Beer + Curry = Heaven

Beer and curry is a pairing that often get’s written about and deliberated over and over again, In all honesty most pale ales are perfect with a curry, even some stouts work well but If I’m planning to make a curry I’ll make sure I’ve got some suitable beer in, nothing too complex or heavy but something that can hold up to the spice and heat of the curry. Even when I lived in Bradford I’d often pick out specific beers to take to the restaurant so that I didn’t have to drink too much of the house Lager, don’t get me wrong I do like a pint or two of Cobra or Kingfisher but the gas often fills me up and doesn’t leave much room for curry.

I was recently contacted asking if I’d like to try out the JUST EAT website, which is something i’ve never used before, probably because we don’t get many Indian takeaway’s and when we do we’ve got a huge stack of menus stuffed in a drawer.

The process was nice and easy, I logged on entered my post code and chose my cuisine, most of the places we have menus in the drawer were on there which was nice to see and in the spirit of experimentation I decided not to order my usual Ceylon or Nawabi Delight and opted for something I’d not had before.

Our curry arrived in pretty quick time too, just long enough for me to nip out into the beer fridge and see what I had that might match with the curry and here’s how it went:

Poppadums and Dips with Truefitt Erimus, the perfect beer to start any meal, light, crisp, citrusy, well hopped, grassy dry finish.

Starter:  Tandoori Smoked Duck with  apple & orange chutney  with Marsdeus blonde,
Dry with a little bit of citrus, nice easy drinking and great with the duck, I think this would have worked equally well with a Saison or possibly even a Tripel.

Starter: Onion Bhaji with Adnams Native Britten, A cracking beer from Adnams, plenty of citrus, a little bit of banana, nicely balanced sweetness and dryness, just enough to cope with the spices in the Bhaji, an interesting combo.

Main: Chicken Tikka Rezala with Sharp’s Single brew reserve 2012
Chicken pieces cooked with braised onions, mixed spices & coriander – worked well with the Citra hops although at times the coriander started to over power the beer, still a tasty beer on it’s own, plenty of flavour but couldn’t help thinking the curry would have been quite nice with the Adnams Native Britten.

Main:  Spice Talk Dum Biryani with Alhambra Reserva 1925
A unique blend of Persian biryani with tender lamb cooked in clay oven on layers, served with a vegetable table. (guessing this was the veggie curry that came in a separate container. The Alhambra was simple, clean and refreshing light citrus flavours that couldn’t stand up to the curry but offered decent refreshment like any lager would do.  This would have been perfect with Hardknott Cool Fusion.