Raspberry or cherry beer with a hot chocolate pudding – and its soft fondant centre – is bliss. It is the best contrasting combination I know, the fruit’s acidity cutting the chocolate’s richness down to size before raising it on a luxurious, velvety pedestal. If a cherry or raspberry ‘coulis’ (sauce) will work, then the spritz of a fruit beer will work even better, the beer’s carbonation refreshing and reviving the palate all in one.

By Rupert Ponsonby for the Beer Academy newsletter