You'd think with all the fuss brewers are making over beer and food matching these days that restaurants would have given some thought to their beer offering. But no - or not many of you, anyway. The majority still haven't budged from the Kronenbourg/Budweiser scenario, which, to repeat famous beer writer Michael Jackson's lament, is like the beer equivalent of Blue Nun. "No offence to Budweiser and the like - they're fine in their context, but they're the sliced white bread of the beer world," he observes. "And restaurants wouldn't serve white sliced bread, so why serve the beer equivalent?"
Well, Caterer agrees. We want to see a better range of beers in your restaurants. You know your customers want it - have you cruised the shelves at Safeways lately? The beer selection is awesome. And there's no point in chucking a few extra "international-style" lagers on there; we want to see a variety of styles. So here, without further ado, are some hot tips on creating a beer list.
First, think about whether you want to offer draught or bottled beer. Do you have the space for draught beers - or even the market, come to that? If space is tight and you do go for draught beer, then choose carefully, and serve perfectly - there's nothing worse than a badly kept pint. Next, how many beers can you make room for, and can you sell them confidently?
Thierry Tomasin reckons he's ready to sell 18 beers. Tomasin was head sommelier for many years at London landmark Le Gavroche. Last year he decided it was time for a change, so moved to Aubergine in Chelsea, where head chef William Drabble does his refined take on hearty French classics. Tomasin now runs the show, but that still includes the drinks side of things.
Now, as we're talking Tomasin here, you can expect some 700 different wines on the list - wine is very definitely his first love. "I'm not a great beer drinker, but I can see that beer and food is good together and it's good to be open-minded," he says. "When I became chairman of the Sommelier Club we did some beer tastings and it opened my eyes - I wanted to explore that some more."
Yes, but are Aubergine customers ready for it? "It's a hurdle to get them to pay more for beer," he admits. Rochefort, for example, is on their list at £12 for a 500ml bottle - and perfect, says Tomasin, with Drabble's oxtail stew. "So in this kind of instance I will suggest beer instead of wine. They're surprised, but they try it, and usually they like it. It's nice to go offside every now and again," he says.
Tomasin's beers are displayed at the end of the wine list (next to the Chƒteau d'Yquem) and are currently 10-strong, but will increase to 18 beers, which he will set out by country, favouring the one-liner description. "I want to be able to tell the customer all about each beer," he reasons - though he does have more detailed notes behind the bar for staff training purposes.
Pitfalls? "Stock levels can be a problem," he warns. "We're a small restaurant. We don't have much storage space, and sometimes it's a problem when I ask suppliers to send me 20 bottles of something when their minimum order is five cases." So come on suppliers - relax a bit, won't you?
Tomasin also regularly introduces a beer and food matching element into Drabble's tasting menus. A kriek (Belgian cherry-laced beer), for example, is sometimes paired with a chocolate dessert. "It works amazingly well. But I'll introduce a beer course anywhere in the tasting menu," declares Tomasin. "I think we should change the image of beer in restaurants."
Hotel du Vin is also trying to do just that. Not all the hotels, mind - director (and Master of Wine) Gerard Basset reckons they're not really geared up for it (not surprisingly, given the hotel's name and reputation). "We are wine specialists - let's do that properly," he reasons. But at the very least, each Hotel du Vin offers a local brew, a couple of Belgian beers, a good Czech lager and a couple of more commercial beers.
The Hotel du Vin Brighton, though, has other ideas. Bar manager Steve Pineau was given free rein to build up the beer list. "We started with12 beers; now we have 21 beers. We have around 30 regular drinkers in the bar who come just for the beers," he reveals.
The majority of the beers on his list are from Belgium. "Well, I like Belgian beer," he grins. Though, funnily enough, it's the Czech lager - Budvar - that sells the best, though Hoegaarden's Grand Cru, with a 8.7% abv, is close on its heels, with the Chimay Rouge and Chimay Bleu falling in behind, all at £4 a bottle.
Hotel du Vin Brighton's sommelier Matthieu Ouvrard has also been known to plunder Pineau's stocks for his matching dinners. He favours Trappist brew Delirium de Noel, with an abv of 10%, coming in at £9.50 a bottle. Plus, the last (and first) beer dinner that the Brighton hotel held was fully booked. "I really think more and more diners are willing to experiment with beer," says Pineau.
So, how to put together the perfect beer list? In an ideal world, suggests beer and food fanatic Mark Dorber, of the White Horse in Parsons Green, west London, you should offer beers from each of the main categories. Here are his suggestions (see panel on page 59 for more detail).
For quaffing beers, you should include an example of Pilsner-style beers, pale ales, wheat beers, wheat ales and Bavarian Weisse beers; for food beers with depth and alcoholic weight, go for malt-accented examples, and hop-accented styles; then, of course, you've got your speciality beers - Abbey and Trappist beers, strong beers, strong Continental beers, fruit beers, and Champagne-style beers - not forgetting oddballs such as the Brooklyn Brewery's Chocolate Stout (the ultimate dessert beer), and the odd large-format bottle to show you mean business.
