are now stuck in customs at Prague airport - and that somehow they have been broken.
Picking up the pieces
Hearing that a new beer shop had just opened in the city, Dorber and Co jump into a taxi in search of replacements. Without further ado they create a new line-up: Hoegaarden paired with pork won ton, duck spring rolls and Jerusalem artichoke purée with Avruga; Staropramen 12° with pan-fried zander, and spinach and ricotta ravioli; and Staropramen Dark with smoked Scottish venison with bramboraky (a kind of Czech rösti).
One of the other beers to woo the British contingent in the earlier tasting was Herold Dark. This is put up against the next course of glazed duck with rowan jelly. The cheese course - made up of Stilton, Stinking Bishop and a marinated Czech cheese - is paired with the French 3 Monts, Brasserie de Saint Sylvestre. To finish is a berry trifle and Kriek jelly, served with Belle-Vue Kriek.
Jackson introduces the first beer. "The world's most successful quality beer is Guinness. But the most successful beer in my lifetime is probably Hoegaarden," he comments.
Dorber says of his last-minute choice (owned by Interbrew, which also owns Bass): "Hoegaarden is versatile. It goes well with garlic and ginger and other Asian spices, and it works very well with fish."
Staropramen 12° is next up. The bitterness of the hops works well with the lemony-brown butter dressing on the zander.
"In Czech tradition, the dark lagers are seen as girly lagers," announces Jackson, during course three. Girly or not, dark lager also makes a fantastic match for smoked food, as it proves in the smoked venison course.
The prominent liquorice and black-pepper flavours of the Herold Dark sadly overwhelm the next course of glazed duck, but the 3 Monts, with its 8.5% abv, comes up trumps even with the Stinking Bishop.
"When people talk about French beer they are usually referring to Strasbourg and the north-east. But the most interesting beers in France come from the north, near the Belgian border," declares Jackson, who admits that 3 Monts is one of his all-time favourites.
Finally, the cherry-packed Kriek, a style which dates back to the 16th century. It is served in its traditional Champagne-style glass and works perfectly with the raspberry-packed trifle. "Cherries are used for aroma and flavour, as well as a secondary fermentable," explains Jackson.
