Beer and Cider Hairy Bikers' Best of British

You know, we believe that Britain has the best food in the world.

Not only can we boast fantastic ingredients...

Look, look...

look at them!

..outstanding food producers...

Oh, look at that.

..and innovative chefs,

but we also have an amazing food history.

-Oh, brilliant!

-Oh, wow!

Don't eat them like that.

You'll break your teeth.

SHE LAUGHS

Now, during this series,

we're going to be taking you on a journey into our culinary past.

Everything's ready. Let's get cracking.

We'll explore its revealing stories...

BOTH: Wow!

..and meet the heroes that keep our food heritage alive.

It's a miracle what comes out of the oven.

And, of course,

be cooking up a load of dishes

that reveal our foodie evolution.

Look at that.

That's a proper British treat.

We have a taste of history.

Quite simply...

BOTH: The best of British!

Britain's luscious green and fertile landscape has produced

two ancient drinks that have undoubtedly

defined our national character...

Beer and cider!

I mean, there's just nothing better.

And, you know, it's good, because our climate lends itself

to the cultivation of hops

and apples.

In medieval Britain, people were very suspicious about the water,

and brewing was as important as baking.

It was quite common then for people to drink

up to a gallon of beer a day.

For centuries, beer and cider were made in small batches at home,

or on the farm,

providing us Brits with not only a clean drinking supply...

..but also a valuable source of vitamins and minerals

in centuries past.

But it's the many varieties

of ancient cider apples and cereals fermented to brew beer,

that have shaped our social history,

..and helped to create the rich heritage

of brewing and fermenting that we're celebrating in today's show.

From "old ale" flavoured with rosemary and thyme,

brewed by medieval monks,

to today's fashionable revival of traditional beers and ciders.

-Three cheers for the old apple tree. Hip, hip -

-Hooray!

We've got a lot to be proud of.

But first in the Best of British kitchen,

we're going to explore

the huge role that beer has played in our culture for centuries.

When you look at the best of British, you have to look at beer.

-Yes.

-We're northern Europeans, and we grew grain

and not grape, but our

beer-brewing culture is every bit as complex as the French vin nobles.

Yes, there it is.

Now, look, the French keep banging on about their wine and stuff,

and it is very lovely and complex and gorgeous and we love it,

but the same palate and flavours and complexity applies to

some of our brew from the wonderful British Isles.

They are some of the most incredible tastes

and flavours you can wish for.

All beer is made from a combination of malt, hops, water and yeast.

He strains off the juice, thin,

sweetish stuff they call wort in the trade,

boils it with hops in a copper for a couple of hours,

and when it's cool he adds the yeast.

Six days from now,

he'll have beer.

But it's how you process them

that creates different flavours and strengths.

From light ales...

..to dark bitters.

However, we've been brewing ale since

Neolithic times, when cereals like malt and barley

were first harvested.

Beer was brewed at home.

And as an Anglo-Saxon drinking culture

developed, people would pop round to the best alemaker in the village...

And the British pub was born!

The Romans and Normans tried to introduce us to wine.

Wine? No.

We stuck to good old British ale!

This ale is truly bright and good.

No finer draught from any wood.

And in the 15th century, the Dutch caused great controversy.

They introduced us to hops, which made the beer last much longer.

But it also altered the flavour

and added a bitterness,

which made people HOPPING mad!

Henry the Eighth's a good example -

He banned beer brewed with hops from his court!

But 150 years later, hops were finally accepted

as a vital part of the taste of ale.

And in the 1750s,

when the British Empire was at its height,

London was the world capital of beer brewing,

with more than 20,000 breweries.

Beer was safe to drink, because it used

boiled water which killed germs.

And it quickly caught on

that if you had a few pints, you'd avoid cholera!

The new industrial technologies of the 19th century

allowed for even more varieties.

Well, there were three beers,

all of which we liked enormously, and they shone among all the rest.

Bitter,

black London porter,

and pale ale.

When brewers flooded the streets with sweet, dark London porter,

they were hailed as saviours. In a few years,

their businesses swelled to enormous size.

