Christmas Beer

Christmas is a good time to be a beer drinker. For centuries brewing and religion have been closely aligned and it fell upon the brewers to produce a tasty tipple for the seasonal celebrations. The tradition continues to this day as many breweries produce a "premium" product for the Christmas season, be it a British real ale microbrewer's "Winter Warmer" or Danish brewing monolith Carlsberg's Christmas Beer.

These Winter beers are generally stronger and richer than the brewer's standard offering. Many German brewers consider these beers to be a "thank you" gift to their customers since the increased amount of ingredients, plus the additional duty incurred by the higher alcohol content, make these beers more expensive to produce with therefore a small profit margin. Gotta love those Germans.

Here in Britain, our beer of course is real ale - beer which has been naturally carbonated in the package from which it is served (the bottle or, more commonly, the cask). For the scientifically-minded amongst you, the beer is transferred to the bottle or cask shortly before fermentation is complete. The container is then sealed so that the carbon dioxide produced by the remaining fermentation cannot escape and is absorbed by the beer to create the soft carbonation common to these types of beer. Bottled beer is then stored cold until gravity pulls the suspended yeast to the bottom of the bottle leaving a clear beer. Cask beer is more commonly "fined" whereby a substance is added to the beer which binds to the suspended yeast cells to encourage the beer to clear quicker. Often this substance is "isinglass" - a gelatine-like substance obtained from the swim bladder of the sturgeon (gotta love those sturgeons) - and so vegetarians and vegans should be careful to ask if beer has been fined. Once fined, the cask is shipped to the pub, where the cellarman stores the beer in the pub cellar until it is ready to serve.

Because real ale is "alive" - ie: it contains active yeast - it is vitally important that the beer is kept well and this basically means cold and still. Shipping a cask of real ale the length of the country in an unrefrigerated truck will do it no good at all, so it's no surprise that real ale tastes better the closer you get to where it was made, for example, Shepherd Neame in Kent, Ringwood in the New Forest and Wadworth's 6x in Wiltshire.

So when it comes to trying a few Winter Warmers the best place to try is your local. Most pubs worth their salt will regularly stock their local breweries wares, and a good publican will serve the beer when it's in peak condition. But what if you want to enjoy a few pints at home or take beer to a party? Few small real ale producers bottle their beers due to the cost of bottling equipment but many sell "polypins" in five or ten litre sizes which are perfect for a party or just for having at home to keep you in beer over the holiday period. Polypins are the beer equivalent of bag-in-a-box wine, but are in actual fact a pretty good receptacle for real ale. Of course, if you really, really like beer, many breweries will sell you a full cask and rent you a hand-pump or a tap through which to serve the beer. These generally come in four and a half or nine gallon sizes but bear in mind that as soon as you tap the cask, air is allowed in which will gradually oxidize and spoil the beer. Some real ale connoisseurs favour ale that has been "on" for a day or two and is showing some signs of oxidation. Slight oxidation can be identified by a caramel or butterscotch sweetness that can often add to the appeal of a beer. Too much oxidation though makes beer taste like cardboard so unless you're confident of draining the cask within three to five days, buy smaller vessels, eg: two "pins" (four and a half gallon casks) rather than a "firkin" (a nine gallon cask) or two polypins rather than a pin.

There are a number of fantastic breweries selling polypins or bottled beer in the BigBarn Marketplace so maybe you can find your Christmas tipple there. But please remember to order early so that when your beer arrives you can set the polypin, cask or bottles somewhere cool for a week or so to settle before you start enjoying it. Or a day, at least...

Turkey

Christmas is fast approaching and the Goose is getting fat. The high street is already full of decorations and as usual there will be misleading adverts on the TV for intensively reared Turkeys with even more misleading packaging. Read on for the quick and easy way to book the best food for your Christmas celebration.

Around 90 percent of UK turkeys are reared in vast, windowless, barren sheds and never see or experience life in a field. These sheds can contain up to 25,000 birds, the floor will be covered in excrement and release ammonia causing many birds to have painful sores on their feet and eye damage. This is without the worry of growth promoters and anti-biotic additives in the feed getting in to the meat.

I am sorry to bring this to your attention but this is where the food industry has gone, and will continue to get worse unless we demand change, or shop carefully.

