Relief Chefs North West

[Photography: vegan brewers argue the beer actually tastes better; Credit: Alamy]

“Who wants to drink fish guts?!”

Jemma Kington of the Moor Beer Company doesn’t mince her words. But she’s not wrong. Who would? No one, I’d wager. Although that’s exactly what us beer drinkers have been doing for years; drinking dried swim bladders. Yum.

Admittedly, they’re not plonked in our pint like a bag of giblets, but still, we’re consuming bits of fish with every gulp. Known in the trade as isinglass, dried fish bladders are a popular ‘fining’ or clarifying agent in the brewing process and late last year Guinness somewhat shocked the beer world by denouncing isinglass and rendering themselves vegan-friendly.

[Photography: Guinness announced it would no longer use isinglass last year; Credit: Alamy]

But many modern breweries, including Bristol-based Moor Beer, have been vegan and clean from the get go. They argue it’s not just good for our veggie friends - the beer actually tastes better.

What does vegan-friendly beer actually mean?

“Here in the UK beer is usually made clear by adding isinglass finings to finished beer,” Kington explains. “Finings are made from fish swim bladders, which are meant to remove the yeast before it hits your glass. A beer is vegan-friendly if it does not contain any animal products in any part of the process. The most widely used and contentious are isinglass, but these days people are adding lots of things to beer to create unique styles, even bacon, so it’s always best to check.”

Moor Beer started in 2007, brewed from the ashes of a previously failed brewery in the Somerset Levels and Moors. Californian head brewer, Justin Hawke took inspiration from Germany where unfined beer is more of a standard, thanks to the strict German Purity Law – Reinheitsgebot – which decrees that beers can only contain water, hops, yeast, malted barley or wheat. Typically, German beers are marked with Reinheitsgebot on their labels. Incidentally, 2016 marks the 500^th anniversary of the law.

Hawke returned with “the belief that live yeast [removed in the fining process] was fundamental to beer, improving aroma, flavour and mouthfeel” and that “by leaving a small amount of yeast in suspension it heightens all of these qualities, and allows you to see the ‘soul’ of the beer.”

Kington admits that this holistic approach was somewhat ahead of its time. “Bringing a lot of international influence to our approach, including unfined beer, made it very difficult for us in the beginning, but we stuck to our guns and helped create a whole new sector of the industry,” she says.

After Moor Beer’s successful lobbying of the brewers’ association, Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) to formally recognise unfined beer, many breweries followed suit and started making there own.

“Today unfined beers’ cloudy appearance is seen as a mark of quality rather than being associated with poorly-kept beer,” Kington says. “The dramatically improved flavour of unfined beer has won over drinkers, both vegan and non-vegan and there is definitely more of a thirst for it now.”

Jonathan Smith, Head Brewer at Freedom Brewery in Staffordshire says they’ve been brewing for over 20 years and always been vegan-friendly.

“It’s [being vegan friendly] something that’s been synonymous with the brewery right from the start and something we feel strongly about,” Smith says. “Why not make sure as many people as possible can enjoy our brews? It’s a massive plus for the more conscious consumer as there are so many beers out there that are not suitable for vegans and it’s great to be able to give consumers more choice.”

The choice is yours

More choice is certainly a big part of modern beer culture’s appeal. Whether that’s drinking vessels (how strange that we’ve all adopted the continental tulip glass so often referred to in derogatory terms in the 90s), baffling and innovative flavours or beers for a certain diet or lifestyle (vegan, clean, gluten-free or otherwise), the industry seems far more inclined to fit itself around the individual rather than to sway our drinking habits with bloke-centric ad campaigns and footy shirt sponsorship. The days of a derivative pint of lager and a packet of crisps have been and gone; the industry has simply had to grow up.

“It’s still a very small market but with more and more untraditional breweries popping up the availability of vegan-friendly beers is increasing,” says Bradley Cummings Co-Founder and Director at Tiny Rebel Brewing Co in Newport, South Wales. “And with more and more people choosing beer as their choice of drink there will naturally be a bigger calling for vegan-friendly beers as there has been with gluten free beers over the past few years.”

The perception of the ‘vegan’ has also changed. They’re no longer scrawny, dreadlocked folk from Totnes; now they’re international sports’ stars and children’s heroes. And the 21st century vegan is just as likely to drink beer as they are beetroot juice.

But it’s not just vegans that breweries are catering for. Kington says being environmentally-friendly is another huge concern for the modern brewer. Moor Beer for instance switched from bottles to cans, which are much more recyclable and have a lower carbon footprint.

