Sweet and sour guide to real ale

The Campaign for Real Ale's Good Beer Guide 2005 launched last week, with editor Roger Protz upbeat and damning in equal measure. First, the good news. As well as the 1,000 new pub entries in the guide this year, it lists more than 60 new breweries, twice as many as in the 2004 edition; and the total number of microbreweries is now in excess of 400, declares Protz. "This means that Britain now has more microbreweries per head of population than any other country in the world."

Thanks must go, in part, to the chancellor, who extended tax relief for smaller brewers to an upper limit of 36,000 barrels a year in the 2004 Budget - though this isn't enough for Protz and the folks at Camra, who want the chancellor to bring in a sliding scale of duty on the European model so that all independent producers can benefit.

The Titantic Brewery in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, is one such brewer to benefit. The winner of this year's Champion Bottled Beer of the Year (for its Titanic Stout) has now moved to a bigger site to cope with demand; and the Kelham Island Brewery in Sheffield has opened a second plant to step up production of its award-winning Pale Rider.

Now the bad news: the guide castigates the majority of modern pub companies as acting "like beer supermarkets". "They're demanding heavy discounts from suppliers, thereby restricting access to the market for small brewers, with most pub companies taking their beer from global brewers," moan Protz and co, who are still smarting from the Government's decision two years ago to axe the Guest Beer Policy, which allowed pub tenants to buy real ales of their choice free of the tie, and which they want reinstated.

Not every "pubco" is guilty of pandering to the global giants, though. The guide singles out a handful of independent pub companies for their support of real ale, including 600-strong JD Wetherspoon, 52-strong Celtic Inns and 95-strong Honeycombe Leisure of Preston, Lancashire.

Young & Co, too. But then it's a brewer as well - and host for the guide's launch. The Lamb, in Lamb's Conduit Street, London, put on a beer and food matching event presided over by Protz, together with beer and food guru, Brooklyn brewer Garrett Oliver (whose seminal book, The Brewmaster's Table, has just come out in paperback, incidentally). "As society moves towards organic food, real ale should be at the forefront," eulogises Oliver. "We're keen to restore beer to its rightful place on the dining table," preaches Protz.

Just don't mention Britain's biggest brewer, Scottish & Newcastle, which announced recently that it is now closing its breweries in both Edinburgh and Newcastle. "The joke in the brewing industry is that S&N should be called Ampersand Breweries, because that's all that is left of their name," jibes Protz. Sweet and sour. I told you. n

Shorts
Going for gold Athens will play host to another kind of Olympics next month - to find the World's Best Sommelier. And the British entrant is none other than Hotel du Vin's Gerard Basset. From 6 to 13 October, Basset, who is already both a Master of Wine and a Master Sommelier, will be pitching his wits against the world's finest in a competition that takes place every three years. This year's ultimate taste-off is the 11th event under its current title - between 1969 and 1983 it was known simply as the International Sommelier Competition - and it expects 43 candidates from 43 countries. For more information hit www.asi-concours2004.gr. Caterer wishes him the very best.

Beer necessity Burtonwood, the maker of Manns Brown Ale, which claims the oldest continuously brewed beer brand in the UK, has launched a range of recipes featuring the beer as a key ingredient. In response to customer demand, the 102-year-old beer is featured in aÊtraditional line-up of dishes, including a bangers and mash-friendly gravy, a brown ale batter, a walnut bread loaf and a rich fruit pudding. Says the Beer Academy's new booklet on the subject: "The flavours of many different beer styles will add complexity and breadth to dishes, with stouts such as Guinness adding a dry, roasted edge and hoppier ales giving bitterness and fruit. But using the soft, chocolate flavours of sweet brown ale such as Manns will add extra fullness to rich fruit puddings, light caramel flavours to creamy stews and a deliciously mellow body to walnut bread." Go discover.

Cocktail and canape matching The ever-resourceful Andrew Turner has turned his hand to matching cocktails with canap‚s in the Bentley Kempinski hotel's bejewelled bar, Malachite. In fact, the London bar offers cocktail flights with accompanying nibbles specifically paired by Turner and his team. For example, the Champagne cocktail flights are each married with taster jellies; then there's the Alcoholic Fruit Flight, where a Mai Tai is matched with prawn satay and a Crouching Tiger is paired with tiger prawn tempura. Wildest match, though, is the Pi¤a Colada and duck samosa hoi sin in the Créme de la Créme flight.