Women & Beer Survey 2016

Please can you spare less than five minutes to take part in a women and beer survey to help us conduct some research?

We want your opinion on whether attitudes by women towards drinking beer have changed over the last decade.

We would be delighted if you could share the survey link with any other friends who you think might be interested in taking part and we are very happy if you want to share the survey on social media. When the feedback is collated we will share the results with you.
If you could complete the survey by Wednesday 11th May we would be most grateful. Please click through here – Dea Latis Women & Beer Survey 2016

If you have any other views, strong opinions or even your own research that you would like to add please drop a separate email to us here.

Women beer-lovers host beer and cheese tasting

A group of beer-loving women is holding a beer and cheese tasting in central London next Wednesday, 8 October,  to encourage more women to discover the delights of our national drink.

Dea Latis – named after the Celtic goddess of beer and water – was established by a handful of women working in pubs and breweries, and hosts regular tastings to demonstrate beer’s versatility as a partner with different foods.  The beer and cheese tasting is being held on:

Date:               Wednesday 8^th October

Time:              3.00 – 5.00 pm

Venue:            The Bishops Finger,  9-10 West Smithfield, London EC1A 9JR

Guests will be offered five different beer and cheese combinations, from goat’s cheese and fruit beer to traditional ale and cheddar. Hosting the event and explaining the beer and cheese matches is Annabel Smith, one of the country’s only female Beer Sommeliers.

Annabel says, “The hallmark of a great match of beer and cheese, or indeed any food and drink, is that they enhance each other’s taste.  Beer works especially well with cheese as its natural carbonation cuts through the fattiness of cheese – which is something wine can’t do.”

Tickets, including five beers, cheeses, expert talks and tea/coffee, cost £17 per person. Please visit our Eventbrite page to buy tickets:  http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dea-latis-beer-and-cheese-tasting-tickets-12781994289?aff=es2&rank=0

Further information:    Ros Shiel, ros@shielporter.com

Lisa Harlow: lisa@lisaharlow.co.uk

Welsh Rarebit recipe with Wold Top Bitter

By Lisa Harlow.

Tom Kerridge’s Welsh Rarebit

My first job was as publicity officer for a small theatre in Stafford and in the café the chef’s speciality was Welsh Rarebit. It would be fair to say that it was far and away my favourite lunch while I worked there and that it was far from being ‘rare’. That was twenty-something years ago so Tom Kerridge’s recipes caught my eye straight away, plus, posh cheese on toast looks like a no-brainer.

I used Wold Top Bitter from the Wold Top Brewery near Driffield – a 3.7% amber coloured aromatic session bitter that I picked up on my last trip to Yorkshire – to reduce down to a glaze and then added the double cream. The Cheddar, when grated, looked like a gigantic cheese mountain but did thankfully melt satisfyingly into the cream and beer after a bit of cramming into the pan and stirring. The addition of the egg yolks and all the punchy flavours made a really thick and gooey cheesy custard. The next bit of the recipe surprised me in that it called for the mixture to be cooled, spread out onto greaseproof paper and frozen. Unfortunately, I didn’t read that bit before I started and fully intended to eat the stuff for lunch, so the goo went straight onto some toasted bread and under the grill, where it bubbled and browned satisfyingly.

So to the tasting – accompanied by the rest of the beer, obviously – incredibly cheesy and with strong spicy flavour, there was still the unmistakeable undercurrent of ale – don’t ask me to opine about malt and hop flavours as a beer reduction pretty thoroughly vanquished by Worcestershire sauce, mustard and cayenne pepper is stretching even the finest and most accomplished palette. Perhaps it could have done with some nice nutty bread and a salad garnish, but it all happened in a bit of a rush, so my nice wholemeal sliced toast did the trick as the carbohydrate platform. The rest was left, as the recipe suggests to cool and flatten – and it’s in the fridge for another day as a slice of beery cheesiness or should that be cheeriness – as and when the fancy takes me.

Another couple of serving suggestions struck me – the cheesy mixture would make a fab dip for celery or breadsticks or as warm canapés when spooned onto big rustic croutons.

So go on, give it a go and let us know how you get on. February’s recipe will feature another Tom Kerridge special –  chocolate and ale cake – a must for all Valentine softies…

RECIPE

(Lovingly ripped-off from The Times on 3^rd January 2013)

Serves 8-12

Ingredients

½ pt ale
400g strong Cheddar (grated)
200ml double cream
1 large tbsp English mustard
1 tsp cayenne pepper
10 splashes of Worcestershire sauce
5 splashes of Tabasco
2 egg yolks

Method

Reduce the ale down to a glaze. Add the double cream and reduce by half. Add the cheese and stir until melted. Add the rest of the ingredients and allow to cool, then roll it out between two sheets of baking parchment and place in the freezer to set. Toast some bread and cut the rarebit to fit the slices. Place on the bread and grill until browned.

thehandandflowers.co.uk

Beers at Breakfast Video

The last Dea Latis event saw 20 women indulging in the perfect beer and breakfast matches. See how we got on!

