Taking this big time.

Beer and cheese... Beer and cheese... Beer...... Cheese.

Dene house in Longframlington want me to help organise and host a beer and cheese evening.. Am I serious? I'm deadly serious. Look, this is my serious face.

My challenge is to find 5-6 great beer and cheese pairings for July 14th. Then present each pairing to the 30 person audience in a kind of Garrett Oliver style, talking about the beer and how the pairing works.  I should be OK with questions, I know a lot about beer... Not much about cheese tho. But that's where my trusty chef assistant Chris Aird comes in, a real cheese enthusiast. I also have to work out how to afford all the beer inside the given budget, which is no easy challenge.

My research so far has been productive, heading to speciality beer and cheese shops trying out pairing after pairing. So far I have found that finding a great beer and cheese pairing is a bit like finding a great guitarist, or finding a great footballer as a scout. You can find  101 good pairings that go 'pretty well', or 'kind of work'. Then find 50 more that do hardly anything for each other. But then you get those combinations that work effortlessly, sublimely and take things to a whole new level, which is what I aim to present.

But under the restrictions I have set a few rules. Firstly; No lambics, double IPAs or high octane +13% monster brews that are likely to smash the budget and scare everyone away. Secondly I need international beers of various styles paired with various style cheeses to keep things interesting. My strategy so far is to focus on one beer and cheese pairing each week. Buy a specific cheese with 3-4 beers I think will suit them, then try out each beer with the cheese.

So if anyone fancies coming along then feel free to get in touch but only 30 tickets are on sale.