I don’t mind admitting that beer and chocolate are my two favourite things but have you ever tried matching beer with chocolate? Although you might think it’d be a recipe for disaster, we’ve tried it out at BitterSweet and believe me,  it’s a food match made in heaven! Last Wednesday, we invited top journalists and bloggers such as Jenny from The Style PA and Cate from BitchBuzz to L’atelier des Chefs in order to demonstrate just how well the two go together.

Beer and chocolate are a perfect double act, with many more flavours in common than wine and chocolate. In fact no wine can match chocolate puddings nearly as well as the right beer !! Hops used to brew beer are what cause the bitterness in the taste, but a lot of chocolates are bitter too which makes the beer a perfect complement. The bitterness of beer also helps the drink hold its own when paired with chocolate – chocolate is such a distinctive flavour that it can overwhelm blander drinks. The citrus flavours in certain beers are also there thanks to the hops (hops are great things!!) – and as we already know, citrus flavours, like orange  and chocolate are already a popular flavour mix (it’s not Terry’s, it’s mine!)

During the evening we tried seven different delicious combinations of chocolate and beer – such as Kasteel Cru Rosé with white-chocolate-dipped strawberries, and Blue Moon with an orange sponge cake topped with white chocolate. Following that, we got our hands (in gloves) dirty by making some beer and chocolate truffles – the success of which is proof that beer has a place in sweet as well as savoury recipes!

If you’re interested in trying beer and chocolate, watch this space: soon we’ll be launching more information about how to get the best out of this pairing, as well as an exciting new chocolate-themed competition!

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Beer and Food Matching: is Combining Beer with Chocolate the Perfect Partnership?

Our recent post about beer pancakes has made us hungry for more. Cooking with beer is something we’ll be doing more of – we’ll post here about our culinary adventures, so watch this space! In the meantime, if your appetite is whetted by the idea, have a look at some top tips we’ve found to ensure that your attempts will be a recipe for success:

• It’s great to experiment, but have an idea of how much beer you should add to each recipe – Kate Heyhoe recommends that for rich sauces you should use beer in the same quantities you’d use lime or vinegar, whereas Allegra McEvedy’s braised cabbage recipe for BitterSweet recommends that we use two bottles of beer.

• You can use all types of beer to cook with – each will produce a different flavour, but pale ale might be best to start with because it’s more versatile.

• Beer isn’t just for savoury recipes – here’s one for a beer cupcake, and how about beer cheesecake or even a beer ice cream?

• How about swapping your usual wholemeal for some beer bread or this delicious sounding beer and cheese bread recipe from the Hairy Bikers

• Have you ever heard of Beer Can Chicken? There’s a great post about it on the Food Stories blog – worth taking a look for the amusement value of the pictures alone!

Do you have any tips for how best to cook with beer? Is cooking with beer something you’d like to try? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Image from Cookipedia

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Top Tips For Cooking With Beer

Are you sick of winter? We are – and we’ve still got a while to go yet. We were dismayed to find out from Wikipedia that the season officially ends on March 21 – so still another three weeks away. In our weekly poll about the best time of year to go to the pub, no-one as yet has voted ‘winter’: seems like we’re all united in preferring to enjoy a beer in the warmer weather, when it’s still light outside. If only we could change the clocks so that we have longer, lighter evenings…

Well, to my surprise, I found out last week that there are groups campaigning to put British clocks forward to European time in order for us to enjoy the light, so we can spend an extra hour out enjoying ourselves rather than stay in. The Morning Advertiser reports that the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers & Attractions (BALPPA) is spearheading the movement and that the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) is backing it too. The move would apparently boost tourism by £3 million.

As a theory, it sounds great – more daytime! Longer evenings! However, one thing to bear in mind is that we tend to be optimistic and hopeful about the summer and get disappointed every year – much like with the World Cup. It might be lighter for longer, but will it make a difference if it’s pouring with rain most days? What do you think – is it time to change the clocks, or would the new times pass you by?

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Time for a change?

