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Why beer is a better drink to serve with food than wine
Beer is better paired with fine food than wine, and can be served in flutes and tumblers, says Jane Peyton, The Beer Academy's Sommelier of the Year
Beer is a better drink to serve with food than wine, Britain’s Beer Sommelier of the Year has claimed, as she advises hosts to serve it a Champagne flute or brandy snifter rather than traditional pint glasses.
Jane Peyton, who was named Sommelier of the Year by The Beer Academy in May, said that there was too much snobbery around pairing beer with food.
She advised serving beers made with Champagne yeast as an aperitif or ales with chocolate and coffee flavours with rich desserts like tirimusu.
“It’s actually much better pairing with a food than wine and there are so many special beers for fine dining,” she told The Independent on Sunday’s New Review magazine.
“But snobbery means it’s an uphill battle to convince people of all that. Wine as the drink of people of high status for 5,000 years and the wine industry, with its good PR has maintained that reputation.”
Ms Peyton said many hosts just assume that women, in particular, only want to drink wine at dinner or parties.
“Don’t patronise a woman,” she added. “And if she orders beer, don’t assume she’ll want a pale, tasteless fruit beer. She might want an Imperial Russian stout, which tastes like treacle.
“I’m always trying to persuade more women to drink beer. When I have dinner parties I pour out my ale into Champagne flutes and brandy glasses.”
Britain is undergoing a craft beer resurgence with more than 1,300 breweries and micro-breweries in the UK, he highest number in 70 years.
In January a decade of decline in beer sales came to an end with 1.3 per cent rise in purchases.
The 1.3 per cent rise in 2014 followed nine consecutive years of decline, which saw beer sales slide by an astonishing 24 per cent – 6.7 million fewer pints sold, per day.
It was mainly due to Labour’s beer duty escalator which ran from 2008 and 2013 and saw beer tax rise by 42 per cent, leading to 7,000 pubs closing and the loss of 58,000 jobs.
However after two historic cuts in beer duty by Chancellor George Osborne the industry has begun a resurgence.
Ms Peyton said pubs were a national treasure and should be saved at all cost.
“They are good for our social health as they are so convivial,” she added. “Beers in a pub make people happy.”
To wine Sommelier of the Year experts must to suggest beer matches for the three course British Institute of Innkeeping’s annual lunch menu, conduct a tasting of a bottled craft beer and demonstrate how to present a beer in perfect condition in a pub environment.