Top 10 craft beers

Last month we attended the highly anticipated Manchester Craft Beer Festival.

The event was held at Manchester Depot, a huge venue which held over 40 plus world class breweries.

Craft beer is usually categorised as independent brewers who distribute smaller amounts of beer, often with a focus on flavour, experience and individuality.

The festival not only showcased an array of different tastes but it was complimented with music from live DJs including Craig Charles, Daddy G from Massive Attack, Django Django and Queen Bee.

Here were our top 10 Craft Beers from the event...

Brew York

Cleverly named British brewery based in York, created in 2016 by Wayne Smith and Lee Grabham. Offering a variety of brews, but their darker beers and stouts are particularly popular.

Beak Brewery

Beak Brewery create seasonally inspired beers, collaborating with other great names in UK brewing, including North Brew Co, Partizan, Beavertown, Burning Sky and Northern Monk.

They are based in Lewes, East Sussex where they have a 15-BBL neighbourhood brewery and taproom with a mixed-fermentation project. They also open up their doors as a weekend street food canteen. Check them out!

Alpha Delta

Named Rate Beer Awards top ten brewers in the world! Offering a range of big and bold flavours.

Two Tribes

A combination of music and beer, you can definitely taste the creative collaboration that have gone into the flavours that this open minded brewery provide!

Wild Beer Co

We are a big fan of the wild fermenting techniques that Wild Beer infuse into their creations, they use the seasons to inspire their brews blending their own yeast strains to produce beers of all different styles. Try them for complex and interesting tastes!

Tiny Rebel

This modern, acid-pop branded brewery offer a range of fruity, flavoursome, unique tasting beers and their branding is electric!

Full Circle Brew Co.

Voted 'Best Newcomer' in the Beer 52 Awards 2020. The brand name comes from the three generations of Family brewing business, the owner, Ben Cleary's grandparents were in the pub trade, his parents moved into the wine business and now Ben is in the beer industry - inspiring the name Full Circle.

Brouwerij Frontaal

They describe their brews as big and juicy IPA's, bad ass stouts, and smooth barrel aged and freshly brewed, and we couldn't have put it better!

Campervan Brewery

Whilst they may be rooted in Edinburgh this brewer gets their inspiration from their travels, discovering unusual flavours direct from the source.

Pastore

This brewer offers a mixed-fermentation sour and wild brewing from their home in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire where they have a 10bbl brewkit, warm fermentation, conditioning room and a cold store.

Manchester Craft Beer Festival will be back next year to find out more visit their website: www.manchestercraftbeerfestival.com

Taste, street food experience

Last month we had the pleasure of visiting London's food festival Taste.

Taste describes itself as 'The world's greatest food festival'

The event, held at Regent Park, was full of different chef and artisan producers. Think incredible chefs, michelin star restaurants all in one place each with a different stall offering something unique and delicious.

Whilst we stopped by for two days but the whole event lasted 10 days!

Here's our top five food stalls...

Benares

Michelin starred restaurant Benares, based in Mayfair, were at Taste capturing the uplifting essence of India through a selection of dishes.

Ruya

Another London based restaurant Ruya were at the event providing authentic Turkish dishes at their pop up stall.

Angelina

This stall, which is also a restaurant in London offered a unusual unique infusion of Japanese and Italian food. Angelina's dishes unite the technqiues and flavours that are created in Japan and Italy creating unique but deliscious omakase and kaiseki tasting menus. It was certainly an exciting tasting experience!

Fatt Pundit

This place offered an array of Indo-chinese delights, there were Momos, dumplings and chicken lollipops on offer. Their dumplings left us with memories and food cravings for the future!

Freezecakes

This desert stall offered the world's first and only 'scoopable' frozen cheesecake. There were flavours like chocolate orange brownie and cherry bakewell. This was certainly a taste sensation!

The event happens every single year, so if your mouth is watering make sure you get your place for next year.

Click here to visit their website.

Under: the world's biggest sea immersive restaurant

Norway holds the world’s biggest underwater restaurant, located 5.5metres below sea level. It's here that guests are given the opportunity to share their meal with the surroundings of the ocean, exposing them to the wonders of the sea.