If you’ve read the BitterSweet Partnership blog before, or have had a good look around the rest of the website, you’ll know that we love food as well as beer – and we think the two go perfectly together. Allegra McEvedy created a delicious festive menu for us so that we could cook a Christmas Dinner with a difference – different beers were ingredients in the recipes in order to give an exciting new twist to the traditional Christmas roast. When food and beer writer Melissa Cole posted her recipe for beer pancakes, we were excited to have a go at cooking with beer again. Gill and Kate both celebrated Shrove Tuesday with beer pancakes. Here are their experiences – and you can take a look at all the photos on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/bittersweetpartnership:

Kate says…
Me and my friends have a Pancake Day party every year so I thought that it’d be great to try something different this year! We made a batch of beer pancake batter and a batch of normal beer pancake batter side-by-side in order to compare. Eggs and beer is possibly the most unusual pair of ingredients I’ve ever mixed together, but the batter came together well and had no lumps in thanks to Melissa’s good advice about the best way to mix the liquid into the flour.

The end pancakes had a better flavour than the plain ones – it didn’t taste like beer, but did add a nice savoury flavour which perfectly complemented the ingredients we added. I tried a couple of different fillings – spinach and ricotta and then bacon and cheddar, and they were both delicious. Even better, there was still some of the bottle of London Pride left to enjoy with them!

Gillian says…
I’ve never cooked with beer before, and despite being a pint drinker I’ve never tried London Pride either – so was really intrigued to know how combining the two would turn out. It did feel slightly strange to add beer to the mixing bowl instead of water or milk, but Melissa’s recipe was really easy to follow. It was also a good suggestion to pour the batter slightly thicker than you would do with a normal pancake, which helps keep the filling inside when you’re eating it.

And the results? The beer added a very subtle savoury zing which was perfect for a more savoury pancake. I added bacon and cheese, and creamy mushroom, both of which went well with the beer flavour. After all the time I spent in the kitchen slaving over the hot frying pan, it made sense to accompany my pancakes with a refreshing Kasteel Cru which went down a treat. I’d definitely make them again and it’s made me think about ways I can adapt my favourite recipes to include beer in future.

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Beer and Pancakes

It’s Valentine’s Day on Sunday – not that you needed me to tell you that. You can’t pick up a newspaper this week without reading an article by a dating guru, or indeed look anywhere without seeing an ad telling you to buy or do something unlikely to celebrate it. With that in mind, I must warn you that I’m about to produce another seemingly unlikely combination: Valentine’s Day and beer. Bear with me – I have some good reasons why this is a great idea:

1. Variety: Celebrating with a beer suits all personality types and budgets. You’re into traditional romance? Try some Kasteel Cru Rose, served in a champagne flute. You want to avoid coming across as cheesy? Champagne can be predictable; show that you’re sophisticated by matching your meal with the perfect craft beer.

2. True romance: What do you think of when you think of Valentine’s Day gifts? Lingerie, chocolates, the dodgy stuff found in the back corners of tacky gift shops? Generic gifts are only good enough for generic relationships – and should you really be wasting your money on someone you have a generic relationship with? If you actually want to celebrate your other half for who they are on Valentine’s Day, the best gift will be something that shows you know them – so if they enjoy trying new beers, buy them a place on a beer tasting course. If they’re a regular at their local pub, you can buy pub tokens.

3. It’s appropriate: If you’ve just started dating, it might feel like too big a gesture to go to a fancy restaurant. Likewise, if you’ve been together a while, you might not want to act like you’re still at the “dating” stage. What’s more, Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday this year – so maybe you won’t feel like a full-on night out. Going to the pub (the Good Pub Guide has recommended 10 special pubs for Valentine’s day here) or enjoying a beer at home together are great ways to just be together without making a big deal about what day it is.

Still not convinced about the romantic potential of beer? Research we’ve done at BitterSweet has shown that beer is more suitable for dates than you’d think – we found that 44% of men would be pleasantly surprised to see their date drinking a beer, and 26% would be secretly pleased. So if worries about how you’ll be seen by your date make you avoid drinking beer, don’t – any man who’s worth your time will think you’re great, whether you’re drinking a pint or a cocktail.

