For those with an interest in what it is that makes beer such a good match for a variety of dishes, the ultimate opportunity has arisen to find out more. Mark Dorber, one of the UK’s original fine beer gurus, has teamed up with East Anglia’s leading tourism outfit, Food Safari to bring you Beer Safari!

What distinguishes this event from others is that, not only does every ingredient get its own platform, there’s a couple of visits thrown in – including one to Adnams in nearby Southwold – before the day culminates in a chance to put all this new-found knowedge to practice with a beer and food matching masterclass and dinner at Mark’s convivial gastropub, The Anchor in Walberswick.

I joined Mark and Food Safari’s Polly Robinson for a dry run last Autumn and it was seriously inspiring. If seeing firsthand how barley becomes malt in all its guises was fascinating, scrunching hops in my hands, smelling their bitter sweet aromas and hearing first-hand about the revival of almost forgotten varieties was exhilarating.

There’s a slight twist at the beginning – malt infusions rather than coffee on arrival. With Mark’s talented wife Sophie in charge of food matters back at base, there’s brunch and mid-afternoon refreshments before the pub’s unrivalled selection of bottled beers gets raided for the tasting dinner. Top brews from Europe and the US share centre stage with local beers, symbolic of the renaissance in East Anglian brewing that’s been happening over the last few decades.

Matching food with every sort of beverage has been a speciality of Mark’s since his days running the award-winning Parsons Green pub, The White Horse.  Flavour, smell and taste combinations are never far from his mind. On my trip, he was contemplating steaming sea bass on a bed of hops, serving it with a green beer - one made from freshly picked ‘green’ hops. Other recent successful beer and food marriages have included mushroom carpaccio vinaigrette with one of local brewer Green Jack’s Belgian-style fruit beers, and rabbit and duck ravioli with sage butter with Belgian blond ale Duvel.

Further down the menu, whereas cheese finds an ideal partner in Adnams Innovation – the complex ale first brewed in 2008 to celebrate Adnam’s new tip-top brewhouse – chocolate pudding presents a dilemma: should it be Meantime’s sumptuous Chocolate Beer or the cherry sweet-and-sourness of Leifmans Kriek? As with all of these food and beer matches, you’ll be in the deciding seat. But with a beer list that stretches from the everyday to the sublime (don’t miss the Dom Pérignon look-alike Deus) – you’ll never run out of options.

Beer Safaris will take place on 19 February and 11 June 2010. For more information visit the Food safari website.

Susanna Forbes is a UK-based drinks writer and the publisher of Drink Britain, a great website all about British-produced drinks