A pizzaiolo is a chef specially trained to make pizzas. I spent several years of my career training pizzaiolos across the country and cannot begin to count how many pizzas I’ve made. So, I thought it was time to share a few tips for creating a great-tasting pizza. You don’t even need a fancy, expensive pizza oven. The first secret to a great-tasting pizza is the base. Not just some shop-bought frozen dough, I will use one of the country's most popular English pale ales, and a personal favourite tipple, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. A pale ale is perfect for making pizza dough as the sweet toffee apple and biscuity malt flavours enhance the cooked pizza crust.

Landlord began life in 1953 and was a highly successful bottled beer, but it really came into its own in the 1970s when brewer Timothy Taylor resisted the onslaught of keg products and emphasised the quality of its draught beers. It is brewed today at the Knowle Spring brewery in Keighley, Yorkshire, using spring water filtered through the shale, gritstone, and carboniferous limestone of the surrounding Pennine mountains. The water is not Timothy Taylor’s only unique ingredient, it also uses its own yeast to ferment the beer in traditional open-topped Yorkshire squares.

Pale ale pizza crust

Good olive oil adds flavour and texture to pizza dough and will help colour the final crust cooked at lower temperatures in a normal oven. Adding the oil after the water allows the dough to hydrate properly, which helps the gluten develop to make a workable dough. Finally, leave your baking tray in the hot oven for as long as possible. This will help bake a great beer crust with a good colour.

500g bread flour

350ml Timothy Taylor’s Landlord (this leaves you a little sip for quality control purposes...)

1tbs olive oil

2tsp fine sea salt

¾ teaspoon active dry yeast

In a large bowl thoroughly mix the flour, yeast, and salt. Pour in the beer and mix together to form a dough with a wooden spoon.

Tip the dough onto a clean work top and using the palm of your hand knead the dough by stretching the dough forward. The aim is to work the dough to remove any lumps leaving a smooth texture. The dough will start to feel sticky as the flour starts to hydrate.

You can now work in the oil then place it into a large clean bowl. The bowl needs to be large enough to allow the dough to double in size. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave on the worktop for 12 hours. You can do this overnight.

Transfer the bowl to the bottom of your fridge and leave for another 12 hours to slowly prove and develop a great flavour.

To prepare your dough, remove from the fridge and cut it into even pieces, quickly shaping it into balls. Place on a tray and cover with a damp T-towel, leaving to prove for a couple of hours. This will make for a lighter finished product and much easier to handle.

Preheat your oven to 475F/240C/Gas mark 9 with the baking tray in the oven.

Gently flatten the dough with your hands using as little extra flour as possible or using a rolling pin into a long, thin flat bread shape to fit your baking tray.

Top your pizza with a good tomato sauce, some pieces of real mozzarella and your favourite extras: ham, mushrooms, red onion, olives, fresh basil or, my favourite, pepperoni and jalapeno peppers, but remember less is more. Don’t overload the dough or it will end up being soggy.

Carefully remove the tray from the oven and slide on the pizza, bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until the crust is browned and the cheese bubbly and golden.

Transfer to a board, cut and serve.