And here’s me and fellow beer scribe Adrian Tierney-Jones at a very memorable beer and food matching event at the legendary Rick Stein’s seafood school in Padstow, Cornwall, courtesy of Cornish Brewer Sharp’s.
It was an awesome occasion. The Publican write-up is here.
Now that Rick has recently taken up a 15 year lease on his local, St Austell Ales’ Cornish Arms at St Merryn, I think I’ll have to take a short drive up the coast to see what he’s got in store as far as beer and food matching is concerned. Hope he’ll be stocking Clouded Yellow, surely one of St Austell Ale’s best ever beers.
Cornish brewing has gone through quite a change over the last few years; from 1 or 2 breweries not so long ago to around 14 now at the last count. We really do have some quite gorgeous beers down here; beers that our local pubs and restaurants could easily match to good local food. Maybe that’s a good angle for the whole beer and food matching thing – wherever you are, people like to eat good locally-produced food so matching it with similarly good local beer could be another way to introduce punters to the idea.
High profile characters like Rick can surely only help the cause. Well, that’s what I thought until I started watching Bill and Ted’s, sorry, Oz Clarke and James May’s Bogus Journey or whatever it’s called. I notice from the TV trailers that they’re down here in the next episode. God help us.
Looking forward to the new book Pete, by the way.
You may recall that I stood by that station smashing mussels for an obscene amount of time.
What a fantastic day, eh.
Hmm, I like the idea of using fennel in a beer to match seafood. Indeed, that entails a decent skill when it comes to find the right dosage of fennel so as not to overpower teh beer itself…
Eh? And he told me he was spending a night of sordid passion with six hookers… Right, that’s it – lying pastard.