The Curious Case of Beer Flavoured Foods

It is well known that there are hundreds of dishes out there that use beer in their recipes, including stews, soups, battered fish, chilli-con carne, cake, bread, marinated meats and roasts. What is less known however is the small number of breweries who have engaged in producing food items infused with their own beers. This practise is albeit uncommon as its often difficult for breweries to find the extra space to produce food items, and where this does occur, the production is normally outsourced to another company. Such as the case when Everards collaborated with Leicester based company Drivers Pickles where they produced Tiger Ale Chutney infused with their flagship product Tiger Ale (4.2%), moreover Tring Brewery worked with Grim Reaper Foods to develop a hot sauce permeated with their powerful IPA Raven King (5.5%). Or more recently in February last year when Powys based brewery Monty’s teamed up with Get Jerky of Welshpool to develop Real Ale Beef Jerky, flavoured with their stout Dark Secret (5.5%). Although using beer in food can be seen as innovative, truthfully many of these products are hard to come by and often sold at brewery shops or on a limited strictly local basis; however, if you dig deeper, you’ll find a marvellous menagerie of beer flavoured food products situated throughout the land.

 

Quite often, you’ll find beer used in condiments such as Chutneys, Sauces and Mustard as its far easier to produce and implement that other food products; Hook Norton notably has a varied range with the likes of, Old Hooky Mustard Double Stout Chilli Mustard, Old Hooky Beer Chutney, Flagship Smooth Mustard and Haymaker Smooth Mustard for instance; whilst St Austell boasts the likes of Korev Sweet Chilli Sauce, Tribute Ale Chutney and Mena Dhu BBQ Sauce for instance; Chiltern features the likes of Dark Old Ale Chutney, Chiltern Ale Mustard and Chiltern Porter BBQ Sauce; and furthermore Andwell’s once featured a range of condiments in their range using their Resolute Bitter (3.8%) in the likes of Resolute Chilli Jam and Rich Resolutely Chutney, whilst King John (4.6%) was used in the regally named Royal Red Onion Marmalade. Sometimes specific beers may be used such as Theakston’s Old Peculier (5.6%) in products like Peculier English Country Mustard, Peculier Red Tomato & Chilli Jam and Peculier Apple, Peach & Apricot Chutney for instance; whilst Tring utilize Death or Glory (7.2%) in their Chutney and Wholegrain Mustard products respectively. Meanwhile, Thornbridge’s range of sauces are based around their iconic beer Jaipur (5.9%) and include the likes of Jaipur BBQ Sauce, Jaipur Mango & Pineapple Table Sauce and Jaipur Birthday Hot Sauce for instance.

 

Crisps always go well with beer, so it quite an occasion when the two are combined together. A notable case occurred in 2015, when Adnams teamed up with Fairfields Farm whom specialise in producing gourmet hand-cooked crisps, when they came up with Ghost Ship Crisps which were flavoured with the brewery’s iconic pale ale Ghost Ship (4.5%). It is quite rare to see breweries collaborate with crisp manufacturers, although through the years we have seen the likes of Roast Beef & Spitfire Ale (Kent Crisps), Hobgoblin Spitroast Steak (Burts) and more recently Steak & Butcombe Ale Pie Crisps (The British Snack Co.). Other types of pub snacks have also been tried, such as Adnams’ Ghost Ship Peanuts (Mr. Filberts), Tring’s Death or Glory Charcuterie Sticks (Chiltern Charcuterie), Monty’s Real Ale Beef Jerky (Get Jerky) or the humble Pickled Onion, which includes the likes of Peculier Pickled Onions (Theakston), Found Hope Beer Pickled Onions (Macintosh) and Fuggles Hop Pickled Onions (Chiltern) for instance. Notably in 2020, Grainstore Brewery released a range of flavoured pork scratchings that included a variety of flavours dervied from various beers in their extensive range including Rutland Panther (3.4%), Rutland Osprey (4%) and Ten Fifty (5%). Moreover, beer has often been noted as a reliable ingredient in pies, and in 2018 Pukka Pies released a Steak & Ale pie flavoured with St Peter’s Best Bitter (3.7%), whilst Burford based Cotswold Pie Co. created a Steak & Wadworth Ale Pie utilizing Wadworth’s flagship bitter 6X (4.3%) in the mix, this promising pie has gone onto win multiple awards including winning Silver at the British Pie Awards in 2021 and 2022, a 1 star at the Great Taste Awards the same year. Cheese has often been described as an appropriate accompaniment to beer since the number of beer and cheese pairings are infinite, which in turn has inspired some producers to produce cheeses infused with beer in the mix, cheddar is quite often seen as the cheese of choice due to its relatively mild qualities that marry well with the comparatively stronger flavours of beer. For instance, Chiltern recently released Chiltern Beer Cheese fortified with their Beechwood Best Bitter (4.3%), whilst the Cheshire Cheese Co. developed Old Hag which features the intriguing combination of cheddar, wholegrain mustard and Old Hag Stout (5.2%) by Macclesfield based brewer Wincle Beer, and Wensleydale Creamery once utilizd noted strong ale Riggwelter (5.7%) from Black Sheep Brewery, for their Fountains Gold Cheddar.

 

For the sweet tooth, marmalades and conserves are a popular option. Hook Norton notably developed Off the Hook Marmalade that utilized their Off the Hook (4.3%) with Seville oranges to create an unusual beer flavoured marmalade, meanwhile, Timothy Taylor has taken the innovative approach of mixing marmalade with their Poulter’s Porter (4.8%) to create a Porter Marmalade. They also teamed up with Botham’s of Whitby to create a fruit cake flavoured with Landlord (4.1%), other Yorkshire based breweries have also created their own Fruit Cakes including Theakston whom created a cake using Old Peculier (5.6%) and their close relations at Black Sheep Brewery who created a cake infused with Riggwelter (5.7%). Meanwhile at the tail end of the year, an increasing number of breweries have been releasing Christmas Pudding infused with their own tipples, quite often using ales from the stronger end of their range such Chiltern’s take on the festive classic which is flavoured with their Lord Lieutenant’s Cream Porter (6%), whilst Harvey’s of Lewes utilize their Christmas Ale (7.5%) in their concoction, and Adnams use Broadside (6.3%) with theirs. In 2015, Chelmsford based business Lillypuds established by Alison Lilly created a Christmas Pudding that utilized Chockwork Orange (6.5%) from Brentwood Brewery, in the first year alone she sold 600 puddings to shops around Essex and a further 500 mini-puds to local restaurants and pubs, this remarkable pudding continues to be sold on a yearly basis.  

 

The business of breweries infusing their beers with food products is still a cottage industry at present, but in recent years a growing number of breweries have joined the bandwagon, working with local and national food producers to create their own innovative creations; over the years, we have seen a whole manner of beers innovated with food, from marmalades infused with IPA to cheddar cheeses flavoured with bitter and fruit cakes macerated with strong ale. There’s even a growing selection of snacks to choose from beef jerky, pork scratchings and crisps, that are flavoured with all manner of beers. The possibilities are endless, and in the ensuing years as more breweries release their own beer flavoured food products, perhaps we’ll see a surge in productivity and availability as these products become available on a wider and potentially national basis.