Mine's a pint! Hold the menu

by Jo Eames

Don’t get me wrong. I like beer.  In fact, I love beer.  I grew up in Burton-on-Trent for heaven’s sake. Marston’s Pedigree was as mother’s milk to me. The first boy I ever kissed went on to be a master brewer and now has his own tower brewery. Hell, my sister even toils in the hop fields of Herefordshire, Spring and Autumn, hop-tying and hop-picking.

So I love beer, but I don’t get it. This whole beer and food matching thing. Yes, I’m sure it can be done. And I’m sure there can be some surprising, even enjoyable, results. And I know why it’s done – to sell more, and more premium, beer. And since I’m in the business of selling beer across fifteen pubs, surely I should be rushing to jump on board. But I’m not, because I think it’s the wrong path.   Beer is one of the last simple pleasures. Its great advantage is that it isn’t surrounded by the foggy mythology, hype and snobbery that obscures wine and makes it hard for people to relax and enjoy. 

The fantastic thing about beer is that you walk into the pub, tired at the end of a long day, ask the barman for a pint of your favourite and drink it. You feel better. No user name. No password. No toggle. No swipe. No grape variety to mispronounce. No worry over the wrong vintage. No bloody dribble in the bottom of the glass first to pass judgment on. Just point at the pump, say: “Pint, please”  (not even that if it’s your local and they know you as well as they should) and you get a glass of clear, glowing, golden liquid that quenches your thirst and improves your day.

If we all suddenly have to remember that pilsner goes with Thai food, and Trappist beer goes with mussels, and crafty restaurants start trying to sell us a £10 bottle of beer to go with our cheese (after the wine, before the coffee??) the fun’ll go out of it. Beer’ll just be one more bloody thing to worry about getting wrong. And don’t we have enough of that in our lives?