Month: August 2019

I’ve always said I work better on tight deadlines. I’ve never really planned out the work I do, preferring to let it just happen, and then I tidy up afterwards. Fill in the gaps. Delete the pure, excruciating passages where I actually say what I mean.

Learning another language has shown me that preparation is just as awful as I feared, but that forcing myself to do it gets me the results I crave. I want to be fluent in Spanish more than I think I’ve ever wanted anything else in my life. Don’t be alarmed: I always feel this way about my Projects. I’m incredibly thankful that I seem to be clinging to this one — they usually drift off into the night somewhere around the three month mark never to be seen again.

Two weeks ago I saw The Cure in Glasgow, and the whole show was flawless. Especially so was Disintegration, which shimmered with sad, bright catharsis and a tight, compelling energy that drove and drove and drove. You’d never have believed they’ve been playing it for as long as I’ve been alive.

At the end, Robert was grinning and breathless, and he smiled and waved to the (inevitably tear-stained) crowd and said,

“That was a good Disintegration. They aren’t always great, but I really, really enjoyed that one.”

He blew my mind. It means even he feels like his best isn’t good enough sometimes. It means even after more than 30 years, he finds joy in something he’s made, something he’s still doing. It means that perhaps constant practice doesn’t kill off spontaneity — it can make you better, give you strength, enable you to find and explore new ways to express yourself. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Other Stuff

• This minidoc on the incredible women challenging sexism and changing Roda de Samba forever is stunning. It’s dark, brutal and unforgiving, but it’s incredibly enlightening and inspiring too. The link above takes you to an interview with director Tobias Nathan in which the whole film is embedded. I was going to make this week’s whole newsletter about this one thing. I might still do that at a later date.
  “To exist is to defy.”
  “Joy is also a beautiful part of the human condition.”
  [CW: There are scenes of and descriptions of violence throughout, and there’s a v. short clip that includes animal slaughter around the 1min 30s mark FYI]

• I loved this beautiful and refreshingly down-to-earth look at the Garfagnana by Craig Ballinger, especially the Irn Bru in the window of the alimentari. And the photography is just gorge. So beautifully sun-drenched.

• In his fuming Medium piece, Miles Leibtag isn’t fucking sick of craft beer culture, whatever that is, he’s fucking sick of anti-intellectualism. And he’s got some ideas on how to solve the problem too, he’s not just yelling into the sky! I am exceptionally here for it. His best advice? “Stop treating people like the mouth breathing simpletons they are, and start treating them like the pedantic assholes they could be.”

My Stuff

• This week my story about Rivington Brewing Co. was published on Pellicle — a brewery close to my heart, and close to my home.

• I was going through past pieces for… a thing, and I came across The Knack Of Snacks, a piece I wrote when I was clearly very much still missing being in León (when am I not?), and very hungry indeed.

• Just filed a couple of pieces I’m super pleased with, so you’ll be getting to see them soon I hope.

• Question: If I collated some of my favourite older pieces into a zine or two, would you buy them? Just something to ruminate on.

Charlie Watley for Pellicle

The thing I always loved about clubs was how easy it felt to slip away into my own world.

In a recent documentary on the BBC about dance music culture (it’s a series called Can You Feel It, and you need to see it all), clubs are shown as vital centres of art and expression. They are places where people come together. They are the vibrant soul of the underground, tethering kindred spirits to each other, binding a community with deep, unspoken words reverberating under an ever-evolving progression of beats. 

For me, they were something else too. In the midst of a crowded room, swathed in darkness, eyelids blessed with strobes, sight obscured by smoke, I could be alone. The music was mine, and here, I could worship it. In a noisy world, in the loudest places, I found a nucleus of calm and when I danced, or raised my arms, or closed my eyes, I wasn’t thinking of who might see me. The music was moving me. I was in my place.

[This rumination was brought to you by the BBC Radio 6 all day rave]

Other stuff:

• The Amazon rainforest is burning and it feels like there’s nothing we can do about it. Here are some tiny actions you can take which could make a little bit of difference: Sign this petition, change your search engine to Ecosia and support The Rainforest Trust. The Rainforest trust allocates 100% of all project donations to their causes.

• This from new mag Caña on Antwerp’s vibrant graphic design scene made me want to go there.

• The history of Fabric, as told by the club’s photographers.

• I love reading about far away places, and Palmerston atoll couldn’t really get much further away. 

• Animator and artist Jorge R Gutierrez grew up believing that Skeletor was a dia de los muertos superhero in Mexico City and I can’t stop thinking about how much better that show would have been than He Man.

• This article goes on a bit, but the idea that I’m not alone in rewatching crap TV when I could/should be doing something else is comforting.

• The beer world suffers from the same ailment as the music industry, in that people don’t know how to say “I don’t like/agree with that” instead of “that’s shit.” Boak and Bailey pray for sanity 

• I’m devouring everything I can about wine at the moment and this post by Wine Folly on wine flavours, human perception and cognition really hit the spot.