And at Tiny Rebel Brewery they’ve noticed a trend for people looking for a beer that’s low in alcohol, electing a lower calorie option of say a 3.5% beer over the usual 4.5%.

So, mark it down in the diary folks: 2016 is the year of the vegan beer and beyond.

3 vegan beers to try

Organic Helles, Freedom

A clean, crisp organic helles style lager made with water from a natural spring. Freedom’s whole range is suitable for vegans and sustainably brewed, but their helles is also super organic and their most ‘clean’.

Revival, Moor Beer

All of Moor Beer’s are unfined and vegan friendly but with 25 plus different beers each year to chose from, it’s not easy to select just one. The award-winning Revival is a good place to start.

Cwtch, Tiny Rebel

I didn’t think anything could beat Tiny Rebel’s previous beer, a hugely hopy IPA with the brilliant name of Hadouken (named after the Street Fighter games). But this Welsh Red Ale won Champion Beer of Britain 2016, so it just pips the homage-paying Hadouken to the post.

This article was published in The Telegraph on 6th January 2016, by Gareth May, under the title “Clean pints: why Britain is thirsty for vegan beer”

[Photography: Cod fillet with grilled powder of mealworm. Chef David Faure at Aphrodite]

Pinterest and Facebook are experiencing a traffic boost with three specific food trends on a viral path during the first six weeks of 2016. With an impressive number of “likes,” the following trio are ranking high on the food scene paired. I have paired them with what appears to be their soon to be predecessor:

Goodbye Sushi. Hello Poke.

Goodbye Donuts. Hello Ice Cream.

Goodbye Gluten Free Diet. Hello to the return of the Bread Service “artisan style!”

The next trend expected to go mainstream could  surprisingly do so on a global scale and is being boosted by Millennials who have a fondness of trying new foods. Say hello to “entomophagy,” the practice of eating insects, which has grown in popularity without signs of slowing especially. Ironically, a few years ago, bugs had to be purchased in night markets or on street food stands in countries such as Asia or Mexico, but today, items are appearing in traditional food serving operations.

Being tabbed as an “alternative protein,” crickets, ants, and grasshoppers are finding their way into American food and beverages. Millennials are viewing insects as the next “super food” as they warm-up to cricket bars and centipede vodka while chefs experiment behind the scenes with their own creations of bug cuisine.

Inexpensive, environmentally friendly and a good source of protein, vitamins and minerals, consuming bugs is catching on at such a pace, one example is from the protein bar category where Exo Bars contain five crickets per bite thanks to the concoction of “cricket flour.”   Brooklyn-based Exo claims crickets provide 2.2 times more iron than spinach and that 80% of the world already eats insects regularly.

Bug-focused restaurants such as Wales based Grub Kitchen is Britain’s first ever insect-only restaurant. Mealworm, grasshopper or cricket burgers and mealworm hummus are two of their most popular insect meals on the menu.

This article was published on 22nd February 2016 by Sherri Scheck-Merrill in Hotels Mag, under the title “Poke, bread, ice cream, bugs go viral"

(The views and opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the author.)

Dan Kurzrock was a freshman at UCLA when he started brewing beer in his frat-house kitchen. The process posed a moral dilemma for the 19-year old that had nothing to do with being under the legal drinking age.

To his dismay, Kurzrock, an economics major with a keen interest in sustainability,  was generating 15-20 pounds of grain waste each time he made a batch of beer.

“I was just blown away to see how much raw material we used to make five gallons of beer,” recalls the now 26-year-old entrepreneur. ”I had this moment of ‘there has got to be a better way to do this.’ I literally felt like I was dumping out these tubs of oatmeal.”

By his junior year, Kurzrock and his longtime buddy Jordan Schwartz, also a student at UCLA, had started baking and selling bread made from spent beer grains, which still had a lot of fiber and protein. They worked out of Schwartz’s apartment and sold about 20 loaves a week to people on campus, earning enough profit to finance their hobby.

“We  found they were fascinated by the story, not that it was just fresh-baked bread but that the main ingredient was the waste product from pretty much everyone’s favorite beverage,” says Kurzrock.

The two friends officially launched their business, called ReGrained, in 2012, right after graduating a semester early from college. They switched from baking baking bread to granola bars, thousands of them a month. Bread was too labor intensive, Kurzrock explains. “We wanted a product we could scale.”

Recommended by Forbes

ReGrained is telling a compelling environmental story, at a time when the food industry is grappling with a mountain of  food waste. All of the grains used in their bars come from craft breweries in the city, and their other baking ingredients, such as almonds and puffed quinoa, are sourced from environmentally responsible producers, some of them organic.