Huge thanks to Beth Porter for editing and John Porter for filming this.

Would you like to be a guest blogger?

At Dea Latis we celebrate everything that is great about beer. Our mission is to get more women trying and drinking beer, and encouraging their friends and family to do similar!

If you are passionate about beer then perhaps you’d like to write to be a guest blogger for us?

Do you like cooking with beer? What’s been your favourite beer and food match?  Have you converted any of your friends to drink beer – and how did you do it?

What do you think will get more women drinking beer?

If you would like to write a guest blog for Dea Latis, then get in contact now. Either leave a comment below this post, tweet us @DeaLatis or email dealatisuk@gmail.com and we’ll get back in contact.

Beers at Breakfast – the next Dea Latis event

Stout and sausages?

Bitter with bacon?

Mild and a mushroom?

You get the idea….That’s right, the next Dea Latis event will be looking at the beers that best  match with breakfast!

On Friday, 7 December, we will be taking charge of the Parcel Yard pub at King’s Cross station from 10am to midday.

Top brewsters Sara Barton of Brewsters Brewery and Kathy Britton of Oldershaw Brewery will be guiding us through the tasting.

Tickets are £20 each and include a full breakfast (veggie option available), beer (of course), tea/coffee and the tutored tasting.  Afterwards there will be the opportunity for plenty of networking with women from the beer and pub industry.

Tickets are sold via EventBrite

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/3809044956

Pubs, patriotism and pints…

Dea Latis member, Joanna Dring, was recently asked to write the Guest Column in the brand new Bedfordshire newspaper, Bedford Midweek.

Here’s the column in full:

As if us Brits need an excuse to celebrate….Have you recovered from an over-exuberance of patriotic parties yet?

I’m quite sure that at some point over the weekend, the majority of you stepped foot in a pub. Perhaps you are a regular and knew the events the pub was laying on, or perhaps you haven’t been down your local for a few months but knew that at times of national celebration, there is no where quite like the pub.

We are so lucky in this country to have pubs. No other country quite gets pubs. Bars – yes. But pubs – no. (The Red Lion(s) in the Costas don’t count either….)

Just like the Queen (WARNING – a tenuous link between pubs and Her Maj) pubs are always there for us. There is no other place that has quite the same atmosphere and is the focal point of the community. Pubs are a place where people come together to celebrate and I have seen over the last few months many pubs leading their community’s Jubilee celebrations. From beer festivals and street parties to live music and Queen quizzes – the Great British Pub has reigned supreme over this weekend, and got the nation partying.

I was in the White Horse on Newnham Avenue last week for their regular pub quiz and Nigel the landlord read out the list of Jubilee events they were holding. Events for the whole family and ones that would make the weekend extra special. This is no mean feat. This is utter dedication from a licensee who knows the importance his pub plays in the community and works tirelessly to create a welcoming, comfortable and relaxing environment, and a memorable weekend for all.

And Nigel’s not alone. It must have been two and a half months ago that I saw the Embankment pub was already advertising its Jubilee events – providing something special and different to their usual weekend activities.

The Horse And Jockey in Ravensden ensured a British-bonanza by theming their menus to all things British and hosting a BBQ for the community on the Tuesday.

I think it’s quite easy for people to forget the important role pubs play in their community – they can be taken for granted as always being there, a constant feature of your town or village. But the harsh reality is that pubs continue to close across the country – a sign of the continued pressure the challenging economic downturn is having on the nation.

This year is the perfect storm of patriotic events. We’ve had the Jubilee and now have the Olympics to look forward to. Add in EURO 2012 and Wimbledon, there is every excuse to get down the pub. And if sport’s not your thing, there are quizzes, live music, open mic nights, charity fundraisers, beer and food matching evenings….the list is endless.
So if you have neglected your local recently, why not find out what’s on and drop in?

They are a British institution – we need pubs and pubs need you.

On Monday evening I had ventured out of Bedford to visit a friend in Weston-Super-Mare where we saw the lighting of one of the 4,200 beacons for the Queen. Of course this was followed up by a pint of ale in the local as we watched the closing of the Jubilee concert. After Prince Charles had spoke there was a huge roar of cheers from the crowd and a round of applause. I heard one lady say: “They can’t hear us but I’m going to clap anyway – it feels like I’m there!”