All these rich varieties

and flavours of British beer make it fantastic

to use in the kitchen!

Cheers!

We're going to cook for you something that epitomises

British brewing.

We're got lovely langoustines from Scotland,

a delicate and luxurious taste of the sea.

And we're going to treat them to the dark,

deep flavours of British bitter

to make a light and crunchy batter.

This is a langoustine. This is it naked.

The scampi you put in, the crunch you eat.

And this is a new product we just found.

It's smoked langoustines, and they taste epic.

Our scampi in the basket won't just have the world's best beer batter,

it's going to be a mixture of smoked and regular langoustines.

And we're going to teach you how to make a tartare sauce from scratch,

because it's beautiful.

Real, home-made tartare sauce.

Yeah. Should we crack on?

-Let's make a splatter and have a go at batter.

-Right.

We're using 75 grams of cornflour,

and 200 grams of plain flour.

The mixture of the two flours will give us,

well, batter bordering on shrapnel.

Yeah, it does.

The cornflour is fabulous,

because it gives a crack

and a lightness to the batter.

It's wonderful. And a pinch of salt.

And now, a bottle of beer.

Use your beer of choice. This is a good dark bitter.

About as British as it comes. You can smell the yeast, can't you?

-You can.

-It's lush.

That's the consistency we're looking for. I'll just give it a good whisk.

Next, we add two tablespoons of white wine vinegar.

This has the effect of making the batter super-crispy.

Much like Yorkshire pudding, we're going to leave that aside

to rest until the flour expands and absorbs the beer

and you will get a better batter.

But, you know, deep-frying in batter doesn't have to be unhealthy,

cos what happens is, the thing you're frying,

it heats up, it makes steam.

The steam pushes the fat out

while the outside goes crispy.

Time to start the tartare sauce - by making a mayonnaise.

Don't, not when I'm juggling!

'First, crack two large egg yolks into a bowl with a pinch of salt

'and a pinch of sugar.'

Bit more?

Right, now.

What we're going to do

is whisk them...

..until they change colour.

Light colour. And that means

that the egg yolks

have emulsified with the salt and the sugar. There we go.

Now, emulsification doesn't mean we're making paint.

No, it's the process of two ingredients blending to become one.

When you're making mayonnaise, or indeed, tartare sauce,

the type of oil that you use will affect its flavour.

You want a light mayonnaise, just use sunflower oil or a light oil.

If you made one with 100% olive oil,

it'd be really quite heavy and sludgy.

This one, we're using about two-to-one.

Two parts sunflower, one part olive.

Now, this needs to be drizzled in with a delicacy.

Slowly.

Just keep whisking it.

It's hard work doing it by hand.

If only I had an electric whisk.

ELECTRICAL WHIRRING

And in next to no time,

emulsification takes place.

-I love home-made mayonnaise.

-Oh, that's mega, isn't it?

-Oh, lovely texture.

-Oh, yeah. Look.

-Yes.

-Mmmm.

That's God's salad cream.

Poi-fect.

Right.

Now we can start to make the mayonnaise into tartare sauce.

-Yes, we can.

-So I shall "ta-ta", and go and get the gherkins.

-Ha ha!

Chop six gherkins,

along with a handful of capers.

Just going to put these

into the mayonnaise.

And the chopped gherkin or cornichon.

"Cornichon" is just French for gherkin.

Beautiful.

We put in some parsley and some tarragon.

Look at that curly parsley, it's like a Martian's afro.

Now. Fold that in.

That's a proper tartare sauce.

It is.

That is gorgeous.

So we're going to have the best ever scampi,

with wonderful British beer batter,

home-made tartare sauce...

Right. At this point, we should adjust the seasoning.

'Time to get frying.'

'We're using a chip pan so we can see

'what's going on. But deep fat fryers are safer and easier

'when you're cooking at 190 degrees!'

BOTH: Deep-fried. 190.

-Kingy!

-What, mate?

-Shall we just mix up

the smoked langoustines with the ordinary ones?

