My favourite restaurant in the whole world is run by a man named Greg Higgins, of proudly Irish origin. Unfortunately, this restaurant is about 6,000 miles away, in Portland Oregon, in the Pacific northwest of the US. Its appeal is not so much its admittedly-delicious terrine of venison with pickled cippollini onions, its risotto of chanterelle mushrooms with fontal cheese or its hazelnut-smoked Chinook salmon. It's more that at Higgins I am not obliged to drink wine.
I do like wine, of course, but sometimes I fancy a beer or two with my meal. Higgins is a small, very chic, restaurant, but it maintains no fewer than a dozen draught beers, ranging from a cask-conditioned brew with Oregon hops through to Guinness stout from Ireland, an English pale ale, a Dutch Trappist ale, a Belgian cherry beer, an Oktoberfest lager, and a Czech Pilsner. Those are just the draughts: there are a further 120odd in the bottle, from the halfdozen great brewing nations. At least 50 of those are from Belgium, the country with by far the greatest diversity of beer styles, long hidden from the rest of the world.
The most enjoyable dinner I have had recently was in Baltimore (Oliver Wendell Holmes' "gastronomic capital of the Union", not the Cork original, though that is a nice place, too). Opposite Baltimore's indoor market, famous for its crab-cakes, there is pub established by actor Hugh Sisson.
On my first to Sisson's pub, I was accosted by a customer called Turkey Joe, who played a cross-dressing motorcycle policeman in the John Waters movie Desperate Living. On a more literary note, I had Edgar Allan Porter, a dry, rooty, brew, with my blue point oysters the other evening (the master of gothic died in Baltimore). There was a nutty brown ale with my walnut and spinach salad (in a vinaigrette of acidic wild-yeast beer from Belgium); a fruity-tasting amber ale with my seared filet of beef; and a spicy-tasting wheat beer with the apple crumble and ginger ice cream.
Sisson's makes its own beers, so Edgar Allan Porter scared away the Guinness. J.P. Donleavy, who once talked of being absorbed in a cask of porter, prefers The Gingerman, in New York City. Even there the recent black sensation has been American: a powerful brew called Brooklyn Chocolate Stout, which tastes like it sounds. When I was there recently, this winter brew made its seasonal bow with crab quiche, foie gras bread pudding and Italian sausage in puff pastry. The other beers on offer ranged from a Belgian raspberry brew to a German beechwood-smoked lager.
In the increasingly cosmopolitan world of food-and-beer, an omnipresent figure is Oliver Peyton, from Swinford, Co Mayo. Peyton is currently looking for a restaurant site in Dublin. His London flagship restaurant-and-brewery is named Mash, in a punning reference to the trendy way with potatoes and the first stage of the brewhouse procedure (the mash is the infusion of malted grains in water; the extract from this process is boiled with hops in a brewkettle).
Mash recently presented an evening of great beers paired with dishes by star chef Bruno Loubet. Mash's own Pilsner lager was paired with swordfish and spinach; the bronze-coloured, maltier, Brooklyn Lager with an endive and artichoke dish; San Francisco's Anchor Liberty Ale with oysters in pancetta; and Belgium's Orval Trappist with Toulouse sausage and sauteed apple. There were two dessert combinations: a Bavarian wheat beer with banana cake and a Scotch ale with a chocolate tartelette. Finally, instead of coffee and petits fours: Mash's peach beer with an almond macaroon.
There has been a quiet revolution in beer these past two decades, especially in the US, where mass-market lagers such as Budweiser, Miller and Coors once went unchallenged. Today, the younger, better educated, more prosperous drinkers want styles of beer other than standard lagers. Many of these are made in tiny breweries in the back-rooms of pubs. Others are produced in free-standing enterprises so tiny that they are known as "micro" breweries. When I became "the wine-writer of the beer world", there were fewer than 50 brewing companies in the US; today, there are about 1,400 - more even than in Germany.
The desire for speciality beers goes hand-in-hand with the sidelining of sliced bread in favour of wholegrain or rye, bagels or focaccia; the demise of "meat and potatoes" in favour of more exotic cuisines; the rejection of instant coffee in favour of roasted-to-order beans, of specified geographical origins, served in countless variations of espresso and cappuccino.
