Match of the week

Apricot pancakes and apricot (or peach) beer

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on February 5 2008 at 14:11

Pancakes and beer might not sound like the most obvious of combinations but as with other flour-based foods such as sandwiches or pies they work together remarkably well. Especially, as I discovered when I was writing my food and beer book An Appetite for Ale last year, fruit-filled pancakes and fruit beers.

You could have a cherry-filled pancake with a Belgian Kriek beer for example but my favourite was an apricot filled pancake with a apricot or peach-flavoured beer. There is (or was. I haven’t seen it lately) an English apricot beer made by Melbourn Brothers but I prefer the Belgian peach-flavoured beers such as Timmermans Pèche or even Floris Mango or Passionfruit.

The interesting thing about beer, unlike wine, is that you can pair beer and food with a similar flavour profile. The carbonation in the beer refreshes the palate so that you can pick up the fruit flavours in both the food and the drink.

I’m not sure that I’d pair the classic British pancake day pancake with sugar and lemon juice with a beer though. In the past I’ve found a glass of Asti works reasonably well though I’m not sure, being comfort food, that they aren’t nicer just on their own. Or with a cup of tea.

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