-Then it's like a lovely pic'n'mix and surprise party.

-Perfect.

Now, put some flour in a plastic bag or a bowl,

and season with a pinch or two of salt.

The seasoned flour, apart from drying them off,

it insures that the batter sticks to the scampi.

How many times have people tried to do this at home,

and your batter falls off?

That's because you don't flour them first.

Hand these over to Friar Tuck.

I love him.

He's a great character, Friar Tuck.

Yeah, when I was a kid,

he was always my favourite one of the Merry Men.

It's cos he was fat.

Yeah. I like fat folk.

Now watch this, it's good.

In there,

and then drop it.

Just hold it for a little bit,

and then drop it in.

Beer has a magical effect on the batter -

adding both body and lightness at the same time.

They need hardly any time to cook.

As soon as they're golden, they'll be done.

Kingy, that batter's awesome.

Listen to that.

It's so incredibly crisp.

You know what, Si, I think we should keep these coming.

-Yeah.

-Do you know, cos I think the crew are going to be round these

-like a possum in a dustbin.

-They're closing in

as we speak. Get back and go and stand over there,

the two of you. Cut that out.

Beautiful.

Man, as soon as these come out, we're ready.

Let's make this the best, most jaw-dropping

scampi basket you've ever seen.

"Hey! What you doing to me mates?"

-They've been out for the night and they've got battered.

-"Oh!"

Fantastic.

Can we eat it yet?

And...dip.

Oh, that beer batter is superb.

It is.

Comes through,

nice, robust, beery, yeasty flavour. Fabulous.

And remember, this batter is not just for scampi.

The secrets - the cornflour,

the beer and the vinegar.

Get into your beer and appreciate it for what it is,

because it's a great British product.

So there we have it, our mega beer battered scampi.

Light and crunchy, golden and savoury -

all because of our wonderful British bitter.

Now, we're on the road to Herefordshire,

to delve into the art of traditional cider making.

In Britain, cider has a long and distinguished history.

We've been growing apples here since Roman times,

and records show that since the 12th century,

monks were well-versed in the art of cider-making.

Cider became the drink of the people.

Farms in the countryside produced it by the barrel-load.

In fact there was so much cider

that in the 18th century,

farm labourers' wages were part paid in cider -

typically three to four pints per day!

Not only that but the more you managed to drink on the job,

the more you were allowed!

So a two-gallon-a-day man was considered worth the extra he drank.

But in 1887, the fun stopped.

A new law prohibited the payment of wages in this way.

And now drinking cider is just about having good old knees-up!

# Now lift up your glasses to cider

# And let the health go round

# May the apple tree forever stand

# Now drink your liquor down. #

We'd better get on, you know.

-Oh, aye.

-We've got pressing business.

-Certainly.

We're meeting Mike Johnson, a man who is dedicated

to making cider the old-fashioned way.

-Hi.

-Mike, hello. I'm Si.

-Hello, Mike, nice to meet you.

-Hi.

-How are you getting on?

-Fine.

This looks like work.

Yeah, it's going to be a little bit different for you,

but I'm sure you'll do well.

You can't make cider without apples. That's the first step, isn't it?

-Yeah. We've got to pick 'em up.

-Aye.

But you pick them up, don't you? You don't pick them off a tree.

No, with cider, to make really good cider,

you need ripe apples with the right sugars.

But if we can pick

the early ones up first,

they don't go rotten while the others are ripening.

So we're just going to pick a few early windfalls up.

-You lead the way!

-Yeah, come this way.

-What a fantastic orchard.

-Amazing, isn't it?

-There's a heck of a lot of apples on that tree, though.

-There are.

And unfortunately this year it's been very dry, so the trees

are a bit stressed with drought.

But I'm sure they'll still make a nice cider.

It's quite satisfying picking stuff, isn't it?

You really feel tired at the end of the day,

but it's really nice to see

-all those apples picked up.

-Yeah, I bet it is.

And if one person works really hard, they can pick a tonne up in a day.

-A tonne?

-A tonne?!

-Yeah.

