Marble Ginger and 'cajun' chicken

This should have been a pairing of Manchester's finest with some ginger and coriander chicken at the weekend, but a rather, ahem, accessible bottle of chenin blanc forced its way down my gullet instead. For reasons best described as desperate, I'd also got some cajun-ish chicken pieces knocking around and was hoping that gingery beer would work well with the spicy-ish food.

From the off, let's be quite clear on one thing - I love Marble Ginger. This is the full-fat no-nonsense gingery beer of the Marble stable; they have a 4.5 percenter called, er, Ginger Marble as well but Marble Ginger is 6% and chock full of Zingiber officinale.

But not in a fiery, itchy, who-the-feck-polluted-my-beer-with-this-root-muck kind of way. It's.... refreshing. It tingles and leaves a mild heat behind. It's baby spice rather than overblown Ginger. On a hot day, this puts a smile on my face without making my tabs laugh, a balance of warmth and alcohol that counter-intuitively make it a proper quencher.

Having just spent an hour carving into a hedgerow with the Loudest Trimmer In The World Ever, my neighbours were ready to concrete my garden over and I was ready for a relaxing drink. Marble Ginger sated a thirst in sips, the natural spice warmth ensuring I didn't bolt it down.

How did it fare with the meal? OK - to be honest, the pre-prepared 'cajun' chicken wasn't going to win any authenticity awards but the mild spices of both dish and drink complemented each other pretty well. The slightly dusty tang of the chicken coating took the freshly-grated ginger feel from the beer, too much spice would perhaps have been confusing on the palate.

I reckon Marble Ginger would work with marinated lamb dishes as well. In fact, I'll be buying a few more bottles to try that pairing out sometime this summer. I buy mine from Derby's organic store Sound Bites - Marble beers being one of their popular organic beer offerings alongside the likes of Pitfield and Amber Ales. Why not ask your local organic store if they stock Marble beers - you can't beat a ginger beer that really is a beer and really does taste of ginger!