The microbrews and European imports are often served with meals, and used in cooking, as though they were wines. This would have been unthinkable in the days when eating places were polarised between diners (serving coffee with your burger) and fancy restaurants (offering French wines). Today, beer suits the eclectic, informal, middle-range style of eating. Such culinary interest would also have been impossible when only standard lagers were readily available. Just as wines vary in style from Bordeaux to Napa to Chile, from a Chardonnay to a Sauvignon Blanc, a Cabernet to a Pinot Noir, a Champagne to a Sauternes, a port to a sherry, so beer has a huge range of styles, based on the choice of grain, hop and yeast, and the geographical tradition. Many of these are now being rediscovered. I explain these styles in my writings, and relate them to foods and cooking techniques in my latest book.
BEER-LOVING young Americans coming to Ireland are horrified to see the most ordinary of their lagers being favoured by the young in a country world-famous for something as distinctive as Guinness and also known to beer-lovers for Murphy's and Beamish.
"Young people everywhere reject the lifestyles of their parents," I offer, apologetically. "But why has Guinness become less textured, less roasty, less hoppy, less complex and why is it served so tastelessly frozen?" they persist. (This question arose long before Guinness Extra-Cold). "To appease the kids who incline to Bud," I explain.
Even in a diminished form, the Irish draught and bottled versions of Guinness are among the world's great beers (lower in alcohol, incidentally - and calories - than lagers like an American Bud, but far fuller in flavour). The growing popularity elsewhere in the world of the heftier export versions of Guinness give the lie to the notion that the whole world wants ultra-pale, bland, beers.
People in the US are forever asking me why they cannot find Irish ales - the style represented by Smithwicks - in their local stores. This product has sporadically appeared there, but been somewhat hobbled by its owner's trading relationship with Bass. In the absence of the original, dozens of American breweries have produced their own Irish-style ales, often much more assertive in character.
"So can we come to Ireland and find some microbrews?" they ask. Until recently, I had to concede there were no tiny breweries in Ireland. In the last two to three years, that has changed. When, in the next few weeks, Messrs Maguire opens on the old Tommy Wright's site near O'Connell Bridge, Dublin, there will be 10 brewpubs or micros in the 32 counties, from Thurles, Co Tipperary, to Newry, Co Down.
Much as I love drinking the super-fresh Guinness in Ireland, these days I also enjoy, for example, the gently smoky fragrance of D'Arcy's Stout, from the Dublin Brewing Company.
The most flavoursome Irish brews I have tasted come from the Porterhouse brewpub, in Parliament Street, Dublin. I was astonished that more fuss was not made in Ireland when this brewery's fruity Plain Porter deservedly won a golden medal in Burton, England, this year. The best porter or stout - in an international competition, for heaven's sake, judged by professional brewers from around the world. I love the same brewery's peaty Oyster Stout and its oily, hoppy, stronger, Wrassler's Stout. Its "Red" Irish Ale has all the maltiness I expect in the style, with a beautiful balance of hoppy dryness. Its Hersbrucker Lager, named after a classic German hop variety, is superbly dry and appetising.
This pub also serves great beers from other European countries. From France, it has wonderfully food-friendly Bires de Garde (often with an aniseedy maltiness) like Jenlain. From Belgium, there are specialities such as Duvel, reminiscent of a Poire Williams eau-de-vie, the port-like Chimay (from a Trappist monastery), and the coriander-and-orange wheat beer Hoegaarden. From Germany, there are yeastily spicy wheat beers such as Franziskaner (original brewed in a monastery) and Erdinger, Dusseldorf-style copper ales such as Diebels, and original dark Bavarian lagers such as Konig Ludwig Dunkel (brewed in Prince Luitpold's castle).
If you are not handy for the Porterhouse, or would like to try some of these European beers at home, your nearest branch of Oddbins or Tesco is your best bet. If you want to serve them with food, or cook with them, I can recommend a good book . . .
Beer, by Michael Jackson, is published by Dorling Kindersley, £19.99 in the UK.