Surrounded by people who were bursting with pride and joy, the atmosphere was electrifying.

And that for me sums up why pubs are so great – there’s no place like ’em.

This column first appeared in Bedford Midweek on Thursday 7 June 2012.

Follow Joanna on Twitter.

Follow Bedford Midweek on Twitter.

Beer and chocolate… what’s not to like?!

Details are now confirmed for the Dea Latis Beer & Chocolate tasting. This is now in its third year, making it an annual tradition for anyone wanting to break two Lenten abstinences in one afternoon!

We will, once again, be tasting a selection of beer and chocolate matches suggested by brewers, who will be on hand to explain their choices and answer questions.  So please join us:

Date:     Tuesday 27^th March

 

Time:    2.00 – 4.00 pm

 

Venue: Draft House Tower Bridge, 206-208 Tower Bridge Road, London SE1 2UP

A Dream Come Brew

Have you ever dreamed of brewing your own beer in a proper brewery as opposed to a bucket in the airing cupboard?  I have.  Many times.  Then last year I met Sara Barton, founder of Brewsters Brewery at the launch of Project Venus’s brewing collaboration – Venus Jade.  I confessed my aspiration and Sara responded with an emphatic ‘Do it!’

Turns out that I was not the only DeaLatis member harbouring the brewing fantasy because when I mentioned it to Marverine Cole (@BeerBeauty) and Shea Luke (@RealAleGirlShea) they also had that ambition. We discussed our ideal recipe and decided on a dark spicy winter ale. So on a very auspicious date 21/1/12 (it’s a palindrome) the three of us accepted Sara’s invitation to ‘do it’ and we travelled up to Brewsters Brewery in Grantham and did it!

And as I write this, a wonderful yeast that smells of green apples is bubbling away and turning our 30 barrel brew into delicious beer.  What an incredible thought. But who knew what hard physical work it is to brew beer?  Hauling the malts around, hoisting buckets up high, pouring the contents into mash tuns and coppers, and then the cleaning afterwards.  Oh the cleaning – raking out the mash tun, poking around in the hot copper to extract the thousands of whole hops, washing out vessels and leaving the brewery as we found it.  But what satisfaction!And what fun.  All three of us virgin brewers felt as though we were in the best toy shop imaginable – and one in which lunch was served with Brewsters Pale Ale, and Brewsters’ brand new Black IPA (called Cruella) decanted straight from the conditioning tanks.  Heaven.

In a couple of weeks Brewsters will cask and bottle condition the beer for sale through their ‘Wicked Women’ range. We’re waiting to mention the beer’s name until the launch party in late February or early March – most likely at London’s Tap East with its incredible range of beers (thanks Glyn!) so hopefully you’ll come and taste the difference.

Huge thanks to Sara, Sean, and Richard at Brewsters for making our dream come brew.  I’m even more in love with beer than I was before and my maiden voyage on the brew boat has made me even more obsessed with brewing.  We’ve done a winter brew, but there are three more seasons in a year.  So how’s about it BrewsterSara, Beer Beauty, and RealAleGirlShea?

By Jane Peyton, Principal of the School of Booze

Duchesse de Bourgogne – a beer that’s impossible not to like?

We’re halfway through our Dea Diets – our quest to swap wine for beer during January to prove to the world that beer is lower in calories.

And our pal Jane Peyton at the wonderful School of Booze has written this review of the beer, Duchesse de Bourgogne, exclusively for Dea Latis. Why not give it a go this weekend and let us know what you think of it?

Try this experiment.  Choose a female friend who professes not to like beer.  Discreetly open a bottle of Duchesse de Bourgogne from Belgium and decant into a wine glass.  Don’t tell her that it is beer and watch her reaction as she sips it. And then wait for the ‘Get Away!’ response when you ‘fess up that it is not an unusual type of red wine, rather, one of the most amazing examples of our beloved malt & hops brews.

Duchesse de Bourgogne (6.2% ABV) is a superb example of a lambic beer.  This means the yeast gives the beer a sour tangy sweetness and some unexpected flavours.  I included it in a tutored beer tasting last night and the group suggested wood, lemon, spice, must, Balsamic vinegar (usually a sign of stale beer but welcome with this exceptional ale).

This is a Flanders red ale made by blending younger and older beers that have been aged in oak barrels. It has a highly perfumed nose of sweet-sour cherries and vinegar.  On the palate it has a mousse-y mouth filling texture with intense cherry fruit and sour-sweet characters.  I find it more-ish and a real delight to drink.  Perhaps part of my delight is the anticipation of subverting the attitudes of women who assume that beer is all bitter, bulky, and blokey.  Not this one!