Talking of bottle sizes, restaurants should offer a range, suggests Rupert Ponsonby, of the Beer Naturally campaign. "By concentrating on 33cls or smaller, restaurants allow diners to experiment more and sell two or more bottles throughout a meal," he advises.
"Choosing a theme is handy, too - it provokes the chatter factor," adds Ponsonby. "You could order your beer list by either style, colour, country, abv, mood, food or size."
Mark Dorber suggests how to create
The perfect beer list
Food beers with depth and alcoholic weight
- Malt-accented - chargrilled flavours work well with darker malts such as Fuller's Porter and 1845, Greene King's Strong Suffolk, Adnams Broadside, Caledonian's Golden Promise, Black Sheep's Riggwelter, Sam Smith's Taddy Porter or Oatmeal Stout, or Meantime's Union Vienna-style lager.
- Hop-accented - Fuller's ESB, Anchor Liberty or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, IPAs such as Young's Special London Ale, Marston's Old Empire, Harvey's Thom Paine, or imports such as Goose Island IPA, and blond beauties such as Duvel.
Quaffers
- Pilsner - this style is essential for that cold, thirst-quenching moment on a hot day or as a throat-cleansing pre-aperitif/aperitif or after-food drink, or even as a session beer. Question whether you need well-known brewed-in-Britain brands or can you rely on well-known high-quality international brands such as Budweiser Budvar, Pilsner Urquell, Dutch-brewed Grolsch, Bitburger and other German lagers, or even imported Sam Adams from the USA.
- Pale ales - are indigenous and there will be regional/local specialities that will be good for any beer list. Choose one beer, at least, which is tangy and refreshing - for example, Oakham's JHB, Adnams SSB, Coniston Bluebird - and one beer which has a sweeter malt accent, such as London Pride, Duchy Original or Black Sheep.
- Wheat beers - Hoegaarden is the market leader; or choose Gulpener Korenwolf for more flavour, or Blanche de Bruxelles or Dentergems Wit. All extremely fish-friendly.
- Wheat ales - British-brewed new-wave examples include Arran Blonde and O'Hanlons Wheat, plus Hop Back Taiphoon (flavoured with lemon grass). These demonstrate a lovely marriage of crispness from the wheat while emphasising the citric character of hops such as Challenger (sherbet lemon) and Goldings (orange peel).
- Weisse - Bavarian Weisse beers such as L”wenbr„u and Erdinger are great quaffers, with more weighty examples like Schneider Weisse for sophisticates.
Speciality beers
- Abbey and Trappist beers - Chimay, Westmalle.
- Strong beers - old ales and barley wines, Theakston Old Peculier, Gales Prize Old Ale, Lee's Harvest Ale, Young's Old Nick, Fuller's Vintage Ale 2003, Sam Adams Utopias (at 25% abv, the world's strongest beer).
- Strong Continental beers - bocks and doppelbocks - Schneider's Aventinus, Paulaner's Salvator, Samichlaus.
- Oddities - Alaskan Smoked Porter (with malt smoked over alder wood in a fish smokery in Juneau); Black Chocolate Stout at 8.7% abv from the Brooklyn Brewery in New York.
- Fruit beers - Belgians, such as Liefmans, Timmermans Kriek and Frambozen, plus others such as Fraoch, Grozet, Ebulum, St Peter's Lemon & Ginger.
- Large-format bottles - Chimay and Duvel.
- Champagne-like beers - Deus (with a 12% abv) and Malheur from Belgium, guaranteed to bring a sense of occasion and festivity to the table or canap‚ party.
The great beer trial
The George hotel in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight is used to doing things properly. It has a Michelin star and three AA rosettes for its efforts in the restaurant, and a brasserie that keeps head chef Kevin Mangeolles and his team on their toes, especially during the busy summer months. The wine list is sizeable, too, and shows they mean business, but beer? On tap there's Carlsberg, with the likes of Becks and Budweiser stashed in the fridge - not particularly earth-moving, I think you'll agree.
It's not that they can't shift beer; try stopping the yachties at the height of the sailing season on a balmy summer's evening (the hotel is enviously sited at the water's edge). And Mangeolles has even been known to incorporate the odd beer and food match into his tasting menus - the latest was local brewery Ventnor's Old Ruby Bitter paired with a potato and Epoisses tart with beetroot confit (magic).
Manager Jacki Everest conceded that their beer offering could do with a tweak - and Caterer wanted a guinea pig. Welcome to the Great Beer Trial. We take an establishment, such as the George, which hasn't thought much about its beer selection in the past - and give it a gentle kick up the backside. Hopefully, we'll prove that this is what customers want and that restaurants should start giving beer (good beer) the attention it deserves.
Everest has gamely agreed to take six beers to start with, while beer distributors and specialist importers Pierhead Purchasing (020 8320 4467) has agreed to supply them with the lot - bar one local offering (the Isle of Wight is home to two highly regarded breweries, Ventnor and Goddards). Caterer will follow its progress during the summer months, charting its troughs and peaks. How much will they sell? Will people drink beer with food? Which beers will customers go for? Watch this space.