As part of its mission to empower the UK to favour beer over wine with food

With its award-winning real ales stealing a march in the flourishing micro-brewery market, Ilkley Brewery is working with Great British Menu chef, Stephanie Moon, to explore the culinary craft of food and beer pairing.

While wine has, for many years, been the go-to drink as a fine dining tipple, Ilkley Brewery is passionate about changing these long-held traditions and aims to put beer on the menu as a carefully crafted, delicate and flavour-filled alternative to its corked counterpart.

A chef’s perspective

As part of its mission to empower the UK to favour beer over wine with food, Ilkley Brewery has joined forces with Stephanie Moon, chef consultant at Harrogate’s Rudding Park, Deliciouslyorkshire champion and a contestant on BBC2’s Great British Menu. Stephanie has worked with the brewery to match six of its beers with a variety of dishes: some restaurant style, some family favourites.

The end result of Stephanie’s food and beer trials is The Pint Chart: a reference guide which suggests perfect partners for each of the brewery’s real ales:

“Drinking beer with food is nothing new – pork scratchings and meat pies have gone down well with a pint of bitter for a long time now. However, what we’re trying to do is widen the perception of what works with beer to include high-end, healthy and accessible dishes”, said Stephanie.

 Some of the highlights from Stephanie’s ‘Pint Chart’ for Ilkley Brewery include oysters with Stout Mary, lemon and thyme marinated chicken with Mary Jane , lamb chops with Ilkley Pale and chocolate pudding with Ilkley Black.

Speaking about their adventures into food and beer matching, Stewart Ross, one of the Ilkley Brewery directors, said: “It’s big news at the moment that micro-breweries are bucking the economic trend and we believe this is because people are increasingly fascinated by the provenance of their food and drink and take an interest in how things are made. An example of this rise in beer appreciation is a new course developed by the Beer Academy in London: the Beer Sommelier Scheme aims to educate its students on everything from creating beer menus to matching beer and high-end cuisine.

 “So just as wine enthusiasts know their Cabernets from their Pinots, we’re finding people are becoming more and more clued up on hop varieties. With this understanding of the broad range of flavours beer can produce – from delicate citrus light ales to robust, creamy stouts – it stands to reason that beer should be paired with complementary food flavours and enjoyed, just like wine.”

 An evening of beer and food

Ilkley Brewery, with the culinary consultancy of Stephanie Moon, will be supporting one of Ilkley Literature Festival’s events on Friday 7 October. Melissa Cole, one of the country’s most prolific and respected writers and broadcasters on beer, will be talking about her first book, Let Me Tell You About Beer, where she will take guests on a fascinating journey of beer discovery, which will be brought to life with a range of Yorkshire-themed taster dishes, paired perfectly with an Ilkley Brewery beer.

Speaking about her new book and the forthcoming food and beer celebration at the Ilkley Playhouse, Melissa said: “It’s great to see beer being so respected by top chefs like Stephanie and to be working with her to pair up some food with the eminently suppable Ilkley beers is a real treat for me.

 “It’s been a long, hard slog writing the book so, now it’s finished, having a few beers and chatting to people about beer is the fun part for me, and I hope it will be for the audience as well!”