The traditional method is to beat the trees with long poles

called polting lugs to make the apples fall from the trees,

but Si's got a more hands-on approach.

Ouch! Me head.

MIKE LAUGHS

Aargh! It's raining apples.

Ow!

My mate has his uses.

Sitting here in Mike's orchard amongst his 200 varieties

of apple trees reminds you of just how many

different kinds of English apples there are.

Over 2,000 -

many of which have been forgotten for decades.

Heritage growers like Mike are bringing them back onto the market.

And they have such lovely names.

Cowarne Red, Knotted Kernel,

White Beech, and Strawberry Norman.

Over the last 50 years, many of these

ancient English apples have lost out

to commercial varieties which were quick to crop,

had a reliable shelf life and consistency of shape and colour.

To make things worse,

during the commercial expansion of the cider industry

in the '50s and '60s,

small cider producers were bought out by large companies.

And as hydraulics and industrial science

superseded old-fashioned methods of cider production,

traditional methods and their interesting results

in terms of flavour and taste were largely lost to history.

But Mike is leading a renaissance in old-fashioned cider making.

# I am a cider drinker

# I drinks it all the day... #

He's holding a festival

on his farm to introduce people to old English apples...

and to showcase traditional methods.

You've got a lot of people here this weekend,

-because it's quite special. There's a cider festival on.

-Yeah.

It's a cider festival which is designed to allow people

to meet cider makers.

Oh, brilliant! A bit like speed dating with apples.

-Yeah, exactly.

-That sort of thing.

I'll always encourage people who want to make cider,

and I think everybody in every town and village

should have a part in it,

and there's apples all over England that just rot on the floor

because nobody bothers with them.

-Pick up your apples and press.

-Yeah.

First you have to mill it, so we'll switch the mill on.

We're using a modern mill, a scratter, which shreds the apples

to a pulp without squashing the pips in the process.

In the past, they were ground with horse-drawn millstones.

But these crushed the pips,

which slowly released cyanide,

and if that accumulated in the body over a lifetime,

it could become poisonous.

Oooh! Nasty.

But shredding the fruit is the easy part,

because Mike's fellow cider makers

Dave and Fiona Mathews will show us

how to juice the pulp the old-fashioned way...

using elbow grease.

-Would you two like to do all the work...

-Yeah, yeah...

-while we just shout advice from the sides?

-Aye.

The pulp has to be evenly spread across the fine mesh,

because there are eight layers going on here.

Aw. This is good, this.

There's skill involved here. If you get it wrong,

everybody will know.

-You need a very even layer every time.

-Right, yeah.

If it's all to one side, it's going to tip up when we squash

-and it's all going to pour out and be a complete mess.

-Right.

-So keeping it even's what it's all about.

-Even and level.

Even and level. All right.

Those are not two things that we are strong at!

So, spin it with your hands?

Get your hands in there, into the corners.

I mean, Dave.

Presumably this is how you'd have done it in Victorian times?

Nothing different?

It is. This goes back quite a long way.

The technology of this screw press and the original stone mill

is from the olive oil days in the Mediterranean,

and has come up into Britain about the 12th century with the Normans.

And the old original presses would have had a carved wooden thread,

and then they got into the metal in about the 17th century.

But this has been done this way for centuries.

Each layer is called a hair,

because this cloth would have been originally made of horsehair.

And the whole stack together is called a cheese,

-I think because you press the curds to make cheese, don't you?

-Yes.

In the same you press the pommes to make cider.

Bucketfuls of them.

-Really well into the corners.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, it looks pretty good, boys.

Pretty even, pretty straight.

-Well done.

-Thanks.

-For first-timers!

-Right, now. You're going to get one screw each, OK?

-1, 2, 3!

And this is how Morris dancing was born!

And the juice is starting to pour out now.

-Look at that!

-Wow.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Look how clear it is as well.

It's very rarely that clear and bright.

That's exquisite, man.

The natural sugars in that are fantastic.

That's not what I expected at all. I thought it was going to be sour!

Cider apples...it's really, really sweet.

