Beer and Food – A secret too well kept?

At BitterSweet Partnership, we work on encouraging more women to try beer. In doing this, we’ve talked to over 30,000 women to find out more about them and what they think about beer – and one recurring theme we’ve found is the relationship between food and drink. We’ve found that women are occasion drinkers, changing what they drink according to the situation – and if the situation involves food, then the likelihood is that women will choose wine, with 79% choosing it in restaurants, 76% at a dinner party, and 60% at a work dinner. We’ve also found that food is an influential factor in pub choice for women, with 46% of women choosing to go to a pub for the food, and 31% claiming they’d visit more often if there was better food on offer.

To me, it seems like developing a relationship between beer and food could be a key way in which more women could be encouraged to try beer. Any beer enthusiast will tell you that beer is fantastic with food – more pairings are possible, given the wider range of beers, and the complexity of beer means that it can contrast and complement any food (even chocolate – see our website for more beer and chocolate information!). And in my eyes, it seems like pubs are the perfect place in which to demonstrate that to more people. There is so much that pubs could do, such as suggesting pairings in the food menu and holding beer and food pairing events – just to name a couple of things that I’d love to see.

Do you ever think about which beer goes best with food? Would you like to attend a beer pairing event at your local? It’d be great to hear what you think!