Located in the icy waters of Lindesnes, the restaurant offers a panoramic view of the seabed which is a visual getaway for guests to connect them to the mystery of the waters. Providing an exclusively intimate and rarely seen opportunity for them to take in and dine amongst the ecosystem of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Under photographed above

We spoke to Nicolai Ellitsgaard head chef of the Michelin star restaurant, who gets his inspiration and motivation for dishes from the environment around him.

Read our interview below...

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What is it like to work at such an incredible location under the sea?

Nicolai explains how he feels about working at the exclusive restaurant, he said: “I feel blessed, it’s a once in a lifetime to be able to run a restaurant under the sea.

“It’s something that I never dreamed about, before I was sitting in a meeting with the investors .

“No days are the same, we never know how and what we will see outside the big panoramic window, it’s a great source of inspiration for dishes and presentation.

“You might think that you get used to the window and the fact that you are working under the sea, but actually the truth is, that you never get used to it.”

Nicolai photographed above

When did Nicolai realise he wanted to be a chef?

Nicolai shares with us how he ended up pursuing a career in culinary, he explained: “When I was in 10th grade my teacher saw in me and my behaviour and suggested that I didn’t continue the academic way spending three to five more years in school studying. “She suggested that I look at being a chef and I tried it for a week in a programme organised by the school.

“After that week I had bandages on all of my fingers because of the knife cuts but I’d fallen in love with the craft and I wanted to go into it.

“But it was not before my second or third year as a ||""student at a restaurant. That I really understood where I wanted to go with my education.

“I remember the sous chef at a place I worked, Lars Eiskjær. He asked me once: ‘So Nicoali, what do you want to achieve with this education?’

“At this time I was stupid, young and unknowing, I replied “ ‘I just need to get a education’, when I saw the look in his face I quickly understood that this was not the correct answer to give.

“But I quickly changed my answer to ‘I want to be the best’, later I have found out that I actually always did that, every day I did what I could to be the best version of myself. This was probably where my passion really got a fire burning inside me.

“This is a memory from 15 - 16 years ago but I still remember clearly this small conversation that took place next to the ice cream machine in the corner the wooden table for making bread."

Under is the world's largest under the sea restaurant

How does the location of the restaurant benefit and inspire the seasonal dishes?

Lindesnes is known for intense weather conditions which can change from calm to stormy several times a day. The restaurant invites guests to a warm ocean inspired atmosphere with seasonally inspired dishes.

Nicolai said: “We try to use only local ingredients, so we have to work together with nature at all seasons.

“We use a lot of seaweed on the menu, so it’s a great benefit that we can jump directly from the rooftop at the restaurant and into the world of seaweed surrounding the restaurant.

“Many dishes have been brought to life, by watching out the big window or walking on the local beaches.”

Guests are immersed in a unique dining experience exposing the ocean

What does Nicolai look for when you create a menu?

Under provides a journey into the unknown, guests are given an opportunity to submerge themselves into the marine life that they cannot experience from the surface. He said: “I look for diversity, finding some unused ingredients that many others take for granted or perhaps not even know what is, since the fishermen take it for granted and just throw it back into the ocean again.

Nicolai said: “I look for new flavours, and a mixture of comfort food and something strange , where people stop to think, but then perhaps that dish then becomes a super comfort dish!”

Under allows guests to dine intimately with the mysteries of the sea

How do researchers work with UNDER to help guests see more of the fish?

Nicolai explained how the restaurant works with researchers, he said: “There's was a lot of research on fish behaviour, by coming on “command” if they hear a special sound and they connect that sound with food.

“At the moment we don’t feed the fish, but if we run into times where there is little activity, we have the ability to start doing so.”

Under takes its inspiration from the great ocean surrounding it

What does Nicolai look for in chefs wanting to work with him?

Nicolai explained what he looks for in those aspiring to work in his kitchen, he said: “Engagement and the willingness to push and learn. That they want to learn is the most important and that they understand the respect for the ingredients.

