People are finally starting to talk seriously about the idea of opening up microbreweries in India. A friend of mine has just spent the past one year try ing to get an amendment to change the excise law to make the idea of a bar with a microbrewery inside a possibility. I used to work in a restaurant in Manchester about 12 years ago that had a microbrewery running up through four floors. One floor for each stage of the brew ing process. It used to take somewhere in the region of four weeks from the mash, to the stage where it was drinkable. We brewed one simple German-style pilsner beer. That was our staple, if you like. We also brewed a wheat beer, which was slightly cloudy, a peach beer which had a slight taste of peaches and a blackcurrant stout which was black with a good creamy head. There were a few others that popped up throughout the year — a green beer for St Patrick’s Day, a strawberry beer in the summer and an Xmas beer. Again a stout but with a slightly spicy flavour (nutmeg, cinnamon, orange peel, etc). Yellow, brown, black, call it what you want, but to me it’s all beer. It may come with all sorts of different names and in all manner of different packages but it’s all just the same variation of fermentation of hops, wheat or other grains. It comes in the category of being one of the most social of all forms of alcohol because unless you drink vast quantities of the liquid, you’re not going to get that drunk that quickly. Not always the case, though, let me assure you. I have a number of heavily drunken nights behind me when I was much younger, usually after the rugby on Saturday, when my friends and I had gone out on the town celebrating victo ries or miserably questioning each other why we had lost. Now I know I’m going against the grain here, but it’s also social as it can help you open up a bit which in all reality can’t be such a bad thing as far as I’m con cerned. The brewing of beer is nothing new. Early records date back around 6,000 years and historians believe that it first probably occurred when a piece of bread or some wheat got wet and started to ferment. There have been poems written about it, songs sung, festivals made for it and marriages broken because of it! And probably put back together because of it also! Oktoberfest, the beer festival, may have started in Germany but now is celebrated all over the world. It started on October 12, 1810 and was a celebration of the wedding of King Ludwig to Princess Therese and car ried on for five days. The festival was so popular that it was allowed to be repeated by royal decree. During those times, no beer was drunk; this only started in 1918 when a licence was given to sell beer and meals. Things like a carousel, swings and clay pigeon shooting were also put in place so people could amuse themselves. Soon after, every brewery in Munich got permission to sell beer during the festival and hence, this is what it’s known for today. Here are a few facts stolen from the Internet. Today, on the same meadow where the wedding was first held, there are 800 market stalls, about 4,000,000 litres of beer are drunk, 500,000 chickens are eaten and the festival commences with the first mug of beer being passed to the Bavarian prime minister. After that moment, the festi val carries on for 16 days I’ve found myself playing around with beer in food preparations over the years — beef in Guinness is an old British favourite. I’ve even made beer ice cream and lager and lime sorbet in the past which were both big winners.

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BEEF WITH STOUT AND DRIED FRUITS

Here is a simple recipe that I’ve just made up for the occasion, along the lines of a classic beef stew with Guinness. Heat around 3 tbsp of either butter or olive oil in a largish cooking pot and saute around 500g of lean diced beef till browned. Next, add 200g each of im ported dried apricots and prunes. Then add three cin namon sticks, 2 tsp of ground roasted garam masala, 700ml stout and freshly ground pepper and salt to taste. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat. Simmer tightly covered for around 90 minutes or till the meat is tender; by this time, the dried fruits will have thick ened the juices to make a deliciously rich, sumptuous gravy. Serve with steaming hot buttery rice and enjoy.