Baron on Tour: AlesByMail craft beer & food tasting

I was lucky enough to be asked by Ales By Mail if I would like to attend their first craft beer & food tasting night held at the Mustard Bar & Bistro a couple of weeks ago. It was a six-course meal with each food item paired with a specific beer, here is the menu:

• Sambrooks Wandle ale with homemade scotch egg & pork scratching
  I'm not a massive fan of Wandle on it's own but with the food it was the perfect match
• Pitfield Ginger beer with ham hock terrine & pineapple chutney
  The ginger ale lacked anything exciting about it but was saved by the lovely taste of the terrine

• Calvors premium lager with smoked bacon, brie & cranberry pie
  A perfect match - such a lovely lager and amazing pie - yum!

• Green Jack Canary Pale Ale with fresh mussels cooked in the same ale
  I'm not a seafood fan at all but the Canary is an amazingly delicious beer and worked nicely with it
• Meantime Chocolate beer with braised rib of beef,pototo puree, parsley & lemon
  Although the beef was extremely tasty, I felt the beer stomped all over it and was too brutal for the savoury course
• Stringers Dry Stout with chocolate truffles & peanut brittle
  The stout was not a good match for the truffles but worked amazingly well with the nutty peanut brittle

It was an excellent evening, both Richard of Mustard & Paul from Ales By Mail did a great job talking us through the courses and the food & drink was lovely! A massive thank you to Paul for hosting the event & looking after me, I'd certainly recommend this type of evening if you are in the area. Also thanks to Brentwood Brewing Company for being such lovely people - I was sat with them and they had to put up with me! :D