During a recent family visit to New York City, the best meals I ate were my brother Henry’s slow-cooked barbecues. Henry is a master of indirect heat who cooks such unlikely items as whole chickens, short ribs and breast of lamb.
This is the domestic version of “pit barbecue”, and it is far more interesting, in my book, than the chicken legs and steaks that dominate the charcoal on these shores.
Drink at a barbecue is often deeply disappointing, and for reasons that can be summed up in three words: ice-cold lager.
There’s nothing wrong with that on occasion, but you can do better if you’re seeking to combine maximum refreshment with superior taste.
Case in point number one: Innis and Gunn Blonde, the lightest and freshest of the outstanding beers from this Scottish pioneer of oak-aged beer. This needs good but not Arctic chilling to show off its sweet and fruity nature. Around £1.90 for 330ml at Sainsbury’s, Booths, Morrison’s, Asda and the Co-op.
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