As the days start getting hotter, I find myself wanting to eat outside. For me this means all those massively flavourful foods from all over the world, that combine whopping great flavours with spice and smoke.
Beer goes with outdoor cooking like nothing else and recently I’ve been looking, with a kind of happy nostalgia, to the simple cleanliness of cold lager. I went to my favourite beer sommelier, Annabel Smith, in search of recommendations.
“Lagers can be many things – elegant and subtle, with a biscuity sweetness, or robust and full-flavoured,” she says. “All have the attitude to stand up to the flavours of barbecued food.
“But let’s face it, if you’re doing a barbecue, it’s probably been a sultry day and a cold lager straight from the icebox will hit the spot more effectively than any other drink.”
The big set piece of outdoor cooking is a whole shoulder of pulled pork. And having lived for a few years in North Carolina, I have pretty strong opinions on how to do it.
The pork is first flavoured with a spicy rub and fruity marinade before being smoked outdoors on a barbecue with the lid down, over woodchips, for about 45 minutes.
Lacking a large barbecue pit, I generally do the long, slow cooking part in a regular oven, wrapping the smoked shoulder in clingfilm and foil before cooking it overnight on a very low heat. After 12 hours the pork will fall apart. Crucially, it must be served with a powerfully acidic sauce.
Annabel says: “Very bitter beers often clash with spicy food and can intensify chilli heat, so with this dish I can’t think of a better lager than Brooklyn.
“It has got caramel in spades, a bit of vanilla and zesty citrus aromas and flavours from the hops. The carbonation in the beer cuts through the fattiness of the pulled pork, the sweetness complements the slow cooking method, and the zesty hops balance out the acidity of the sauce.”
I recently built a pizza oven in my garden and taught my daughter to bake pizza. But her favourite is lahmacun – a Turkish flatbread topped with highly spiced, garlicky minced lamb and labneh, a sharp cheese made from drained yoghurt.
“This demands a smoother lager, rather than full-on fizz,” says Annabel. “Cobra ticks all the boxes here. Its mellow creaminess complements the labneh, but it’s hefty enough to stand up to the flavours in the spiced lamb.”
Although I love the theatre of cooking outside, my absolute favourite dish is also the simplest. Fresh mackerel is so rich and oily that it pretty much supplies its own seasoning. I sandwich the gutted fish in a wire frame and hold it over the hot embers of the fire. Salt is useful, perhaps a little dijon mustard mixed with horseradish, but in truth you can leave well alone.
Annabel says: “For fish, you want to keep things delicate and clean. Pick a beer that allows the simplicity of the dish to shine through, such as Charlie Wells Dry Hopped Lager. Dry hopping gives this lager an intense hop aroma, and it delivers a crisp effervescent hit, combined with a bready sweetness. It’s clean and sharp, yet full-bodied enough to complement the richness of the fish.”
