FORGET port and Stilton, or coffee and petit fours - the trendy way to round off a meal is with a glass of beer and chocolate pudding.
From "gastro pubs" to one of Prince Charles’s favourite hostelries - the King’s Head Hotel on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk - it seems everyone is switching from digestifs and dessert wines to the comforting appeal of beer and a cocoa hit.
Mark Dorber, who runs the White Horse gastro pub in Parsons Green, London, said food combinations were changing. "People used to have wine and cheese together in the Seventies, but why did they do it? It was a culinary car crash. By contrast, chocolate and beer is a marriage made in heaven.
"The roasted, smoky flavours of malted barley are the perfect match for chocolate. There’s the sensuous, smooth, silky texture of beer which apes the lingering taste of chocolate. Beer tastes best with high-quality chocolate - they have complementary flavours."
Leading art galleries which used to serve cheese and wine at exhibitions’ opening nights have also taken the lead.
Hamish Anderson, the wine buyer and manager for the Tate galleries’ restaurants in London, said: "Chocolate is one of the better matches as regards food and beer. Beer cleans and refreshes the palate better than wine with chocolate. We will be offering some beer-and-chocolate combinations."
Rupert Ponsonby, a spokesman for the Beer Naturally campaign, said: "People want something relaxing to envelop them at the end of the meal - something that gives them a hug. Dark, strong beer is a comfort drink."
Dr Paul Hegarty, of Coors brewers, which make Grolsch and Carling lagers, said that beer helped to bring out the complex flavours found in chocolate. "There are a vast range of malt flavours in beer - fresh-cut hay or sweetcorn in lager malts, Ovaltine and Malteser in ale malts, chocolate, coffee flavours in darker malts and burnt flavours in black and roasted barley," he said. "Beer brewed with paler malts complements milk chocolates, and darker beers, such as stouts, match plain chocolate."
Alan Porter, the founder of the Chocolate Society, said: "Chocolate is a comfort food and beer is a comfort drink. We drink beer at home in this country and eat chocolate at home - so why not put the two together? Wine doesn’t go with chocolate."
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