SideBar:
Grilling Like a Pro 

Long summer evenings are the perfect time to get grilling, at least if you’ve found a way of keeping the mosquitoes at bay. Of course, there is no need to limit your grilling activities to an evening – a Sunday afternoon will do every bit as well. Whether on the porch, in the garden or at the beach, a barbecue can be a simple and casual or intricate and fancy as you want it to be.

Gas or charcoal
Let’s settle this right now – neither is better outright (I know, I will be getting hate-mail for this)

For a weekday evening when time is of the essence, nothing can beat the clean convenience of a gas grill. Start up is quick and you can get grilling much sooner than on a charcoal grill. So if speed from start to table is important, gas is your best choice, with brands like Weber leading the way. The control you can have over the temperature is also good, so the resulting food should be great, depending on the skills of the grill master.

However, to be honest, if you have the time to spend on doing it right, and really want to enjoy the fruit of your labour, charcoal is king. This is especially true if you believe that the only way to a barbecue right is to do it slowly, and you want that smoky flavour that only charcoal can truly provide.

Charcoal grills also give you great versatility, including the ability to smoke meat in some designs like the legendary Big Green Egg. According to Kristan Royle of Bon Vivant, even though the Big Green Egg may nominally be a charcoal grill, the possibilities are virtually endless, with the ability to cook an entire meal from starters to dessert. For those who are serious about their grilling, there is no other choice.

In fact, when it comes to smoking, you have more freedom to create your own unique taste than with any other form of cooking, as you can select and blend the wood chips to give a unique flavour to the food. Don’t get caught up in the idea that you can just smoke meat either, as even cheese can be smoked for a unique taste treat.

Toys
When it comes to barbecues and grilling, the grill itself is merely the start, and it is a great opportunity for gadget guys to get even more toys to play with. Nothing beats rolling out a set of grilling tools that makes you look better equipped than a surgeon, for serious grilling is no less a precise operation (at least so serious grillers will tell you). Bon Vivant has a great selection of grilling tools, from basic tongs to various attachments that allow you to expand you grilling repertoire well beyond burgers.

Beer
Yes, inevitably we come to the one ingredient no serious grilling session can be without. No barbecue would be complete without a beer or two (or three, or...).

Over time the selection of beers available in Cayman has really grown, to a point where you would be hard pressed to think of a beer you won’t be able to find on a regular basis.

These vary from beers like Amsterdam and Hollandia (both Dutch) that come in at just 99c per bottle, to a wide range of European and North American premium beers.

Italy might not be first on the list of countries that come to mind when talking about beer, but Peroni has built up quite a following with its light flavour and clean finish.

However, when it comes to a classic, few beers are as immediately recognisable as Grolsch, noted for the iconic swing-top bottle. This makes it a favourite for boaters, as no one wants to spend a boating trip crying over spilt beer. Although it might be on the heavy side for a day at the beach, Mackeson Stout is a dark, sweet beer that can go down great with a meal, and is one of the rare examples of a milk stout, an old southern English beer.

When it comes to countries famous for their beer, Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic spring to mind immediately. Stella Artois is one of the more well known of the Belgian beers, and has built up a loyal following over the years. The same can be said for Beck’s (Germany) which has developed into a very trendy beer. While Pilsner Urquell from the Czech Republic may not share the instant recognition of the other two, it is certainly worth a try for those with an interest in expanding their beer horizons.

Of course, no list of beers would be complete without mentioning the local brew. Caybrew and Caylight have become firm favourites already, and although Ironshore might be a little bit on the strong side for a day at the beach, it certainly goes down well with a meal in the evening. If you are looking for something beach worthy, the latest addition to the line up, White Tip Lager, was brewed to be the perfect summer beer, so is just the thing to pop in the cooler if the beach will form part of your barbeque plans.

A growing interest in paring beer with a meal rather than forsaken your brew for a glass of wine has also led to a much bigger selection of previously unavailable beers, many of which are slightly heavier and go really well with meat.

Bitburger is a German beer with a dry finished, hoppy taste that has made it the number one draught beer in Germany. Kostrizer Schwarzbier is a German black beer with a very illustrious history (the brewery was founded in 1543) and has a unique taste and slightly sparkling character. Then again, when it comes to the age of the brewery, it is tough to compete with Wernesgruner Pils, which is produced by a brewery founded in 1436.

To put that in context, they were brewing beer almost 70 years before Columbus first sighted the Cayman Islands. Now that is something to drink to. WH