If you like beer, be happy. For real beer is suddenly making fresh inroads into restaurants. Today, the upmarket burger chain, Byron, launches a refreshed craft beer list which will include beers from breweries as diverse as Huddersfield's Magic Rock and San Diego's Stone. Pride of place will be given to Byron Pale Ale, brewed for the chain by Camden Town Brewery.

Byron is not alone in its interest in innovative craft beer. From venues that blur the distinction between bar and restaurant, such as Bath Ales' new Bristol pizza joint, Beerd and London's Mason & Taylor to mainstream restaurants such as Hawksmoor and Jamie Oliver's Barbecoa, it's increasingly easy to eat in places that also serve great beer.



Moreover, this feels different to the restaurant world's previously tentative, sporadic engagement with beer. Now, the impetus is coming from below, from Britain's booming grassroots craft beer scene, rather from individual chefs, or from those breweries or PR firms who have traditionally sought to usher beer into restaurants.

To put it bluntly, for better or worse, craft beer is cool. It has caught the imagination of tens of thousands of influential, opinion-forming 20- and 30-somethings. We live in a post-CAMRA world where beer is at its most exciting not in pubs but in a growing network of urban craft beer bars. In their enthusiasm for US and world beers, strong beers, stylistic hybrids, bottled and keg beers, these bars constitute a definitive break with traditional real ale culture.

Yet, as clued-up restaurateurs try to accommodate this new audience, I'm not sure that either the beer or restaurant worlds have entirely grasped the generational shift. Talking to people in the trade recently, I have been struck by how they still prioritise the idea of making beer "respectable". The established approach is to push beer and food matching, elegant glassware and wine-style bottles for sharing, so that refined, gastronomic restaurants will begin to take beer more seriously.

To me, that thinking is all wrong. Restaurants can't shape and control this demand. They're coming to it late. Their beer-drinking customers have already been turned on to complex, flavourful craft beers and now, naturally, they want that drinking experience when they eat out. End of story.

Does beer and food matching matter? On special occasions, perhaps, but I'd argue its significance is overplayed. Most wine experts will admit that perfectly matching wine with food to produce a real epiphany, that elusive "third taste", is a very complex, expensive business. It's untenable day to day, and, frankly, most people don't care. They just want to drink something they like, which won't clash with their food. Generally, they can choose on their own, too. They don't need and aren't fooled by pricey recommendations. It's the same with beer.

As for glassware, meh! Some beers need a bit of room to breathe and release their aromas, but, in order to enable that, almost any glass will do, from a pint-pot to a tumbler. Call me a barbarian, but in many cases, I'll happily drink from the bottle. By all means, teach staff how to store, handle and pour bottled-conditioned ales properly. That matters. But the emphasis on serving beer in "correct" and / or delicate glassware, seems more about trying to make beer aesthetically acceptable to fayn dayning restaurants rather than any real necessity. It seems like a distraction, an over-complication. The key battleground isn't Michelin star temples, but independents and better chains, like Byron.

This is why price is crucial. On occasion, I'll pay over the odds for a rare, imported beer, but the price of UK ale in UK restaurants (typically £4 to £5.50; Byron's Pale Ale is £4.25 for a 330ml bottle!) is counterproductive. It actually deters hopheads from having that extra fourth or fifth drink.

I know all the arguments. Restaurants have to mark items up. They're trying to replicate the profit they would make from wine, on beer. Often by trying to sell each diner a smaller 330ml bottle with each course. But it's £2.50 to £3.50 for a pint in most real ale pubs. That is the killer comparison that most people will make, as they sit there, wondering why they are paying a fiver a pint and more in a restaurant.

Still, having the option feels like progress. What about you? Do you want restaurants to stock good beer? Does it need to be matched with food? And will you want a dainty glass or will you happily neck it from the bottle?