Pretzel – Porter Brook Pub, Sheffield

It’s getting to that time of the year again; festive spirit begins to grow, Christmas songs get radio air time, and markets start popping up left-right-and-centre. Distinctive smells waft through city centres: mixtures of mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, and – especially if you find yourself at a German Christmas market – pretzels.

Yet it wasn’t here that I found this Sheffield pretzel, but instead Porter Brook Pub on Ecclesall road. This pretty spot is popular amongst locals and visiting shoppers alike, and serves all the regular pub grub you’d expect… alongside a German pretzel, that is.

At a reasonable price of £4.95, and accompanied by a healthy dollop of beer cheese sauce, Porter Brook’s pretzel certainly promised to deliver. And for the most part, it did.

The most distinctive feature of this traditional pastry is of course its shape. Twisted into a symmetrical knot, the pretzel’s iconic profile has been used as an emblem of bakers’ guilds in Germany for centuries, and is believed to have been invented by European monks. The folded strips of dough are said to represent arms folded in prayer, with the three holes for the Holy Trinity of Christian faith.

Throughout history, it’s symbolistic nature has endured; it has played a role in marriage ceremonies, prayer practices and Easter celebrations (pretzels are made from flour, water and salt, meaning they are one of few foods that can be eaten during Lent, when Christians abstain from eating eggs, dairy products and lard).

Arguably the next most noteworthy characteristic of the pretzel is its shine, achieved by dipping the dough into a lye solution (a high pH, alkaline solution) before baking. This encourages a strong Maillard reaction – a hugely important process in cooking that is responsible for food browning – lending the pretzel its colour, shiny skin and unique taste. Typically this is successfully replicated with baking soda instead of lye, although this can sometimes fail to achieve the same level of browning.

So far, Porter Brook’s pretzel had ticked every box. Disappointingly though, the final element I had hoped for simply wasn’t present. I am of course, talking about salt.

Sure, salt will have featured in the bread dough itself, but the kind I was looking for, Pretzel Salt, failed to adorn the bread’s skin. This coarse, long-grained salt has a uniform rectangular shape and is usually found atop lye bread, encrusting its crispy skin like little jewels in a crown. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing chemically different about this type of salt to sea, table or kosher salt; its distinction lies entirely in its shape. But it’s this shape that compliments lye bread so well, and what many have come to expect on a proper pretzel.

The lack of surface-level salt meant my pretzel didn’t boast a hugely strong flavour. Salt, after all, is perhaps the most vital component involved in flavour creation in cooking, making foods taste more like they should (similar to the magical property of fish sauce, discussed in my Laab post). As regrettable as it was, I found myself relying on the beer cheese sauce to satisfy my taste buds as the meal progressed, a condiment that should really have remained complimentary to the main event.

Nevertheless, the tangy beer cheese was lovely (if not a little lumpy), and as is evidenced by the photo below, neither it nor the pretzel lasted long. For those that are curious, beer cheese sauce consists of a blend of melted cheddar, mustard, garlic and flattened beer – hence the name. It has a wonderfully creamy taste, and is as artery-clogging as a dipping sauce should be.

All in all, it’s fair to say that I was reasonably impressed with Porter Brook’s pretzel; the classic shape and shine were there, and the size was decent for a £4.95 meal. Whilst it lacked salt (and therefore flavour) where it was needed, the beer cheese sauce helped it pull through, meaning a Tribudishional score of 7/10 seems about right.

When all is said and done, and the Christmas markets are packed away, it’s safe to say I’ll be coming back to Porter Brook for another… I just might have to bring some pretzel salt with me.

©The Tribudishional Food Blog / 2023