Beer & Food Matching: Mine's a mild
JUST TO show how firmly The Publican has its finger on the pulse, some months back we'd scheduled mild as the beer style for which our beer and food matching stalwarts would come up with suggested matches this time around.
So imagine how smug we felt when Hobsons Mild from Shropshire was named Champion Beer of Britain by CAMRA last month.
Ben Bartlett, catering development manager, Marston's Pub Company: Mild beers add great flavour and body to batters and marinades, and the yeast in the brew can help create fluffy, flavourful breads.
The Beer Cook Book has a great recipe using mild to create oxtail casserole in dark mild. Brown oxtail pieces in hot beef dripping, then add onion, carrot, celery and parsnip along with bay leaf, chestnuts, thyme and mild. The meat is utterly tender after four to five hours cooking and the stock has a marvellous dark sheen and spicy aroma, with a hintof hops.
Mild is becoming an endangered British species - although it is one of the most traditional beer styles and one of the most refreshing. As the weather forecast would have it, the outlook is mild!
Phil Vickery, chef and broadcaster: Mild is quite a difficult beer to match. It's a sort of 'in between' beer in my eyes. But I think it's great with hearty, autumn doorstep sandwiches such as Cumberland sausage and mustard or a good sausage with fried onions. I think it could also work well with a tart - caramel apple pie, or even a pear and almond crumble.
John Keeling, Fuller's head brewer: Mild, and in particular stronger mild such as Gales Festival, is a very complex beer and is good with strongly flavoured meats - try it with steak or game.
Paul Drye, catering development manager, St Austell Brewery: Although mild has fallen out of favour over the last decade or three, I for one would love to see a comeback - along with good old British mutton, curly kale and eggs with white shells.
Milds often have toasty caramel flavours with sweet, rounded fruitiness. This may work quite well with a good honest steak pie, but it's absolutely stunning with game.
Try a juicy pan-fried venison fillet with some buttery crushed potatoes and a glass of St Austell's Black Prince.
If you're not in Cornwall, then Thwaites Dark Mild with a few wild boar sausages and apple sauce is a match made in heaven. So come on - play the game and give mild a chance!
Rupert Ponsonby, Beer Academy: This Monday, I drank a Manns Brown Ale, a bottled mild at a lowly 2.8 per cent ABV, with a native oyster.
It was wonderful, so unexpected and yet so totally right, a gentle merging together of two characterful but complementary souls, the Prince William and Kate Middleton of all food matches.
Oysters are in season now and they add such style to any menu. But if raw oysters aren't your passion serve them hot, deep fried in hoppy batter, and dispatched on their oesophagal highway by a glorious glass of mild.
Softly-flavoured sensuous meats are also great with milds. So if, like Prince Charles, you have a thing about mutton, capers and onion sauce, then pair it with a fuller-bodied mild.
The relaxed, sweet flavours of the craggy sheep are mirrored by the soft, sweet gentleness of the mild. What a combination, and so British.