Next, all our hard-won apple juice

is left to ferment in barrels.

Unlike the modern industrial method of adding

dried yeast to apple juice, Mike lets the natural yeasts

work their magic, turning the sugar into alcohol.

He believes it makes a better cider!

You know the way you make the cider now, Mike?

Is this a technique you've mastered

-that would have been used for hundreds of years?

-Absolutely.

There was a huge amount more knowledge 50 years ago.

There were so many more cider makers making this style of cider,

and unfortunately, we've almost lost a generation in passing it down,

but there's a lot of enthusiastic people making it now.

That's nice. I've had quite a lot of cider,

but I don't think I've had cider where you can identify...

you know like a nice wine, you taste it at first, it's one flavour,

then it mellows out and there's two or three other flavours.

The tail of the flavour's

-there for a long time.

-Yeah.

Very easy to drink as well.

It's very important to know your varieties

if you want to make interesting ciders.

The secret of a good cider is in the blend.

We'll learn how to mix a medium dry cider

with Mike's many traditional varieties.

This one is Ashton Brown Jersey.

This is a bittersweet apple.

Smells cidery. Yeah.

This is Foxwell. When you've got the flavour of it,

blend it in with your other one.

-I haven't got a sweetness yet.

-It's a fantastic flavour.

-It is a fantastic flavour.

-The acidity is so strong.

Bitter-sweet cider dries the palate, but compliments

a sweeter flavour to make the perfect blend.

The one should balance the other quite well.

The best of British!

Smells good.

-Now, that's perfect.

-It is lovely.

Who says that cider isn't as complex as wine?

Because it is,

and the art of this is absolutely superb.

-And you know, this would be beautiful with food.

-Yeah.

It's such a joy to discover

ciders with so many complex flavours.

And thankfully Mike and his fellow cider makers are bringing back

wonderful old traditions which might have been lost forever.

And there's more good news.

Historic British beer is also enjoying a revival.

Real ales and British bitters slowly brewed the old-fashioned way,

with different varieties of hops and natural yeasts, are now

to be found in our shops and pubs again.

But it wasn't always this way.

Back in the '70s and '80s, craft beer almost disappeared altogether.

The breweries have been concerned for a long time,

and rightly so, about the declining quality

of traditional draft beer.

Until the 1950s, most pubs still brewed their own beer.

Good stuff, too.

Gentle on the stomach and on the pocket,

selling at 21 pence a pint.

But in the '60s and '70s, giant automated breweries

were springing up everywhere.

The men in white coats here can change the brand of beer by

putting a new card into the computer.

15 brews a day, 21,000 gallons to the brew,

and none of these men

ever see a grain of barley or a drop of beer.

These companies wanted to make big bucks

by producing mass-market,

crowd-pleasing beer with a consistent flavour.

The subtle differences

and depths of flavour of local pub brews disappeared.

Forget your dull, flat, local ale. Buy the one you saw

advertised on the telly - always bright,

always sparkling, always the same.

And as European lagers cashed in on the market,

local British pubs and small brewers

were pushed out of production.

MUSIC: "War" by Edwin Starr

The Campaign for Real Ale are dismayed by the brewers' decision.

Absolutely flabbergasted and disgusted.

It's said that Britain never had a revolution,

but when it came to beer and cider...

The people rose up and demanded better beer back!

Here are 600 other people who feel

that beer today hasn't got

the real distinctive taste

that it had in other years.

And they don't feel too happy about it.

What do you feel about the brewery closing down?

Rubbish!

Sheer vandalism.

And gradually, their campaigning paid off, and the market turned.

By the 1990s, craft brewers began springing up everywhere.

And in the last decade, real ale's traditional porters

and craft beers have found new fans.

So craft beer is back.

And our Best of British food hero Alistair Hook is passionate

about brewing beer in the old London style.

I love beer because I'm British.

I'm a Londoner. London's got great brewing heritage.

To spread his love of traditional beer,

he set up the Meantime Brewery in London's

historic Greenwich.

