Claire Bullen - The Beer Lovers Table: Seasonal recipes and modern beer pairings

THE BEER LOVERS TABLE

THE BEER LOVERS TABLE

SEASONAL RECIPES AND MODERN BEER PAIRINGS

CLAIRE BULLEN WITH JEN FERGUSON

Published in 2019 by Dog 'n' Bone Books

An imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

2021 JockeysFields 341 E 116th St

London WC1R 4BWNew York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text Claire Bullen and Jen Ferguson 2019

Design and photography Dog 'n' Bone Books 2019

The authors moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

EISBN: 978 1 911026 96 9

ISBN: 978 1 911026 78 5

Printed in China

Editor: Caroline West

Designer: Geoff Borin

Photographers: Matthew Curtis , jacket spine photograph

Stephen Conroy , front cover photograph

Alex Luck

Additional photography: Claire Bullen

Stylist: Kim Sullivan

Home economists: Katy McClelland (Stephen Conroy shots) and Laura Urschel (Alex Luck shots)

NOTE:

All spoon measurements are level, unless stated otherwise. All eggs are US extra large (UK large) and ideally free-range.

CONTENTS

BY JEN FERGUSON

Theres never been a better time to be a beer lover than right now. In almost every corner of the globe, beer is having a moment. From beer brewed 10,000 miles away to cans sourced from just up the road, beer lovers have never had more choice. What a time to be alive.

Ive been lucky enough to enjoy great beer all over the world. Growing up in Nelson, New Zealandhome to some of the worlds best hopsI was probably destined to love beer from an early age. However, it took 15 years of quantity-over-quality drinking in Kiwi booze barns and British pubs before I saw the light a decade ago, thanks to a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. That beer helped me realize there was more to life than macro lager.

Seeing the light may sound somewhat dramatic, but ask any beer fan about the moment they fell for craft beer and youll get a similar tale of epiphany. Theres something about discovering craft beer that feels a little bit like gaining access to an exclusive (albeit wonderfully inclusive) club. Craft beer devotees may not remember exactly which beer tipped them over the edge, but they will recall the moment a whole new world of flavor and exploration opened up before them.

When my partner Glenn Williams and I got together in New Zealand in 2008, one of the many things we realized we had in common was a love of amazing beer. By the time we landed back in London five years later, we were spending most of our leisure time seeking out and drinking the best beer we could get our hands on, in all manner of weird and wonderful places. Wed plan travel itineraries around brewery tours, and the first place wed seek out upon landing in a new town was the closest good beer bar.

It turns out chasing beer is an exceptionally good way to see the world and meet great people. Wed been welcomed in so many beer stores and bars that we wondered what it would be like to turn the tables and do the welcoming ourselves. So, inspired by the hoary old adage that If you do what you love, it doesnt feel like work, in 2014 we quit our day jobs in order to open a specialist beer store called Hop Burns & Black, the original branch of which is located close to our home in Peckham Rye, south London.

We had three objectives in opening Hop Burns & Black: we wanted to create our own community hub where everyone felt welcome; we wanted to showcase and celebrate independent breweries and producers; and we wanted to surround ourselves with things we love and to share our passions with like-minded people. With that in mind, if we were going to sell beer, our first love, why not add our other obsessions to the mix? Thats how we ended up with the worlds first (and probably only) store for beer (the Hop), hot sauce (the Burns), and records (the Black). It may seem like something of a weird mix, but to us, these form a holy trinitythe meaning of life. Our fridge overflows with cans of beer and bottles of hot sauce, our shelves groan under the weight of vinyland were not alone. Hop Burns & Black is now one of the UKs most successful and award-winning bottle stores, now with two south London outlets (Peckham and Deptford), plus an online store serving the obsessions of kindred spirits all over the country. (Cider and natural wine are also on our shelvesand our obsession list.)

Beer, however, has always taken center stage at Hop Burns & Black. When we opened in 2014, we were part of Londons first wave of specialist craft beer stores you could count them on one hand. The brewing scene, however, was thriving; there were 75 breweries based in London at the time and that figure has since increased to 120 and counting. This huge growth is reflected all over the worldas I type, its been estimated there are close to 20,000 craft breweries globally. Putting aside the eternal argument over what constitutes a craft brewery for a moment, thats nothing less than a sea change.

Faced with this explosion of choice, people began to look at beer differently, and stores like ours offered the perfect opportunity to go exploring. Our customers may not have started out as beer connoisseurs, but they quickly became so. Enthusiasm for craft beer is contagious. Like us, our customers wanted to discover new breweries, explore different styles, push boundaries, and show off their good taste to friends. They also wanted to involve beer in more areas of their livesand nowhere more so than at the dinner table.

Enter Claire Bullen, beer lover and food writer extraordinaire. Introduced to us by our mutual friend, beer writer and photographer Matthew Curtis (whose photographs youll find in this book), Claire started working with Hop Burns & Black in 2015, when we commissioned her to write a regular columnThe Beer Lovers Tableon food and beer pairings.

With The Beer Lovers Table, we didnt want to replicate the dude food recipes that litter the Internet when you search for beer and food pairings. While we love Buffalo wings as much as the next person, we wanted to enjoy beer alongside a wider range of meals, from vibrant spaghetti for #PastaMonday nights on the sofa to simple salads during summer nights in the backyard, or grilled pork belly dinners with friends. We wanted great food to accompany great beers, and we wanted to explore the huge potential that beer, in all its styles and infinite complexity, offers as a culinary partner.