In defence of a classic British food & beer pairing

I love food. I love beer, and I really love the two together. Beer and food pairing is a brilliant world of flavour opportunity. Truly remarkable culinary experiences can be discovered with an open and experimental mindset. Sometimes these pairings work because just how unexpected they are. There is a real joy to be found by taking two things that seem so disparate on paper, but harmonise on your palate. Sometimes though, you’ve got to hand it to the classic combos, sometimes the most obvious is, obviously, unrivalled. You might be thinking of Helles and pretzels, oysters and stout, or a curry and an industrial faux Indian lager, but for me the top tier all time food and beer pairing is pints of bitter and pork pies.

This post has been brought on by the recent discovery that ‘Block & Butcher” in Wendover, Bucks, sells the best pork pies I have ever tried. The pastry is thick yet brittle, it shatters, then crunches before melting away in your mouth. The jelly is minimal, appearing only really as a welcome hint rather than a gelatinous barrier. But it is the meat that is truly sensational. This isn’t the grey mulch of your off the shelf supermarket pork pies. This is fresh bacon pink. It’s mottled and irregular, when you look at it you can see the individual chunks of meat that have been merged together by hand pressure and nothing more. The meat is of fantastic quality and incredibly seasoned. I’d like to keep my hyperbole in check, but it’s difficult because it is no lie to say these pork pies are astonishing. The first time I had one I was so blown away, I didn’t even garnish the pie with my usual thick spread of English mustard. So a few days ago, when my wife returned home with another pie for me, I knew that this time I had to match it with a really fantastic beer.

After some deliberation, the choice I went for was a bottle of ‘Old Timer’. A 5.8% “Strong Ale by Wadworth Brewery that I had picked up on a recent work visit to Devizes. The beer is a long-standing, though perhaps lesser known entry in the Winter Warmer/ESB bracket of British bitters, deep chestnut colour with fruitcake aroma, followed by sticky malt sweetness and a solid hedgerow hop character that tempers the sweeter elements and stops it from becoming saccharine. Overall it is rich, hearty and welcoming. Pairing it with the pie felt like the logical choice in my bones, and my bones were right. It was a phenomenal match. The interplay between the savoury pork and the earthy malt fruitiness of Old Timer just kept me going back for more. Pastoral idylls of the British countryside were painted in my mind with every bite and sip. I was in heaven.

Pork pies and pints have been a joint pleasure of mine for some time. A decade ago, I worked on a rota, which meant every other week I had a Wednesday off. My partner would be at work, and I would have the day to entertain myself. On these days it was a regular choice to do a long country walk followed by a pork pie and a couple of pints in a rural pub. My usual destination would be the Valiant Trooper in Aldbury, Herts. I would take a long scenic walk of nearly seven miles to get there, looping from Tring town up onto the Ridgeway and then cross country, steadily downhill to Aldbury, a picturesque village at the foot of the Ashridge Forest and Ivinghoe Beacon. The Valiant Trooper was* a beautiful worn in pub, built of red brick walls, dark oak beams and stone floors. It was one of the oldest free houses in the area. The business focussed on traditional pub fare and, for my money, did it very well. I would arrive; tired, muddy and thirsty, and would order a pint from their exceptionally well kept cask range. This was usually Beechwood Bitter by The Chiltern Brewery. I would also order myself a pork pie. Then I’d take a seat near the fire and settle in for an hour or two of reading. The pie would be delivered to the table before I had even finished my first gulp. Golden and compact and presented with a ramekin of mustard, it was the perfect accompaniment to a top quality pint and the best reward after a hike. Once I was sufficiently rested I would take the road walk home, a much flatter and more direct three miles. The pie, pints and warmth of the pub fuelled the return journey and a sense of satisfaction that would last the rest of the day.

Pork pies and pints of bitter share much of their heritage. Both have a deep history in British cuisine going back hundreds of years, though both only really start to become what we currently understand them to be in the mid-19th century: The hot water crust pastry and jellied version of pork pies started to be sold out of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire in 1831. This is only 34 years after the hand pump beer engine was patented and just 11 years before the very first printed mention of the term “bitter” as a beer style. Both were every day food stuffs made and consumed at home or on small local scale. However, in the last 200 years, both have been commercialised, with production mostly by industrialised mega factories and only a small percentage of the market shared by artisanal premium makers. Both have historically been the sustenance of the working class, though fancy up-market versions of both are now available. Both are derided by the press as poor dietary choices; contributors to an obese nation. But for me that misses the point, as both are sustenance for the soul; the part of our body which, these days, needs the most nourishment.

Those trips to the Valiant Trooper aren’t my only fond memories of pork pies and pints. There has also been picnic lunches on windswept hill tops, where, after a dozen miles underfoot, an ever so slightly sweaty pie and a warm bottle of local ale taste like the very elixir of life itself. I would be remiss to not also mention that most dangerous of scenarios; the mini pork pies at buffets. Once they are out, I only leave the vicinity of the platter to go back to the bar and get a refill of my glass.

I titled this blog “In defence of a classic British food & beer pairing”. The truth is I don’t know who or what I am defending it from. No one is coming to take it away from us. No one is eroding the pleasure that the pair bring me. But the sentiment remains nonetheless. I would never go to war for king and country, but I’d put up a bloody good fight for Pork Pies and Pints.

*The Valiant Trooper was bought by new owners a few years ago who have renovated it. Now back to it’s original name of just “The Trooper” it is a much more upmarket all day restaurant/pub with the decor closer to a bougie coffee shop. It’s no longer the pub I loved, though I wish the owners every success.