If we're producing

a great national beverage,

we should be proud of it, and part of what we've done

is to throw passion back into beer-brewing.

Alistair believes that beer brewed the traditional way

produces as many complex flavours as wine.

-Delicious.

-And it's more than a match when it comes to fine dining.

There are four ingredients in beer - malted barley, water, yeast and hops.

Craft brewers add a fifth - that is passion.

They care about the taste and flavour of their product

and they want people to enjoy the taste

and flavour of their product, and they'll put it up

against wine as a solid,

genuine competitor for the attention of

the drinking public on the dinner table.

Alistair also owns a restaurant on the banks of the Thames,

where customers are treated to dishes

that are complimented and creatively matched to his own craft beers.

The concept of the old brewery

is to provide people

with the chance to experience

great beers with different dishes,

to help them understand that the taste and flavour in beer

will match beautifully with the taste and flavour of foods.

The concept of matching beer to food has been missed, it's been forgotten.

So to reclaim justice for beer in the eyes of the nation,

Alistair's going for the ultimate challenge -

A head to head beer versus wine battle!

A fine dining tasting society is going to sample three courses

prepared by Alistair's head chef.

And each course is a classic match for wine -

oysters with champagne...

..white fish with white wine...

..and cheese with port.

But tonight, Alistair has chosen

speciality beers he believes

will match each of these dishes better than the wine.

Meet eminent master of wine Tim Aitkin.

He's an award winning critic who runs his own wine school.

He believes beer belongs in the bar, not on the table!

And tonight, he's hand picked three wines to pit against

Alistair's traditionally brewed British beers!

I think wine is a better match for most cuisines

because it's a more varied drink.

It also has a greater sense of place.

The prejudices against beer?

They're generally quite simple.

There's an awful lot of snob value.

It doesn't mean that I don't like beer. I do like beer.

But 99% of the time, for me at least,

I'd actually be reaching for a glass of wine.

Most great world cuisines have grown up alongside wine.

The great thing about beer is it's actually far more complex than wine.

Beer is made from four or five different ingredients.

The complexity you get is far greater

than a drink that is just made from one grape.

Enough WINING -

let battle commence!

May the best man - I mean drink - win!

Ding, ding! Round 1.

Oysters.

OK. The first one I brought is a champagne.

This is a classic match, really, to go with oysters, which is champagne.

So here we go.

It's so classic,

and certainly one I've had a very good time on previously.

You can see why it's a classic match,

because the two things not only compliment each other,

but they kind of embellish each other, they enhance each other.

In my opinion.

It's fair to say I'd do it again and again and again.

Stepping up to challenge champagne is the black London porter.

But what our fine diners might not know

is that champagne is the new kid on the block

when it comes to oysters.

Porter and oysters is a classic combination,

an old classic combination,

whereas I think champagne and oysters might be

a very modern, kind of

social combination.

Oysters and porter

were a staple diet of Londoners.

The porter beer of London was the beer that was

everybody's nourishment.

It was safer than the water, it was more nutritious than any other drink.

It was freely available, as were oysters.

Why's this combination going to be good?

The porter beer has a very, very mineral-y, roasty,

ashy nuttiness to it,

It'll work very well with the brininess of the oyster,

and the fleshiness of the oyster.

It's nice.

I was a bit apprehensive, actually,

but it's a surprisingly nice combination.

And it's two of my individually favourite things, beer and oysters.

They mix well.

So the porter held its own against champagne.

Next up, a white fish dish that's a traditional partner for white wine -

fillet of cod with a rich clam chowder, and sauteed spinach.

-Round two!

-This is a Bacchus from Kent.

Obviously a place where lots of hops come from,

but really good vineyards too.

Bacchus is a crossing of two grape varieties, Sylvaner and Riesling.

It was done in Germany, it was named after a Roman god,

but it's an English wine. Again, top stuff.

So you've got to very much try this with the dish, I think.

And now it's time for the foodie group to try Alistair's

main course beer selection.

This is the Meantime Bavarian-style wheat beer,

and it's the acidic finish that cuts beautifully through fish.

