Suffolk butchers near Bury St Edmunds, Woodbridge and Diss tell us about their more unusual sausage flavours
Bangers are a firm favourite on the dinner table, but how adventurous are you when it comes to flavour?
There is a huge range of choice out there when it comes to sausages, with spice, fruit and whiskey featuring among ingredient combinations.
Here we include some of the most standout sausage varieties on offer from butchers around Suffolk.
Beefy's Bangers, Bury St Edmunds and Woolpit
Launched by former postie Richard Crouch, Beefy's Bangers came about after he struggled to find ‘a decent banger anywhere’.
Due to popular demand, his cheese and Marmite sausages - probably his most unusual - have stayed on the menu since summer last year.
A customer had mentioned them, he looked them up and began making them.
"They taste amazing," he said. "I wasn't sure when I first started doing them, but I thought I would keep an open mind and I thoroughly enjoyed them, and everyone seems to."
A large jar of Marmite goes into each nine kilo batch of sausages, as well as pre-grated mature cheddar.
Beefy's - which isn't alone in offering the cheese and Marmite combo - also does hoisin pork sausages and ones made with Worcestershire sauce, which are both summer specials, among its more unusual ones.
Richard, from Bury St Edmunds, said customers were 'definitely' going for more unusual flavour combinations.
Beefy's Bangers has a shop next to The Stag Café in Woolpit. Richard also delivers around Bury St Edmunds.
Find Beefy's Bangers on Facebook.
G Shurey & Son Butchers, Stuston, near Diss
This butchers near Diss, run by Graeme 'Boog' Shurey and son George, aims to have two different sausage flavours a week, on top of its traditional and chipolata favourites.
Smokey Bourbon, spiced mango, beef and Guinness, smoky maple and chilli, and lime and coconut are among varieties that have appeared.
Pork and stilton is particularly popular, said Graeme.
He added: "We do quite a lot of flavours. Customers ask as well, 'can you do this?' Of course we can! We can do anything they want. We are very adaptable."
They also run a 'sausage school' for customers, with 150/170 taking place last year.
"It was just one of my ideas," said Graeme, who described the sausage school as a 'good laugh' and 'informative'.
"We are just trying to educate people that no crap goes in the sausages. It's all proper meat."
The family-run butcher's shop is within Place Farm Shop, Stuston, following a move from Eye last year. Find them on Facebook and Instagram. For the website see here.
Thurston Butchers, Thurston
Alastair Angus, owner of Thurston Butchers in Thurston, near Bury St Edmunds, said their super spicy sausage was their most daring flavour-wise.
"There have been times we have made that and it's been blow your head off hot - in a good way," said Angus, who has run the business for six years.
This is a special that the village butchers does out of about 25 to 30 different types, with two or three on each week, as well as their traditional varieties.
Their sausages are made on-site and they pick and choose all the ingredients and taste everything before it goes out in the shop - and are open to requests.
"We pride ourselves on that flexibility and ability to work something out," said Alastair. "We know what flavours work so if customers have a suggestion we can add that to our range."
Currently, they are promoting their chicken tikka masala sausage with peppers, chilli and coriander - a super lean sausage for all those on a January fitness effort - which are 'selling nicely'.
"Again, it's different flavours. We have never really toyed with a curry flavour so we thought that would work really well."
The business is still fairly busy even though it's January, but Alastair said the start of the year was a chance for them to experiment and catch customers' eyes by offering something different.
Find Thurston Butchers on Facebook and Instagram. Visit the website here.
Fodder in Melton, near Woodbridge
Fodder in Melton, near Woodbridge, does a new sausage of the week flavour each week, which this week is Szechuan for Chinese New Year.
Owner Harry Wolff-Evans said their Thai green sausages are really popular and also in their top three are Nduja and mature cheddar and Marmite.
He said: "I guess the thing that makes us different to most butchers is we come from a chef background.
"We see things from a cooked food point of view and how it ends up on a plate with flavours that leads us to being a bit more experimental with the food we make in-house."
He explained all their sausages, plus food including pies and tray bakes, are all made in-house at their base in Melton.
He added: "The locals, the older locals, just love a traditional Toulouse or Cumberland [sausage] or something like that, but we do have a younger market who are more experimental."
Harry, who was a chef when he was young, set up a Scotch egg business with his dad - which supplies Harrods and Fortnum and Mason - and 'that's where the sausage flavour experimenting began'.
See Fodder's Instagram page here. For the website see here.
Hillcrest Butchers, Stanton
Picking out their sausages packed with flavour, Terry Clayden, butcher manager at Hillcrest Butchers in Stanton, said popular ones are: Marmite and mature cheddar; pork, venison and Guinness; and their award-winning pork and chilli with smoked maple and using Naga chillies - a chilli variety so hot it is used in tear gas.
"You need to be very fond of something that's a bit fiery," said Terry, referring to the pork and Naga chilli sausages.
"I like messing about about with different sausage flavours. You can put pretty much anything in a sausage if you get the balances right."
Terry, who has been butcher manager at Hillcrest Butchers, based at Hillcrest Nurseries, for almost five years, said they also work with people's ideas when it comes to flavour.
He added that their sausages - which are made on-site - are all 'natural stuff', eg the casings, and they also sell classic pork sausages and farmhouse sausages, as well as the more unusual ones.
Butcher for more than 50 years, John 'Simmo' Simpson, who works at Hillcrest part-time, said: "Sausages are very individual. Some people love a sausage and another person will hate that sausage [in terms of flavour].
"People are always looking to try something new."
See here for the Hillcrest Butchers' website.
John, who is semi-retired, said the most unusual sausage he had come across in his time was curried goat, which they had sold at Elmswell Butchers where he had worked previously.
