Drink Choices, episode 7: Weekend Entertaining

This week I am recommending a couple of alternatives to matching wine with food. Pairing Tom's nuggets and baklava with an ale, and Ching's rice balls and pie with a Japanese sake means we can reach the parts that wine can't!

What starts the weekend better than a versatile, refreshing bottle or can of beer. There are so many exciting new beers on the market; it’s difficult where to start. Here is a range of modern and classic beers perfect for watching the footy with your mates, or savouring in the garden, with a few chicken nuggets, once the weather turns fine again.

Tom’s chicken nuggets, carrot baklava

1. Beavertown Neck Oil Session IPA (£2.50 from any good beer specialist.)

This brewery started off as a conversation in London’s leading barbecue pit in trendy, edgy Haggerston less than four years ago. Truly delicious and achingly cool to look at, the success of this beer and its siblings really spells out what’s so exciting about British craft beer. I can’t keep my hands off it.

2. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (Widely Available £1.80)

This was one of the first American ales to make brewers and drinkers over here realise that we were perhaps resting on our brewing laurels a little bit. It has the complexity of a first class ale, married to the zesty, thirst-slaking dryness of a continental lager. It’s always in my fridge, and I drink it ice cold straight from the bottle.

3. Shepherd Neame Bishops Finger Kentish Strong Ale (£1.90 Morrisons)

This is a real bit of English history. It is from the longest continually producing brewery in Britain. Despite this, the style of the beer is crisp, crafted, deft and modern. There’s a lovely golden caramel note from the crystal malt in this ale that would go perfectly with the batter on the chicken, and the buttery baklava.

So, Ching’s delicious mouthfuls of savoury joy, need something that will enhance all those tasty, mushroomy lingering flavours. What could be better than a glass of Sake? This fascinating drink is finding itself on top restaurant lists, now that chefs and sommeliers realise that it reaches parts other beers and wines cannot reach.

Ching’s delicious mouthfuls of savoury joy, need something that will enhance all those tasty mushroomy lingering flavours.

Ching’s spicy salmon rice balls and umami chicken and shitake mushroom pie

1. Sawanotsuru Deluxe Sake (£11.29 Waitrose)

This is the only true Sake that I am familiar with that is available throughout most of the country. It’s very much the first rung of the fine sake ladder, but offers great. Nutty, richly textured and full of flavour, in part due to a bit of rice brandy being added to it, this is particularly delicious with the little pies.

2. Gekkeiken Horin Jumai Daiginjo (30cl) (£10.50 japancentre.com)

As you can see, this is pricey stuff, costing over £20 a pint, but you don’t need much to realize that you get what you pay for. This is the top grade of Sake, and is so expensive because the yield from the little grains of rice is so so low. Amazing aromas of citrus, pea blossom, and a sledge hammer of perfumed, tasty umami flavours. This would be ethereal with the salmon rice balls. Corrr.

3. La Gitana Manzanilla, Hidalgo (Widely available £9.99)

OK. So, you live in Skegness, and you have looked everywhere and you can’t find any sake. Not surprised. I couldn’t either. This is the best alternative out there. Manzanilla (Spanish for ‘apple blossom’. Ahhhh.) It’s a slightly softer style of dry sherry than your usual Fino, which always has a viscerally crisp bite. This is smoother, mellower and more savoury. Use it anywhere that you would use Sake, even in cooking. Just use slightly less. I am never without a half-bottle of this, in case of sake or sherry-related emergencies.

*Please note that the retailers and prices listed were last updated on 22nd December 2014, and these drinks may also be available at different retailers.