Fish such as the cod, the Cornish cod that we're trying today.

The wine and the beer are certainly flowing,

but which one will be on top with the cod?

It's actually really nice.

Napoleon referred to these styles of beers

as "the champagnes of the north", and not without reason.

The wine was really pleasant,

but it was a familiar kind of pleasant, like,

"That's quite nice." Whereas this,

I don't know, quite fun.

And now for the final round.

Now, with the English cheese board,

which includes stilton,

I've got something that's not an English wine,

but which was invented by the Brits, and that's good old port.

I think this will be tip-top. Watch out, Alistair.

Pass the port!

Well, like the Porter,

Alistair's hoping that the Pale Ale's

130 years of military history

will win the wine war!

This is India Pale Ale.

It was brewed particularly alcoholic

to make the journeys to India

where it nourished the troops.

Lovely, peppery, hoppy,

slightly citric aromas,

complements the rich, well-matured characteristics

of a farmhouse cheddar.

I definitely prefer the beer with cheese.

Port is very nice, but the beer complements the cheese much better.

I think the beer is a real surprise to me too,

as a wine expert. You know, I wouldn't normally...

in fact, I'd never think of serving an India Pale Ale with cheese.

It all goes to the vote to see which wins.

So that was, everyone else preferred the beer, so that's three...

And the clear winner...

And the winner - by one crucial vote - is beer!

APPLAUSE

Alistair's a happy man.

-Beer has proved more than a match for wine.

-I'm very pleased.

I'm very pleased beer showed itself so well.

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest,

as I'm a great believer in beer being a better accompaniment

to food than wine.

But there's no turning a true wine critic...

or is there?

I thought the port was very good with the stilton,

but I thought the beer was fantastic, actually,

and I voted for it,

so it won by vote, and it's down to me.

So, sorry, people in the wine industry - it's my fault!

British craft beers shouldn't be confined to the bar.

They belong at the top table along with fine wines.

Now, we may think of ourselves

as a nation of beer drinkers,

but in the past few years there's been a resurgence

in the interest and consumption of cider.

Cider is now a favourite tipple

in pubs and clubs across the nation.

And, as we discovered in Herefordshire,

all of those complex flavours

are just as good as wine or beer

for matching with food.

But we've come up with something a bit different.

A bit unexpected.

And ever so slightly...wobbly!

We're going to cook you a little sweet treat of loveliness -

a cider jelly.

This one is definitely not for the kids.

-It's a northern hemisphere pudding, this.

-It's an X-rated pud.

It's very sophisticated and grown up.

But it's also fruity and full of old-fashioned flavour.

Here's how to make

our cider jelly with blackberries.

We have a great cider culture in this country, don't we?

We do. It's very important.

And our old apple orchards that have been long forgotten,

now people are getting interested in them.

They're booming. It's brilliant.

In fact, two million more cider apple trees

have been planted since 1995.

So the proof of the pudding's in the drinking, or in our case,

the proof of the drinking is in our pudding.

-Ohhh, nice!

-That was slick, wasn't it?

-Right, what's first? Water.

-Oh, water.

100ml of water.

That goes into the pan.

There's not much cooking in this,

but the trick is to keep your bubbles

in your jelly.

And we're going to show you how.

-Yes.

-We're like Blue Peter.

How to keep the fizz in your whizz!

Now then. Sugar.

Now, we're making a syrup, so bring the sugar and water to a boil,

and leave it to simmer for 30 seconds.

While you're waiting for the syrup to boil,

you could do something useful and sensible.

-Right, ready?

-Yeah.

-A short interlude.

-A short interlude.

Or not!

Ooh!

Now, before we get thrown out of our own kitchen,

we'd better check that syrup.

If you let it go

for more than 30 seconds, it'll become toffee.

And we don't want that, now. 10,

9,

8,

BOTH: 7,

6,

5,

4, 3,

2, 1.

Anything could happen in the next half hour!

THEY SING THE THEME FROM "THUNDERBIRDS"

And it often does!

