Delights of being pie-eyed at the pub.

Byline: By Alastair Gilmour

The golden age of pub cuisine has been consumed by rampant righteousness.

Gone are the days where lunch could be regarded as a pie and a pint. Fat-content health considerations, obesity fears, calorie counts and nutritional negatives have consigned the p'n'p to history's waste disposal unit.

The wider availability of pub grub has destroyed the working-person's traditional "quickie" ( but greater choice does not necessarily mean "better".

The long-closed Rose & Crown on Walker Road in Newcastle once displayed the most inviting invitation ever written. A note in the window read: "Free Pie With Every Pint." Oh joy of joys, what bliss and golden deliciousness.

That was nearly 25 years ago, and that quarter-century has slowly choked the pie and pint, once the staple diet of students and steelworkers alike.

A single pie resting in a heated glass case on a pub counter (for how long was part of the attraction), laid on a teaplate and served with a well-deserved pint, may have been one of life's more simple pleasures and now it's gone ( not forgotten, but sorely missed.

There was no need for accompanying chips, gravy, boiled veg or insincere garnish ( a naked pie is beer's natural ally and a once-loving partnership has drifted along the road to irretrievable breakdown.

We now have to search far and wide for a pork pie, game pie, chicken pie, mince pie, mutton pie or steak and kidney pie to beef up the bitter.

Pie is still available in pubs, of course, but it's not pie pie. Fortunately, pockets of resistance hold off the march of the microwave and the dreaded oven chip.

Every Saturday, the Pork Pie Appreciation Society meets in the Old Bridge Inn in Ripponden, West Yorkshire (the motto goes: "If you like a pie, if you like a pint and if you like a banter, you're welcome").

They discuss porkiness, pastry, jelly, texture, bouquet and serving temperature between draughts of Timothy Taylor Landlord (4.3% alcohol by volume), the ultimate pork pie accompaniment.

Spicy, dry and citrus in character, the beer's hoppy bitterness balances the pie's peppery seasoning of sage, thyme and parsley perfectly. Incidentally, pork pie sales in the UK increased from pounds 158.1m in 2002 to pounds 165.6m in 2005.

To escort a pie with beer properly, think of ale as red wine and lager as white.

A robust steak and kidney offering should suit a full-bodied beer such as Wells Bombardier (4.3% ABV) and its rich, tempting hoppy aroma while the palate is dominated by dark fruit and juicy malt.

A chicken and mushroom pie's blandness is elevated to greater heights by a Budweiser Budvar (5% ABV) and its gentle-to-medium bitterness, faint floral hop aroma and long biscuit finish.

But, whither the pie of crimped edge and tepid, fickle filling? Resting, perhaps.

Amanda Hodge's Blencathra pie at the Mill Inn, Mungrisdale, near Penrith, was the English Beef and Lamb Executive's national steak pie champion in 2005. Her new Wasdale pie ( lamb and redcurrant ( accommodates the pub's Jennings Bitter (3.5% ABV) consummately and it's clear the beer's malty nature, slight roast flavour and hoppy finish were consulted when the recipe was conceived.

East Cowton, near Darlington, is home to several houses, farms at both ends, a post office and the Beeswing Inn. Apart from the 19th Century racehorse it's named after, the pub's reputation rests firmly on its steak pie ( that and its finely-honed Black Sheep Best Bitter (3.8% ABV), Greene King Old Speckled Hen (5.2% ABV) and Shepherd Neame Spitfire (4.5% ABV).

This is much more than a pie, it's a three-inch high slice of neatly packaged steak and pastry, made to "a 60-year-old secret recipe".

There's no padded-out carrot, potato or onion, just steak and more steak expertly bound under a thin puff crust. It is magnificent taken slowly with the Black Sheep, an exceptional ale with fruit overtones and a delightful hoppy bitterness that constantly delights.

Beeswing had "splendid legs and an eye as bright as a hawk" and won 51 times from 63 starts (twice on the same day at Kelso in 1840, dead-heating with Lanercost over two miles, before in the afternoon, beating The Doctor over two-and-a-quarter miles for a pounds 50 purse).

Curiously, there are no Scotch pies at the Bow Bar in Edinburgh ( a "proper" pub. It's a beer drinkers' bar, a whisky connoisseur's bolthole and a conversationalist's parliament where nothing but decent banter gets in the way of extraordinary ale (Deuchars IPA was first brewed as its `house' beer), except heavenly steak pies from Findlay's of Portobello ( Scottish cuisine at its crusty peak.

Findlay's prides itself on using only free-range meat and poultry from the Borders and on being several times haggis champion. The delicacy features at number 48 in Ainsley Harriot's 50 Things To Eat Before You Die.

Appropriately, this is being composed right above the former Printer's Pie pub (now Fleet Street). A printer's pie was a jumbled pile of type. Pi is the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet; written as p it's a transcendental number (3.141592) which is fundamental to mathematics and the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Quarter-of-a-century-and-lots-lots-more ago we agonised over its function and have never, ever, had to use the equation since. Has p met p'n'p's fate?

A quarter-of-a-century-and-more ago, we agonised over its function and have never had to use the equation since. Has `p' met p'n'p's fate?

Pie, it seems, has changed to meet the 21st Century. A London pub serves camel pie with chickpeas and pineapple in a curry sauce. The meat in the Grand Union's venture has a texture almost identical to beef, with a taste humping between venison and mutton. Llama is available for the slightly more adventurous, though it has proved less popular.

With camel pie, we'd drink the classic Marston's Pedigree (4.5% ABV), a beer of a light, malty, nutty nature and subtle apple fruitiness. The p'n'p may have altered its focus, but is the 20-odd-year-old clock being wound back?

The multi-award-winning Magnesia Bank in North Shields is presenting a "winter warmer" of home-made pie, mash and gravy with every three pints of cask ale on Mondays and Tuesdays during February and March (between 7pm and 10pm).

No lone pie occasion, but a reminder nevertheless of student subsistence.

And those cask ales number at least seven, with a choice from the brilliant Mordue range ( Workie Ticket (4.5% ABV), Five Bridge Bitter (3.8% ABV) and the well-balanced Geordie Pride (4.2% ABV) ( to mop up the mash.

We'll return to Edinburgh and author Ian Rankin's blend of fiction and fact.

His most famous creation, Inspector John Rebus, is a jaundiced soul. A passage from Atonement reveals the flavour of the character in a real-life setting:

"How do you fancy dinner tonight? My treat?"

"And will there be any solids involved?" a voice replied.

"Some," he promised.

Diners at the Oxford Bar needed no menu. There was the Cambridge Bar further along Young Street if you really wanted a meal. The Ox, on the other hand, served pies and bridies (until they ran out) and filled rolls ( corned beef and beetroot a speciality.

Snacks consisted of crisps, nuts and pork scratchings.

"Yummy," said Siobhan Clarke.

"We can hit the chippy later if you're not replete," Rebus responded.

...Two inches were already missing from his pint of IPA. A macaroni cheese pie sat on the plate before him. "It was the last hot thing they had," he explained. "I can imagine."

He took a bite and shrugged.

Macaroni cheese? It's a pie and a pint, at least. Shrug.