In London,  in another twist on the beer-grain story, Toast Ale makes beer from the  heels of bread loaves that sandwich makers normally discard.  (The two companies like to tweet back and forth at each other, says Kurzrock.)

[Photography: Jordan Schwartz (left) and Dan Kurzrock, cofounders of Regrained, which makes granola bars using spent beer grains. Photo by Laura Miley]

In agricultural regions, breweries can more easily sell the grain residue to farmers for animal feed or compost. Disposal is more problematic for small urban craft breweries. In some cities, the leftover grains go right into landfills. In ReGrained’s case, they’re finding that breweries are more than happy to let them haul away the grain residues, for free.

One of their suppliers is 21st Amendment, a brew pub and microbrewery in downtown San Francisco.  Cofounder and brew master Shaun O’Sullivan says each brew generates over 5,000 pounds of grain — much more than tiny Regrained can handle. Most of their grain waste goes to a rancher in the Central Valley to feed his livestock.

“As ReGrained’s capacity grows, we’re looking forward to sending more their way,” O’Sullivan tells me by email. “Their bars are delicious and it’s a great repurpose of what would normally be a discarded material.”

This article was published by Robin D. Schatz, a Contributor at Forbes, under the title “Eat Your Beer: Why A San Francisco Startup Is Making Granola Bars From Spent Brewing Grains”

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Do the same rules that govern human attraction also apply to our choices of fruit and vegetables?

Plenty of evidence suggests we do look for similar traits in both people and produce, and our perceptions of food are clearly affected by what it looks like.

Each year we waste 1.3 billion tonnes of food worldwide, a third of the total produced.

This unbelievable figure is partly made up of “ugly” fruit and vegetables – those that are perfectly edible but rejected by supermarkets due to their blemished skin or unusual shape.

[Photography: Buzz 60 via Youtube - Carrots (letf) and ugly carrots (right)]

In March 2015 I opened a pop-up Ugly Food Shop in a mission to change perceptions of ugly food. I became interested in why it was ever rejected in the first place, and whether supermarkets either dictated or answered to a desire for perfect veg.

Since then, ugly foods seem to be making a comeback. A flurry of excitement accompanied the launch of British supermarket Asda’s “wonky veg box” which, for just £3.50 (US$5), promises to feed a family of four for a week. So have we always cared about the shapeliness of our bananas, or are we only now becoming more receptive to the idea of bendy vegetables?

Theories of human attraction suggest beautiful people are generally considered to be more honest, more social and more successful. Ultimately, we seem to be programmed to find attractive people more likeable – even newborn babies spend more time gazing at the prettiest among us.

Symmetry is critical here, as symmetrical faces are easier to visually process and signify genetic health. From an evolutionary perspective, selecting a mate with even features is a safer bet, as asymmetries can be caused by disease and infections during physical development.

[Photography: Maie Peetri/twitter - Because ugly food is beautiful on the inside]

Although it makes sense that we would naturally select produce that is the most likely to be free from disease, in reality imperfections in the shape of fruit and veg have no real bearing on their nutritional content or taste, and no evolutionary advantage.

An alternative explanation is that we “eat with our eyes”. Colour has a huge impact on how we perceive taste, with multiple studies demonstrating how a variety of learned and natural responses can influence the communication between our eyes and brain to determine taste.

For example, professional wine tasters admitted to being a little suspicious while drinking white wine visually disguised as a full-bodied red, however they ultimately trusted their retinas over their taste-buds, until the trickery was revealed. Equally, altering the colour of vanilla ice cream can determine it’s reported taste, with brown vanilla ice cream described as chocolate, pink as strawberry, and green as mint.

[Photography: @capogiro on Twitter How much of taste is influenced by vision?]

Given these findings, it is understandable that it will always be the disfigured potatoes that are left on the shelf. However throwing away a few lonely spuds has nothing on the millions of tonnes of fruit and vegetables which are denied even the chance to make it through the supermarket doors.

Thanks to global abundance and international trade, supermarkets can now be more selective. Much of the food deemed ugly is damaged on long boat trips – literally a fruitless journey – while ugly produce grown closer to home is also rejected, imposing harsh conditions on farmers. The needless waste of both imported and homegrown fruit and veg seems senseless; however if consumers are unaware of it, they can do nothing to change it.

