Not quite home brewing....

But home cooking.

Mrs Velkyal and I are both avid foodies - there is a reason for the "velky" in Velkyal, it is the Czech word for "big", and at 6'4" and 240lbs, I am certainly never going to audition well for the role of Tinkerbell.

In the past few weeks we have been playing around with all manner of recipes and dishes; being from the South of the US, Mrs Velkyal loves making southern foods, in particular biscuits. Last weekend I made my first foray in the world of goulash - a nice spicy beef stew which we polished off even though I had sworn blind I was going to take the remains for my lunch the next day. Also recent additions to the Velkyal household larder, also known as the windowsill, have been various chutneys, quite a few cakes and lots of plans.

Not wanting to be outdone by the ever graceful and talented Mrs Velkyal I put my thinking hat on and decided it was time to find out what I can do with Czech beers in food. Most of plans involve using the beers from Primator, but I will be keeping an eye on the taps at Pivovarsky Klub and pondering what options they give me. One thing I will be doing this week is a variation on Beef Guinness using instead the wonderful 19° porter from the Perstejn brewery in Pardubice, also on the drawing board will be a steak and ale pie using Primator's English Pale Ale - assuming Mrs Velkyal hasn't drunk the entire national reserve.

Of course the scope for using beer in food is limited only to your imagination and how well you can match the flavours of the food with the flavours in the beer, for example I have just discovered a recipe for an ale chutney, for which I will bring a bottle or two of ale back from the UK when I am there in October.