What do you think? Are beer and Valentine’s Day a match made by Cupid, or one to avoid on the 14th?

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Beer and Valentine’s Day – a better combination than you’d think

In case you hadn’t already seen, last week we announced the winning glassware design in our collaboration with PPQ’s Amy Molyneaux. Nearly 2,000 of you voted, and we can reveal that the winning design was Lyla Black!

If you’re reading the BitterSweet blog for the first time, here’s the background behind the project: Our collaboration with Amy was born after the results of our survey revealed that nearly a third of women thought beer packaging was ugly and manly. We set out to create a designer glass in order to help address this, and Amy designed four stylish designs in four different prints. Then we put the designs to the vote.

So what do you think of the winner? We hope that it’ll please the 31% of women who dislike beer packaging – what could be better than a designer half-pint glass for the style-conscious? We’ve received some great comments on the glassware page already – so please do drop by and tell us whether you like it. We’ll be announcing our plans shortly for what will happen with the glasses!

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Winning glassware design unveiled!

While I usually find bars in and around Shoreditch to be overly “ironic” and full of cheap vodka and overly priced fancy beers – I was incredibly pleased to discover that The Commercial Tavern was none of these things.

Sure it had cheap vodka, but more importantly, it had some excellent treasures on tap.
In the fridge they had the usual Aspall ciders, and chilled wines, but what caught my eye (and my taste buds) was that they had Meantime Brewery’s Helles Bier on draft.

This “country style lager” is absolutely gorgeous, and should delight any discerning female palette.
According to Meantime, “helles” is the German word for “light”, and compared to Meantime’s other bad boy brews like their signature IPA – Helles is definitely lighter.

Measuring in at 4.4% ABV, Helles is citrusy, a bit hoppy, but altogether a refreshingly smooth brew that won’t leave your pout puckering from bitterness.

In my opinion, Helles Bier embodies a lot of what The Commercial Tavern is about. The decor is a kitschy blend of grandma-chic meets antique-glam with vintage mirrors on the ceiling, and quite the collection of extravagant chandeliers dangling above the bar.

This is the perfect place for you and your gal pals to meet on a Thursday night, perch on their lovely white tables, and have a proper chat over a pint (or half-pint!) of Helles.

Trust me, it will be the highlight to your week. (Or dare I say month?)

Cate Sevilla is the founding editor of BitchBuzz.com. You can follow her on Twitter as @cupcate.

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Helles Bier & The Commercial Tavern: The Perfect Combination for the Female Beer Drinker

The match and a pint is one of the pub’s most popular combinations. Both beer and sport have much in common: both are part of industries made up of a large percentage of men, both are traditionally marketed at men, and the biggest fans of each are usually men. While I don’t want to suggest that pubs stop showing football, I do want to suggest that it’s time for some pubs to make a bigger effort when it comes to entertainment: namely by acknowledging the female half of the population.

So what can pubs do in order to attract more female punters? Perhaps they should just change the channel: shows such as the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing attract over 10 million viewers at their peaks, whereas football matches bring in about a million. Would these shows work in the pub? Given how much talk about these shows is generated on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s clear that they are a real conversation starter among fans – and although Twitter is great, it’s no real substitute for experiencing things together and talking about it over a drink.

Our research into women and beer found that women are more likely to choose beer when at a festival, making it clear that beer can be a event drink for us. Perhaps it would be wise for more pubs to capitalise on this by enhancing the festival feel – and supporting local musical talent at the same time. Or pubs that specialise in great food or a large range of beers could hold beer pairing events – at BitterSweet we’ve held some beer and food matching events with great success.

Alternatively, we’ve heard of several bars and pubs enticing people to their doors through using their space to put on something different – the Marksman in London has just started a fashion pub quiz, which has been posted about by top fashion bloggers Susie Bubble and Isabelle OC. We’ve also heard of events from life drawing sessions in Beach Blanket Babylon in Shoreditch to clairvoyants and beauty treatments at the Dalriada in Edinburgh’s Portobello.

What do you think? Would you be more likely to go to the pub if something different was happening there?

