Compliments to the chef

[caravel]

a bottle of dark table beer (I use Piedboeuf, don't know if you have an equivalent abroad; just take any dark beer with low alcohol percentage that has a sweet, fruity taste (the beer has to be sweet, otherwise the sauce will be too bitter)) or Kriek beer

I looked up Piedbouf Brune "table beer" and it's 1.5% volume, I've never seen anything like that here...

you can use Madeira wine instead of beer

Also difficult to get hold of... and expensive...

Kriek is overpriced here (bear in mind that we pay an extortionate beer tax on top of VAT) and we can only get the Bacchus stuff in tiny bottles, will it do the job...?