My stuff:

• I’ve been exceptionally busy this week but I’m not sure anything I’ve done has been published yet so here are a couple of past pieces to read in case you missed them first time round:

• Cask comeback? In the North it never went away.

• A Sense of Belonging – how pubs can tackle the loneliness epidemic

• I’m restarting my restaurant reviews next week after a short break.

• Tonight I’m in Manchester hosting a Beer52 tasting session. Should be good fun!

• This means I’m in Manchester Friday-daytime. Recommend me somewhere to take Tom for a bretted saison he won’t be disappointed with.

Danny Seaton // Fabric

I’m having one of those weeks where the time under my feet keeps rolling up and getting caught in the door.

It’s awards season in the beer world, so I thought I’d give myself something to celebrate — a look back on my achievements. Word to the wise: don’t do this if you’re in a depressive slump. This newsletter isn’t about depression, don’t worry. There’s nothing duller than reading about mental health without context or emotional weight. Depression is boring, and totally flat, and it pretends to have depth by trawling the past for the oil-spill iridescence that coats old wounds, giving them an exotic sheen in the dark, making them easier to find among the cold, damp furriness of forgotten times.

Hey, maybe this is about depression.

Anyway, I’ve done my week of morbidity. I know the next move is to make plans for the immediate future, no matter how much I’d rather do literally anything else, so that’s what I’m doing. Autumn is coming. It’s breath is already felt around here, if you look at the fattening blackberries and the colour of the leaves, and the scudding black clouds and the brownly-brackening moors. I’m not swooping straight into winter this year. I’m planning an autumn, packed with things that celebrate the darker seasons rather than dread them, and I hope you’ll join me in doing so too. Make SAD your obedient whippet this year.

Other stuff:

• First of all, this piece by Matt Curtis for Pellicle is so warm and delicately burnished and full of gentle joy. It’s also about perfect cask beer, so who couldn’t fall in love with it, really?

• The Leeds Beer Scene, in the words of those who rule it. A great piece by Boak and Bailey.

• The Irish Hip Hop Scene is having a moment.

• Deliciously in-depth writing about Mediterranean fruit and veg by Bianca Pascall.

• Warmly confrontational writing about pop-up dining that brings native culture into the Californian dining conversation. “Diners should go, not only to eat, but to listen.”

• God I loved this, by Amanda Mull for The Atlantic. “America has never been so desperate for tomato season.”

• This piece on pruning grape vines from is evocative and terrifying, given that I’m going to be working in a vineyard soon.

• Masashi Shimakawa’s beautiful illustrations of street scenes can put me out of commission for half-hours at a time.

My stuff:

• I wrote about the Isle of Man TT races for Ferment magazine, something I loved as a kid, then left behind, and have begun to love again. It’s also about beer and pubs, in case you were worried I’d gone totally off-piste. (Ignore the subheading — it’s a problem with the site.)

• I set up a website last year called North West Beer, and as much as I loved putting it together, it just didn’t work for me. Something just didn’t fit — and I’m not just talking about me and the general scene in the area around me. Here’s a piece I wrote about Thwaite’s historic move to Samlesbury last year, which you can read until next month when the site disappears for good.

• I suppose this piece from my blog about a photography exhibition about Thwaite’s Blackburn site matches up quite well with the above. Giving out supplementary reading now, am I? What a nob.

• My latest restaurant review — Thira in Blackburn.

• Torrside came to visit Clitheroe last week (exciting!) and they were welcomed with open arms, which I was happily gobsmacked about, so I wrote a blog post.

• Oh, and this is my 10th newsletter. I will count that as an achievement.

お好み焼き屋 (Okonomiyaki) – Masashi Shimakawa

I’ve been on 12 different trains this week, which is unreasonable given that I moved to the countryside to become a hermit.

Last weekend we went to Blackpool for a piss-up, something I absolutely love doing and have written about before, and my intentions were good. We had a few good pubs in mind. I had a budget to stick to. 

Of course I spent most of the afternoon on North Pier drinking Guinness and black, shrieking with laughter at the haunted organ music and falling out of my deckchair.

Changing tone entirely, on Monday I headed down to London to judge at GBBF and the World Beer Awards. I love judging, I know some people find it a bit of a chore to think deeply and analytically about the beer you’re drinking, but I think it’s great to get everyone debating about what they’re tasting and smelling. I’m still learning too, and you must all know how much I like learning by now. It’s like, my thing.

At GBBF I was really proud to be one of the judges of the Champion Beer of Britain (or the “see-bob” as I was thrilled to find out was the accepted pronunciation of the acronym.)

Afterwards, I spent the afternoon mooching around the festival. I am not one to do things by myself, but I felt totally relaxed and chill in the festival’s environment, and when I did bump into people I knew, it was a happy surprise rather than a relief.

