Serving the well-loved British pork snack alongside considered beers is set to be the new pub trend if the success of a recent experimental tasting at The White Horse in Parsons Green is anything to go by.

Diners were encouraged to experiment with pairing a selection of scratchings with a host of beers. First, the scratchings – a veritable array of rind and underlying fat from the pigs' shanks were served five ways. There was the traditional once cooked, the slightly crispier twice cooked, the altogether more Quaver-like pork crunch (skin removed, double deep fried so that the fat puffs up - favoured in America), the curry-flavoured pork crunch, and a divider – the somewhat old school leaf scratching: a flaky sheet of rendered down pure fat that some might say is closer to a piece of stale bread than a scratching (it's popular in Germany apparently – I wasn’t a fan, and neither was our host, who suggested that his dog might turn it down).

As expected, few beers didn't complement the scratching, but there were several that stood out. Banks's Mild, with it's smooth maltiness made a great accompaniment to all of the scratchings, as did the universally available Carlsberg Export, which is no doubt matched accordingly nationwide. The extra hoppiness of Harvey's bitter met well with the full flavour and chewiness inherent of the traditional scratching (the pork crunch and twice-cooked were more one-dimensional texturally). Wheat beers were a resounding success, their full bodies and vanilla flavours providing balance to each salty explosion. The Cornish wheat beer, St. Austell Clouded Yellow, lifted the porkiness with light perfumed spice; the sweetness of the Belgian offering, Blanche de Bruxelles, came into its own when a traditional ram's horn was served aside a refreshing portion of gooseberry and apple dip.

Lastly, the Mackeston stout, with its relatively low abv (4.9%) and dark, sweet nature, made an ideal accompaniment to the grand finale – a platter of bitter chocolate coated scratchings.

News item from Imbibe.com, 05-11-2010 (updated 16-11-2010)