When you make your own English ale and you see a recipe from an old English cookbook for ‘Cheese & Ale’, you have to try it! . I used pecorino (trying to find an English cheese in Tuscany is hard, and with all our great cheese here, I can see why!) and wholegrain mustard, baking them in a bath of my home-made English ale (unhopped, made from rye I malted myself). . Those three ingredients warm and mushed together make the most delightful topping for toasted sourdough. . More pictures in my story today (I’ll save to the ale highlight). . I’m reading Hilary Mantel’s amazing Thomas Cromwell trilogy and wondering whether he, or Henry VIII ate this?!