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Beer and Entertainment

Forget designer handbags, divorce papers or tiny dogs – the latest celeb accessory for 2010 is a beer in hand. Don’t believe us? We’ve noticed plenty of female celebrities enjoying beer just like we do, after having caught on to what we know already: that beer can be a lighter alternative to wine or spirits in both calories and alcohol content.

• Madonna: Is that a beer bottle we can see the former Material Girl holding in her latest ad campaign for Dolce and Gabbana? Judge for yourself here. We always knew that beer and fashion was the perfect mix – watch this space for news about our glassware collaboration with Amy from PPQ.

• Nicola T: At BitterSweet Partnership she was our favourite to win Celeb Big Brother so we’re gutted she was voted out early – she came to our garden party in the summer to help us celebrate the beauty of beer, plus we saw her sipping on a can of lager while in the house.

• Rihanna: The Russian Roulette singer was recently spotted holidaying with a bottle of beer, showing off her enviable figure in a cut-out swimsuit. We’re not saying that drinking beer will get you a body like hers- however, swapping a large glass of red wine at 170 calories for a bottle of beer at 142 calories is a more figure-friendly choice.

• Cat Deeley: OK! Magazine has spotted her enjoying an al-fresco beer – we can’t wait until the weather turns so we can join her!

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of celebrities – at the BitterSweet Garden Party we had every kind of celeb, from pop star (Kimberley from the Pussycat Dolls) to fashionista (Brix Smith Start) to actress (Ali Bastian) in attendance to celebrate the beauty of beer. We’ll let you know if we spot any more – but in the meantime, do you know of any female celebs with a taste for beer? Do you think that seeing the likes of Rihanna drinking beer will help to break down some of the myths and stereotypes surrounding it?

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Is Beer the Latest Hot Celebrity Trend?

Isn’t January awful? The weather’s miserable, Christmas is nearly a whole year away, and a lot of us have been snowed in. So what do you do when you can’t make it out to the pub? We’ve been spending the time thinking positively, and have been thinking about the many reasons there are to love beer. One reason is that it can be great as a beauty treatment, improving skin and hair. And far be it from me to recommend something I haven’t tried! This month I’ve gone to great lengths – from mashing sweet potato to hunting down Catherine Zeta Jones’s favourite shampoo – to find out the best ways to use beer to enhance your beauty regime. Here’s a summary of what I’ve found so far.

Hair

• Linco Beer Shampoo: Dennis The Chemist tells me that this is Catherine Zeta Jones’s favourite shampoo – I’m unconvinced. It smells like an 80’s hairdressers, and left my hair feeling dry and unmanageable. I wouldn’t recommend this unless you’re entering a Wurzel Gummidge look-a-like competition!

• Lush’s Cynthia Sylvia Stout: It smells divine and leaves your hair feeling squeaky clean. While it looks like stout, it doesn’t smell like it – so no worries there about smelling like a brewery! I’d buy this again.

Skin

• The beer bath: I added Worthington White Shield to my bath and at first I despaired – my bathroom smelled like an old slop tray. But just like the beer itself, the character of the bath changed and suddenly I was enveloped by a delicious, warm, sweet, malty horlicks smell that was so comforting and relaxing I could hardly keep my eyes open and I could have stayed in it for ever. My skin was soft afterwards and it didn’t make me smell like a half-empty beer glass like I feared!

• The beer facemask, 1: After finding a recipe on BellaSugar, I decided to give the beer facemask a go: all you need is a cup of mashed sweet potato with two tablespoons of beer mixed in. Mixing it up was easy, getting it to stay on my face was difficult – as was getting rid of the orange tinge. Don’t try this one at home.

• The beer facemask, 2: Made out of a mixture of beer, Yoghurt, Olive Oil, egg, lemon and almond extract, this was a lot better than the last one – it hardened like a real facemask and smelled delicious. Really relaxing and worth a try.

So, as you can see, my experiments with beer beauty have been mixed, but definitely worth doing. You can read about all of these in more detail on my personal blog – and soon I’ll be trying even more. I’ll keep you updated!

Have you ever tried beer as a beauty treatment? What did you try, and would you recommend it?

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Beer and Beauty