Renowned Writers – Susan Nowak

Every month, as we celebrate the breadth of our alumnae community, we highlight former pupils who have become published authors.

Susan (nee Berry) Nowak is a freelance writer specialising in beer and food. She was the first female Chairman of the British Guild of Beer Writers, and is author of The Beer Cook Book.

People often say to me “You’ve got a great job”, and they’re absolutely right. To get to taste amazing beer and food, and travel the world to do it, how lucky is that? And like so many things, it’s all down to luck. I began as a news reporter, and progressed to editor of a small newspaper group in St Albans – reputed to have the country’s highest ratio of pubs to people; so I began reviewing pub grub.

The Campaign for Real Ale – that is live beer undergoing a second fermentation in the cask – has its HQ in the city and publishes the Good Beer Guide; they invited me to edit CAMRA’s Good Pub Food guide listing pubs serving “real ale and real food”. On launch day, I actually appeared twice on TV’s national news, so startling was the concept 30 years ago that pubs might serve anything other than microwaved lasagne. But finding these committed cooks producing tasty meals from fresh produce, and gain recognition for them, has been one of my greatest joys.

It led to a column in CAMRA’s newspaper What’s Brewing, and now in their quarterly Beer magazine. I joined the British Guild of Beer Writers, and became its first – and to date only – female Chairman. Faber & Faber commissioned me to write The Beer Cook Book, my own recipes (plus some donated by celebrity and pub chefs) using every style of beer, from dark malty stout to hoppy golden ales and basic “cooking bitters”. I also edited Pub Superchefs, a paperback of pubs’ best recipes.

I’ve visited the world’s greatest brewing areas such as Belgium with its famed Trappist monk brewers, Bavaria and Austria, and drunk in iconic brew pubs across Canada and America, even Hawaii! For the past decade I have been a beer, cider and food judge at the national Great Taste awards held by the Guild of Fine Food, and have judged at many beer events including Champion Beer of Britain at CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival in Olympia. Cheers!

Susan credits her ability to write to her education at South Hampstead; she developed her keen interest in cookery despite the lack of domestic science lessons at school!