Attitudes seem to be shifting though, thanks largely to high-profile coverage of massive food waste. Ugly food is becoming more popular, and social influence has a huge impact on our behaviour. Wonky veg can be rebranded to enhance that social influence, for instance our shop marketing campaign focused on “humanising” a team of unfortunate fruit and veg, giving consumers something to root for.

More than just fashion, the multiple benefits of “ugly” foods are admired as it is both cheap and helps to cut waste. The ugly comeback shows awareness and social influence can override a natural instinct to select symmetrical and unblemished fruit and veg. Whether this is a trend capable of withstanding the rise and fall of passing fancy, only time will tell. However in the meantime if we can cut waste and spend less, that definitely sounds appealing to me.

This article was published by Rhi Willmot on 15th February 2016, in The Business Insider under the title “I opened up an ‘ugly food’ shop — here’s why you should be eating disfigured vegetables”

Rhi Willmot is a PhD Researcher in Behavioural and Positive Psychology, Bangor University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Christophe Laurent takes you around the world with just five pots of tea as we explore how different regions celebrate one of the most universal signs of hospitality.

First brewed in China for medicinal purposes circa 2000 BC, tea is the oldest and second most commonly consumed beverage (aside from water) in the world. Although almost every country drinks some form of tea, each culture has adopted and interpreted their tea rituals to reflect its own values, heritage, and tastes. While exchanging tea-related traditions, the distance that separates us becomes as small as the rim of a tea cup; because no matter what country you’re in, tea brings people together, heals, and welcomes while restoring the body and mind.

BUTTER TEA IN TIBET

Although India famously produces 900,000 tons of tea each year, their neighbor Tibet gives them a good run for their tea leaf in consumption. Tibetans are said to consume more than 60 cups of tea per day (particularly in the colder, mountainous regions). Tibetan tea is savory rather than sweet like Moroccan tea (or even the more well-known Indian chai tea), combining black pemagul tea with rich yak butter, fresh milk, and a dash of salt. This hardy drink symbolizes vivacity and is meant to warm the soul and invigorate the body in even the highest altitudes.

AFTERNOON TEA IN ENGLAND

If you’ve ever indulged in a sumptuous, leisurely afternoon of tea, delicate pastries, and finger sandwiches, you should thank Anna the Seventh Duchess of Bedford, who created the famous English tea ceremony to curb her afternoon food cravings. Today, English tea rituals are celebrated across the world and have become a trendy craze for tourists and locals alike. Afternoon tea carves out space to celebrate friendship, indulge, and enjoy life at a leisurely pace and has become a staple in the pop iconization of British culture in tandem with sayings like “Keep Calm and Carry On.” And after all, if it’s good enough for Her Majesty the Queen of England, it’s good enough for us.

JAPANESE MATCHA AND MEDITATION

Aside from the many social benefits of sharing a cup of tea, Eastern cultures have long embraced the healing powers of this remarkable beverage. Japanese matcha - or powdered green tea - has an almost mystic quality and relates closely to the practice of Zen Buddhism (while making its way into the mainstream thanks to health enthusiasts and worldwide chains such as Starbucks). In Japan, drinking tea is often done in small groups at a tea house or while practicing the art of meditation in the traditional chanoyu ceremony. Matcha is said to have a calming effect while serving up a serious dose of antioxidants, metabolism boosting nutrients, and purifying properties.

SWEET TEA IN THE UNITED STATES

The American South has made tea consumption all its own. Sweet tea is a cold pressed take on the traditional favorite, packed with the molasses-like flavor of raw cane sugar. Although this drink seems to embody the modern American spirit of bigger, bolder flavors, the drink actually dates all the way back to 1879. Early settlers found themselves enjoying this sweet drink to stave off the hot Southern climate while indulging in the fruits of their imports: both sugar and tea. Sweet tea is one of the most popular beverages in the United States and a cultural staple in the South.

SIP MINT TEA IN THE MAGHREB

Cheers to love, life, and death. Tea in Morocco is at once casual and ritualistic. North Africans drink tuareg, their signature sweet, mint tea, after every meal, and celebrate arriving visitors with a tea ceremony to honor their guests. Exchanging tea is a great honor, led by the head of household. Guests are offered three delicate cups of tea signifying love, life, and death - each filled with this warm elixir to represent the abundance and flow of these forces in our lives. It’s important to drink from each cup to complete the ritual…

…But I suspect you’ll be coming back for more.

This article was published by Christophe Laurent, Senior Lecturer Practical Arts & EHL Values Ambassador, in Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne’s blog on 5th February 2016, under the title “Gastronomy Culture: Tea Rituals from Around the World”.