-Into this, place 20 humongous blackberries.

-Look at that.

Now, we'll leave the blackberries to macerate,

to soak in the syrup for 15 minutes.

There's a reason for that.

The heat from the syrup will just release

some of that blackberry-ness and flavour into that sugar syrup.

It's very gentle, but it works.

It's very good.

But it will not cook the blackberries - that's important.

So get this right. Meanwhile, gelatine - leaf gelatine.

There's an interesting history to gelatine.

-Since medieval times we have enjoyed jellies in this country.

-Yeah.

But sweet jellies used to have to be made with, you know, like,

calf's foot. Basically, you'd cook the meat down -

or snouts, or whatever - to release

the natural gelatine and make fruit jellies.

You get leaf gelatine like this or powdered gelatine.

For this, we're using five leaves.

Pop this in water, cold water.

Leave it to soak. In a few minutes, it'll become flaccid.

It'll just go...

it'll be just like a deboned jellyfish.

Now, these are still firm.

Bring them out with a fork.

Get these out.

You've got a lovely kind of violet hue to the syrup.

It's fantastic, isn't it, gelatine?

Atchoo! And put that into the syrup

until it's dissolved.

Time for the old cider.

There's so much folklore with cider,

where you go round in the spring

and you shout at the trees to wake them up, you go, "Oi!"

And it's to wake the trees up so they blossom

-so you get a bumper crop of apples.

-You know Captain Cook? Yeah.

He carried it on his ships

for treating scurvy with his crew,

-you see.

-Oh!

So if you felt shady - bit of cider,

Bob's your uncle.

You must have sparkling cider for this.

No point in doing it with flat or you won't get bubbly jellies.

That's sparkling.

To maintain the bubbles, just pour the cider gently

down the side of the pan.

We want 500ml, which is the contents of this bottle.

We're ready to make the jellies, so I'll go and get the glasses.

-Here you go, mate, straight from the freezer.

-Perfect.

Whoo! Excellent.

Right, now, top them up with the cider jelly mixture

up to about there, I think.

Gently does it. And repeat.

Pouring the jelly into chilled glasses helps keep it bubbly

when it sets.

Now, you will have more jelly than you need.

We need that jelly later,

so don't try filling them up.

Perfect. Yes.

One hour in the fridge and the jelly is set.

That softly set, and that's the key,

and what we want to do is just fold it.

This recreates the cider's effervescence,

giving the jelly a lovely bubbly look.

See that? You've got that nice kind of crystally effect.

-So we'll just nice and gently...

-Nice.

Just hold that.

Hold it. There we are.

On to each glass,

pop five of these berries.

Do you remember the jelly mixture that we didn't put in the freezer?

Still in the jug, still liquid. Lovely. Top it up.

And what it means, you've got the nice ruckly bits there,

but we're going to have a beautiful smooth top on.

Perfect.

Lovely.

You know, it's nice to see cider being used

in quite a sophisticated way, isn't it?

Oh, it's lush. Looks fabulous.

Doesn't it? Looks great, doesn't it?

Big bubbles and...

Yeah. It's great.

-Yeah.

-Loving it.

If you're in a hurry, put them in the freezer.

If not, put them in the fridge for three or four hours.

These are great made the day before.

I'll clear down a bit, mate.

All right, me old sausage.

Hee hee!

The bubbles tingle on your tongue.

It's great. The bubbles are completely encapsulated

in the wonderful tangy jelly.

-Cheers, amigo.

-Cheers, mate!

That's just lovely.

-It's like sucking an orchard.

-Mmm!

So there they are -

our beautifully bubbly cider jellies with blackberries.

They've got the rustic charm of the British countryside.

But they're dressed up for the daintiest of dinner parties!

Beer and cider

have had a challenging and colourful history.

But today they're back on top form.

They can add sparkle and fizz to your food.

Whether you're dining out or cooking at home.

Our beer and ciders are the very best of British!

Visit bbc.co.uk/food

to discover some amazing facts

about the history of food.

And to find out how to cook up the recipes in today's show.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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