“Don’t be too cocky but be humble. Sometimes it's, of course, fun if people are a bit cocky, but they have to know the line and where to stop.”

What does Nicolai hope to achieve in the future?

Nicolai explained his dreams for improving the sustainability and bond with his team, he said: “I hope in the future we will have a more sustainable team, I mean like a more set and stable team, that wants to stay for a couple of years, to build something great together. And for them to grow in the restaurant also.

“I believe in a healthy team where people can come and be how they are, and where it’s okay to be different.

“Guest wise I hope that we can showcase even more rare and unused ingredients and talk even more about sustainability and how to take care of our oceans.”

Nicolai gains inspiration from the world around him

What ingredients does Nicolai use in his dishes?

The head chef explained that he doesn’t have a favourite dish but he loves to experiment, he said: “ I really love to cut in fish and open different molluscs.

“If I had to point out a dish it would be our Limpet serving. This was the first ever idea I had for Under, and it started about two and a half years ago before opening.

“I wanted to create an edible shell that looked like a real limpet, which was challenging because I had to find the right technique and recipe.

“The idea of plating was from the beginning of my thoughts already there, and the “filling” a kind of pate out of limpets was also an “easy” task.

“This idea started on a cold day in January 2018 when me and my girlfriend were foraging for seaweed. We saw a lot of limpets and she actually gave me the idea to work on them, I had seen them many times before, but never really thought about what it was, and when she told me they used to call them “titty shells” it caught my interest right away, after a couple of rounds with a marine biology on the phone and he didn’t know what a “titty shell” was, I send him a picture and he could tell me that it was a limpet.

“She inspired me to jump into the unknown, and that was also the start of one of my passions, to find unused ingredients or ingredients people most take for granted and make it into something mind-blowing or a taste to make people stop up and think and reflect about how delicious it can be.”

Under has a range of sea inspired dishes for guests to try

What technique does Nicolai like to use in the kitchen?

Nicolai explained what he likes to do in preparation for dishes, he said: “I like to work with seaweeds, and use seaweeds places where you normally would have done something else of puff pastry or filo for example. “Cutting fish ‘perfectly’ is also something I really enjoy. Despite my philosophy that nothing is perfect, I believe that if you think that you have achieved perfection, you have given up or are simply an idiot.”

How does Nicolai find balance between life and working as a chef at a Michelin star restaurant?

Chefs are renowned to work long hours, especially those working at such prestigious restaurants, Nicolai said: “It’s a difficult question, for what is balance working as a chef?

“For me this Chef life and Under is a lifestyle, I enjoy working, I like to always be in it, discovering the ocean in one or another way, so in some ways I'm actually never off.

“It’s a passion, and a will to learn more and more, that drives me. It is not necessary to learn more and more new techniques of cooking, but more to learn more about how we actually should treat our world and especially our oceans. I'm starting to enjoy it more through education to our guests, people visiting the restaurant, my chefs and other team members.

“I teach them that size does matter about a langoustine (Norway Lobster), but perhaps not in the way many people think.

“I’m a bit tired of seeing huge langoustine on instagram and people referring to it as something positive that it's so big, of course it's cool when it's as long as your arm, and I also brag about it. But to be honest, for me the texture and taste is not as good as on the smaller ones. Not too small either, but at Under I've spent a lot of hours and days testing out to find the “perfect” size. And now with our own fishing boat, it's actually possible to get the size I want with a difference of 2- 4 centimeters difference.

“I like to teach the guys and girls in the kitchen about the respect for the ingredients and the quality of fish and seafood, especially seaweeds.

“I just hate when I see people having a beautiful piece of fillet from a fish or meat and people just slap it down on the cutting board to look cool, or why the hell they do it.

“I don’t understand why people want to treat a beautiful piece of protein like that. It's so disrespectful.”

Under's presentation of each dish is inspired by the ocean

What advice would Nicolai give to his younger self?

Finally, we asked Nicolai the question of if he could go back and speak to himself as a child when he was back in school, he answered with humour and said: “I would say don’t forget the true beauty of cooking and perhaps you should have spent more serious time in math class!”

Visit UNDER to find out more

All images used copyright of Under