REAL ale. Two little words, but pretty potent ones all the same, conjuring up images of hirsute men nursing pints of super-strength ale in a spit and sawdust pub.
Hardly the type of tipple you’d see in the hands of glamorous girls about town on a Friday night, right?
Well, yes, if real ale enthusiast Marverine Cole has her way.
The Birmingham-born journalist and presenter has been championing the cause after developing a taste for ale while researching a BBC documentary last year.
She said: “Like a lot of women, I had this idea that it was a man’s drink and always stuck to red wine.
“I had to visit lots of breweries while researching the documentary and it was when I tasted a peach beer that I was converted. I couldn’t believe that beer could taste like that.”
Marverine has since embarked on a one-woman mission to convince the fairer sex to swap their beloved cocktails for cask ales with her appropriately-titled Beer Beauty blog.
She has also taken her crusade on the road with FemALE nights – ladies-only beer and food matching events.
She added: “Beer tends to get sledgehammered with a bad image that it’s only for oiks who like to down pint after pint, when that really isn’t the case.
“You don’t have to drink pint after pint, and as the alcohol content is lower than wines and spirits if you drink in moderation you can be hangover-free, too.
“I wanted to dispel the snobbery that surrounds beer and these events show that beer is something that can be enjoyed by everyone and at any occasion.”
Me, I wasn’t so convinced. Aside from a brief teenage flirtation with alcopops (please, don’t judge) a chilled glass of white wine is my only drink of choice at the end of hard working week. Sinking a pint of beer with dinner is hardly my idea of fine dining.
So it was with trepidation I found myself in the company of 100 other women at Marverine’s latest FemALE event in the swanky surroundings of the Malmaison Hotel in the Mailbox.
The concept sounded simple: a tapas-style menu prepared by Malmaison head chef Brian Neath, accompanied by beers to prove ale can compliment food just as well as wine.
