Wine drinkers of the world I have a challenge for you. Nominate wines that match every course of every meal of the day. It's not easy - especially finding wine for a fry-up or rice pudding. Forgive me for being smug, but with beer it's a doddle.

I recently entered paradise in Grantham and paradise resembles a brew house. For years I have been dreaming about brewing a beer with a professional brewer, and that fantasy has now come true courtesy of a brewery in the Lincolnshire market town.

It's a golden age for brewing with more than 840 breweries beavering away to produce our national drink. But my elation was slightly muted when I worked out how many of those breweries had female brewers. Less than 2%.