{"id":4329,"date":"2024-03-26T10:40:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T10:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=4329"},"modified":"2025-05-21T08:29:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T08:29:03","slug":"beer-and-food-pairing-in-se18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2024\/03\/26\/beer-and-food-pairing-in-se18\/","title":{"rendered":"Beer and food pairing in SE18"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Woolwich & Plumstead Women\u2019s Institute (aka the Roses) have had a further beery adventure. After the success of our winter micropub crawl on the 51 bus (see London Drinker October\/November 2023) we next had a summer beer and food pairing event. This was carefully curated by Nick Turner, the proprietor of our local micropub, who partnered Roses committee member Sonal Dack to produce a great tasting evening! At this point I will give a shameless plug for the CAMRA award-winning Plum Tree Beer Shop<\/a>, CAMRA South East London branch\u2019s Greenwich District Pub of the Year for 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evening kicked off with a bit of beery education, given that not all of our members are CAMRA members (or even beer drinkers) and it is helpful to know what you\u2019re about to embark upon. I\u2019m quite familiar with the concept of wine and food pairing but beer and food is a relatively new experience. My beer preference leans towards light ales and IPAs and I haven\u2019t always found sours or juicy beers in a can to my taste. Cask ales for me please! Nick however brought along a varied selection of cans and there was something for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We kicked off with a Pils lager, Keller Pils (4.9% ABV) from Lost and Grounded in Bristol. This contains Magnum Pearl hops but, not being a Pils expert (my lager days are behind me), I didn\u2019t know what that signified. It was however a good flavour and paired wonderfully with focaccia bread (oily, tomato, rosemary flavours). An excellent starter!<\/p>\n\n\n

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The beer!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We then moved on to a Mosaic Citra blend from Bristol Beer Factory, which is definitely my kind of beer. This was however alcohol free and aptly named Clear Head. It was paired with Cheddar cheese (my kind of snack) and the sharp contrast of flavours was a winning combination. Our third beer was a 4.6% ABV pale ale from Wylam Brewery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This had an exotic hop mix that I hadn\u2019t heard of before (Azzaca and Bru 1 hybrid hops). It went very well with olives, which I was surprised about, and, we were informed, it also works very well with mushrooms on toast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was then time to move on to puddings and we had an excellent pairing of Strawberry Sundae Sour (5% ABV) from Vault City in Edinburgh, served with strawberries and cream. That was a super combo but you definitely wouldn\u2019t want a session on that beer!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Strawberries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The final pairing was the Neapolitan Ice Cream Stout (5.5% ABV) from Play Brew, Middlesbrough, which had notes of chocolate and strawberry. This was an awesome pairing with Sonal\u2019s homemade cake (we are the WI, after all) which was a chocolate porter cake made with Anspach & Hobday\u2019s London Black. What a finish!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonal said, \u201cPlanning the tasting with Nick was a lot of fun and eye-opening too! The goal was to show our members the huge variety of beers that are out there, that there\u2019s something for everyone and that pairing food with beer can be just as natural as food and wine matching. I think we succeeded!” I should make clear that beer tasting with food (on this occasion) meant sampling; we didn\u2019t have five whole cans per person! Otherwise, we might not have fitted this activity into our meeting time (and we may have felt a little unwell).<\/p>\n\n\n

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The tasters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Any women in the SE18 area who might like to join the WI Roses, please feel free to get in touch via facebook<\/a> . We don\u2019t all drink beer but for those of us who do or might be \u2018beer-curious\u2019, we have a Craft Beer sub-committee that meets every couple of months, naturally in local pubs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently we went to the lovely Green Goddess<\/strong><\/a> pub in Blackheath Standard and met the brewer for the Good Karma Beer Co who brew low alcohol beers. Serving these is another way of getting people into pubs, as well as beer and food pairings. Let\u2019s all enjoy more beer (with food?) in 2024. Cheers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Freeman
CAMRA South East London branch
and Woolwich & Plumstead Roses WI<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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