This is just part of the reason not to buy an intensively reared Turkey, the bigger reason is that there is a tastier alternative! All over the country there are enthusiast rearing Turkeys, Geese and Chickens in the traditional way either Free Range or in open straw filled barns. They are allowed to grow to maturity on natural feed and are hung and dressed for Christmas.

To help you find your local Traditional Turkey click here and type in your post code to buy online. And save on delivery charges by collecting your prize dinner just before Christmas. This will allow you to see the farm and quiz the farmer on feeds, turkey breed and how they have been reared. You may be so impressed you will want to book your turkey for next year.

And while you are in our MarketPlace please have a look round for other Christmas goodies like a ham, Christmas cake, chocolate, cheese, goose, or great British beef by clicking on each, or using the search box when you are in the site. If we have not got what you are looking for we should have soon, as more products are being added every day.

Fresh English apples, fantastic food! One a day to keep Swine Flu away!

English apples are now in season but very few are on the supermarket shelves. How long will it be before they are, and how many varieties will we see, will they all be the same size and will they be fresh? Where do we find a really good, fresh, apple?

We have over one thousand varieties of apple in the UK but only 15 are grown commercially. Most, like the delicious Cox's Orange Pippin, have been de-listed by supermarkets and as a result most of the trees have been destroyed by growers, also with the help of EEC grant aid!

Different varieties of apple are ripening on their trees between now and October. Many are now in season and should be available to us all. Most fruit and veg is most nutritious and tasty when it is fresh and ripe. Far too much of what we eat has been picked early to satisfy the needs of distribution and shelf life. As always to get the best, grow it, or buy direct.

To find your nearest fresh apple try your local farm shop by typing in your postcode here or visit our MarketPlace in the autumn to buy a tree to plant.

Sweetcorn - fantastic cheap food now available locally!

Fresh, sweet, corn on the cob, a winner for the whole family. My friend Mr Saunders grows his own sweet corn and has the water boiling on the stove before he picks his ripe corn from the veg patch. He then peels off the outer leaves as he walks back to plunge the cob in the boiling water. This he says is the ultimate way to have corn on the cob.

I have not been fortunate enough to experience this taste sensation, but did have some corn from my local farm shop only 3 hours old, for only 30p each. I was amazed that it was so sweet and moist I did not need the usual butter coating. So don't delay, forget the aged supermarket corn and get down to your local farm shop. Maybe phone first to find out when they pick it and get the kids involved in the race to eat the sweetest corn.

Or try it baked in the oven with the leaves on, or on the BBQ. To find your local corn type your post code here.

What is real bread?

Bread, at its best, is a superb food and immensely diverse, reflecting the local culture and being integral to a healthy diet. So what's gone wrong - why is 95% of the bread on offer such insipid stodge?

The answer lies in the industrialisation of the production system.

"Good bread has one ingredient which nothing can replace - time, lots of it! Industrialisation is all about doing it quickly - perhaps an hour and a half from mixing to packing. Bread is a fermented food; it needs time for the enzymes and good bacteria to work on the dough, transforming it from the inside. Industrial bakers try to fool the dough by high speed mixing, using large amounts of powerful yeasts, and adding a cocktail of chemical agents which do not appear in the list of ingredients. The result is appalling, and really not a good food," suggests Simon of Wild Yeast Bakery.

To make good bread, here's all you need: flour, water and salt... and time. Artisan bakers like Simon don't even add new yeast - they use saved dough or wild yeast cultures and bacteria in the flour (and on our hands) to gently leaven the dough, over a minimum of 36 hours. These naturally leavened breads have superb taste, with no need for sun dried tomatoes and the like to make then tasty. They also have greatly superior nutritional qualities, making them more digestible and higher in nutrients, and lower in their glycaemic index (good for kids and diabetics).

Increasingly, top restaurants and discerning consumers are seeking out these artisans at farmers' markets or specialist bakeries. And bread making courses are more popular than ever:

"My courses get booked up months in advance. It's great to be able to pass on my passion to others. Kids are the most fun to teach; it's just so magical when the bread comes out the oven," says Simon.

It really is not that difficult to make great bread with the right knowledge, flour and wild yeast. If you want real bread avoid the supermarket and go and talk to your local baker or Farm Shop on the BigBarn map. Or depending on your preference use the BigBarn MarketPlace, and search for bread, Wild Yeast, bread making courses, or flour.