Pig's ear of a beer festival

From wine and cheese to beer...well, it is December! Funnily enough, cheese also featured at the Pig's Ear beer festival in Hackney, which has been running this week.

The name comes from Cockney rhyming slang for beer, and is in its 24th year. It has a fantastic venue in a former chapel, the Round Chapel in Lower Clapton Road. The beers are arranged around the edge ground floor, and upstairs there is pew-like seating arranged round the gallery for those wishing to give their feet a rest and survey what is going on below.

The beer supplies were becoming depleted by the end of Saturday, which was understandable on the last day of the beer festival. But there was an excellent range for most of the night. The Real Ale Drinker's favourite was Worth brewery's Seam Cutter, a porter which he described as roasted-tasting and rich. I enjoyed the Ginger Beer from Pitfield brewery in Essex. There were quite a few handle-with-care strong winter ales, while one that can be drunk more liberally is Felstar's Two Per Cent, an unusually low gravity mild with quite a sweet, fruity flavour. The Real Ale Drinker compared it to cola, though I feel that might have been unfair.

As for the cheese, Wobbly Bottom farm from Hertfordshire had a stall there, much to my delight. I haven't seen this cheese maker since a farm shop in Cambridge some time ago, though apparently they are regulars at Islington farmers' market. It was good to see that they were selling cheese platters and cheese panini made with a selection of their own interesting cheeses - a welcome change from the cheese rolls made with bog-standard mild cheddar that you more often find at beer festivals. Their extra-strong Lancashire has a pungent aroma and is strong enough to knock your socks off. We took home some of their blue cow's milk cheese, which is simply called Blue Cow, but they do several goats' and sheep's cheeses too, including a goat Camembert.

Cheese and wine may be the classic combination, but if you ask me, a lovely pint of real ale with a tasty Cheddar or Lancashire is an all-English pairing that can't be beat.