Christmas Day Lunch – time to bring out the beers!

Here’s beer sommelier, Annabel Smith’s beer suggestions for Christmas Day:

Before you open that calorie laden bottle of Prosecco, or hangover inducing Chateauneuf-de-Pape with your turkey dinner this year, take some advice from the Dea Latis crew and reach for the beer.

Beer has no problem with any of the traditional comestibles we devour on Christmas day, and what’s more, it’s better for you, contains less calories and you’ll wake up on Boxing Day feeling far fresher!

We’ll start with a plate of smoked salmon for breakfast. Pour yourself a glass of refreshing, fizzy wheat beer, such as Vedett White, Erdinger Heffeweisse or Franziskaner Weissebier. Make sure it’s in a champagne flute; the carbonation and citrus will slice through the oiliness of the salmon with a knife, refreshing the palate and complementing the fish. For the veggies amongst you, bake a whole Camembert and serve with chunks of bread, accompanied by Leffe Blonde or Affligem Tripel. These beers blow wine out of the water with their sweet breadiness.

With a clear head, you can start on the star attraction – the turkey. Substitute the cranberry sauce with a cheeky glass of Titanic Plum Porter. The fruitiness of this beer is a perfect foil to the delicate flavours of white meat. If pork is your meat of choice, there’s no better beer than Jenning’s Cumberland Ale, it’s got a lovely apple peel aroma and flavour. For the nut roast gals out there, we recommend the gorgeous Brooklyn lager, full of toffee, caramel and sweet notes.

Onto the Christmas pudding, reach for Shepherd Neame Bishop’s Finger or Robinson’s Old Tom – both are full of stewed and dried fruit flavours which complement the richness of the dessert.

Here comes the cheeseboard, laden with Stilton, and we’re going to be drinking Theakston’s Old Peculier or Fullers London Porter. Both there beers tone down the metallic, coppery elements in the cheese. It’s a weird combination but it works so well!

And finally…well Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a chocolate or two. Settle back and sip a glass of Liefman’s Kriek to recreate that cherry liqueur experience

Three Dea Latis Members’ First Brew To Be A Guest Ale

A collaboration ale devised by three Dea Latis members and Brewster’s Brewing Company is to be featured as a guest ale in three Fuller’s London pubs.

Chocolate Cyn, a rich spicy Porter 4.8% ABV is the first beer brewed by Jane Peyton (School of Booze); Marverine Cole (Beer Beauty); Shea Luke (Real Ale Girl) with Sara Barton, founder of Brewster’s in Grantham. 

In mid March Fuller Smith & Turner will stock it in three London pubs – the Artillery Arms near the Barbican; the Victoria, Bayswater; and the Mad Bishop & Bear at Paddington station.

Jane Peyton is a freelance brewery tour guide of Fuller’s brewery and it is that connection that opened the ‘guest ale doors’ at Fuller’s.

Let us know if you try it!