I think that says a lot about the festival itself. I felt safe and welcome, which I know isn’t that much of a big deal for someone like me to say, but I hate feeling awkward, it makes me panic. I just go home. Instead of feeling like a spare part, I lounged around drifting here and there, drinking good beer, taking some pics and having a laugh.  That can’t be a happy accident, given the work that went into improving GBBF in almost every way this year and the steps taken to make everyone feel welcome. In fact, the only time I felt uncomfortable is when photographers kept popping up everywhere to take photos of girls with beers. The CAMRA people at least asked first. Just saying, journos.

The beer was great too — on the whole. I dunno why I always insist on getting a standard pale ale with a ridiculous name every single festival I go to. It never works out well for me.

Other Stuff

• Matt wrote about arguably the best beer in the world and it was probably the most soothing read I read all week.

• This is a really engaging “How to” on visiting Munich, that hits on all the big stuff and makes it sound, above all else, FUN.

• A reading of Rise from Ulverton. It’s a tall tale set in 1803, loose and meandering because it’s in the pub, and they moan about the beer too.

• The energy in this piece about Broaden & Build is totally infectious. Beautiful photography too.

• There is a nice wee article by Steve Lamacq in CAMRA’s Beer magazine (no link, sorry) about the pub being his office — although reports I’ve had prior to this say he’s more of a rum and coke fan. More as this story breaks.

• I really liked this restaurant review. It made me lol.

• Pleasingly perfect mountainscapes made from tinfoil by Yuji Hamada. (Click on “Primal Mountain”)

My Stuff

• I wrote about the TT Races for Ferment magazine because for me, it’s as much to do with beer as it is bikes. 

From “Primal Mountain” by Yuji Hamada

This week the number of people subscribed to this little newsletter more than doubled.

Thank you to everyone who’s signed up, and to everyone who’s recommended others do the same. I’m very surprised (to say the least) that you are choosing to read yet more of my thoughts, but grateful too. This newsletter has become important to me really quickly. If Twitter is me on strawberry laces and Buckfast, I think The Gulp is me on black coffee and Ferrero Rocher.

In other words, the me I wish I was 100% of the time.

I ran a workshop about tone and messaging at The Landmark in Burnley on Tuesday, and it was so far outside of my comfort zone that I made possibly the world’s most convoluted powerpoint presentation to make up for the crushing imposter syndrome I had been experiencing all last week.

It went really well. Even the interactive bits. In the end I was unhappy that I’d managed to complete the whole task well, because it proved that fear is stupid and can be pushed to one side if needs be. It made me wonder how often I’d not bothered to try something new because I was scared.

Anyway, now I can add “public speaking, as long as it’s about something I know back to front, as long as it’s to no more than five people” to my CV now.

—-

In other news, I took my South African auntie to The New Inn in Clitheroe, and she has named it the best pub in the world. So remember that when you’re collating your end of year lists, please.

Other Stuff

• This blog post by Amber LeBeau at The Spit Bucket asks whether wine companies’ marketing inexperience (or reluctance) is actually making it harder for people to say good things about their products.​

• These beautifully murky artworks by Sonia Alins really spoke to me this week. Try not to read too much into that, if you don’t mind. 

• This piece in The Guardian about Black Appalachia covers a powerfully problematic subject with care, and turned my brain inside out for a little bit.

• Kveik yeast as a mythical central element at the heart of a beery Norwegian fairy story. When writing is this good it makes you howl at the moon about how you wish you wrote it. Consider me howling, Claire.

• I loved this by ATJ on saying boo to authenticity, and being your own Bourdain.

• To prove I value and cherish your feedback, here is something about motorbikes: Road racing returned to Oliver’s Mount last weekend, and Dean Harrison won both Classic races, making me very happy. Also John McGuinness and Jamie Whitam rode with Foggy, which made me a bit misty-eyed. If you don’t believe me that this was totes emosh, this piece from Bike Sport News is almost breathless with excitement about the whole thing. Oh go on, here’s a video too. God don’t you just love road racing?

My Stuff

• This week I ate some really good fried chicken in Whalley.

• Nothing published this week by me — look, I’m busy, okay — but here’s something about what makes our beloved pubs so great that I don’t think I shared enough at the time.

• Next week I’ll be in London judging at GBBF and the World Beer Awards. If you’ll be there, give me a shout! I’m going to be in town from Monday afternoon until 7ish on Wednesday, so if you fancy a pint, let me know.

What I’m Drinking

Eyes Brewery x Errant Brewery — Landrace Norwegian IPA

Sonia Alins — work from “Dones d’aigua III”

If you fancy buying me a pint — they are more expensive in London, after all — I’m always incredibly thrilled to receive tips through my KoFi account: www.ko-fi.com/shinybiscuit