Month: November 2019

This week’s newsletter is almost late and I’m sorry about that. I’ve been booking as many copywriting jobs as I can to make some money before Christmas, and it’s meant that instead of working on my book or the articles I want to finish before the end of the year, I’ve been writing about teeth whitening and lingual braces and the best places to shop on Northumberland Street.

Being a copywriter is something I didn’t know I was until I’d been doing it for about five years. I went into marketing pretty much immediately after graduating (as it turns out, the inverted pyramid really is the ideal way to write marketing copy.) I remember seeing a joke on Twitter and realising that I wasn’t a writer at all; I hadn’t written anything I’d cared about in years. I was actually a copywriter, and I wasn’t enjoying it either. “An SEO copywriter walks into a bar, the best bar in town, a bar near me…” It was like seeing a penny at the bottom of a dark, algae-thick pool. It was a decent job, and I was doing a version of the thing I wanted to do, but I was lying to myself if I said it was fulfilling my dreams. 

Every now and again I rely on copywriting to dig me out of financial holes. Writers don’t say thing like this in the hope you’ll find their poverty compelling. At least I hope they don’t — I certainly don’t. Being paid to write is hard. There are a lot of writers. There isn’t a lot of money to pay for their words. When you do get money for your words, they become something else, and you have to work even harder for them to feel as smooth and weighty in people’s hands. So by flipping that shiny little coin over to its grubby, riverbottom side, I can find work I’m not proud of but that pays the bills. And I wanted to share this thought because it’s easy to think everyone is doing better than you. Stop. Everyone is working through something just as much as you are. Everyone is reaching for something they want.

Other Stuff

• First up, something insanely geeky and therefore amazing. Lars Marius Garshol shares from his Twitter account this week: “An Italian guy was so fascinated by the Stjørdal, Norway malt kilns he decided to make his own. Excellent video, with extra photos/footage from Jørund Geving in Stjørdal“

• A very thoughtful and well-researched look at Liverpool’s changing restaurant scene from Alice Burns for Liverpool Guild Student Media. 

• This great piece by Ed Yong about how he actively began fixing gender imbalances within his stories was sent to me by David Sun Lee. It’s something I think about and discuss with people a lot,k but I know I can still do more — not just with gender imbalance but by promoting minority voices more in my work across the board. This is me promising to so. As David said when he sent it, “It’s on all of us!” 

• Andrew Dickens interviewed Jeremy Corbyn for Penguin about books, reading and how vital our libraries are (and how he will save them) and it is wonderful.

• Art of the Score interviewed Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (Bad Seeds, not that one) about the jusic they’ve made for film.

• Something unfamiliar and bizarre in its mundanity, so obviously I really enjoyed getting into it — “Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math Class“.

• Mel C — the best Spice Girl — frankly discussing her life with Laura Snapes, one of the best music journalists in the world right now. 

• We expect beauty from Pellicle and the standards keep rising. This by Hugh Thomas on the Faversham Hop Festival is, frankly, amazing, and Grace Helmer’s illustrations are just as evocative and beautiful and heartstrings-tugging.

• Jay Raynor’s review of Live Seafood on Ashton Rd, Manchester. It’s a good one.

• Jeff Alworth went to Brewery De La Senne and Yvan de Baets spoke to him about yeast as though it was the darling love of his life. Because it is, of course.

• Hat tip to Evan Rail: This piece on Tokyo denim in the NYT had me totally enthralled.

• This really was interesting, I know I say that about everything, but it really, really is worth a read. Especially if you love language, numbers or both. (I only like language.) “Why You Might Be Counting In The Wrong Language” by Aanand Jagatia.

My Stuff

• I’m really, really proud of this piece I’ve written on local beer and lower league football giving communities a combined sense of identity. It’s also called Home Turf, which I love because I like the word “turf”. 

• Amphora. What are they? Why are they? I spoke to a few experts because I was genuinely interested, and then I wrote about it. Which is how I wish all my articles went.

• I’ve got two articles in the Pellicle in-tray at the mo. Expect one to be published in the near future. As I said before, they’re raising standards all the time over there. No pressure. No pressure at all.

A section from Grace Helmer’s illustrations for

Hugh Thomas’ Faversham Hop Festival piece
— originally published in Pellicle Magazine

I feel like I’m on the cusp of something at the moment. Like I’m waiting for something to happen. The nebulous forms of life goals collect and disperse inside my head constantly, their colours and shapes taking different forms as they drift and merge, getting louder and brighter at night when I’m trying to sleep.

We have plans for our life, Tom and I, and they’re creeping up on us. Soon we’ll have to make decisions and take leaps. Maybe we’ll have to ask people for help — the scariest thing of all. But everything is always about work. Career. Direction. Meaning. This is what happens, I guess, when two Capricorns get married.

I am going on holiday tomorrow with an old friend, a long weekend away, to somewhere hilly and rainy and ancient, with no internet, a log fire and an orchard full of tiny sheep, windfallen pears and peach trees. I’ve been hanging a lot on the thought of this holiday and how separate from real life it will be. On the first night I want a blank, starless sleep. After that I want to go full Crow Crag — rant in local tearooms, shout into the indifferent overcast valleys, drink from the bottle, detach. I can’t wait.

Other stuff

• In this week’s Red Hand File newsletter, Nick Cave said: “…I sometimes wonder if anyone actually listens to my lyrics, and whether the enormous amount of work I put into them may in fact go unheeded.” Highly relatable because of the gloomy, “does anyone care” part, of course, but I laughed because it tiptoed between being honest and being vain.

• Nicci Peet has had her excellent Diversity In Beer project featured in Vice. Having her work seen outside of the Bubble is a huge, huge deal.

• I really liked this by Matt Curtis on how sour beer “recovered from the brink of extinction“, especially looking at how these trad Belgian beers have inspired some of the most exciting brewers in the UK.

• I love Slow TV (oh my god, shocker) and I remembered the extremely interesting but supremely soothing Retreat: Meditations From A Monastery this week. No dialogue, just shuffling, beekeeping, weaving, chanting and the occasional shake of a thurible. Here’s the Pluscarden Monastery in the Moray highlands.

• Radio is important for independent scenes to thrive. That’s something I really believe in. This piece from The Guardian back in July looks at indie stations in the north and how they survive without the same level of funding or sponsorship of London-based stations.

• You’ve probably seen it but this interview with Amy Sedaris about her essential things from the NYT is hilarious.

• Lost Industry Brewing aren’t a brewery I’m super familiar with, but after this interview, I want to be.

• More monk stuff — must be the time of year for it. This, by M. Carrie Allan on Chartreuse looks at the secrets behind its recipe, and how the Carthusian monks who make it square its popularity with cocktail making hipsters with their faith and devotion.

• This by Boak & Bailey about the Dog and Bell in Deptford is wonderful. I want to go there.

• When I read Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker, she says repeatedly how important it is to smell everything in order to truly understand your senses and the world around you. Maybe that’s why I absolutely loved this olfactory map of Brussels by Brussels Beer City aka. Eoghan Walsh.

• Francis Bacon on the differences of earths.

My stuff

• I’ve been busy working on a few chunky pieces I’m really excited about this week, but nothing published yet.

• I’ve also been suffering really severely with anxiety this week, so I wanted to say to anyone else who suffers, take care of yourself. Know when to stop. Rest.

• I read (and hugely enjoyed) Normal People by Sally Rooney and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh this week which may have something to do with my somewhat altered mental state.

Lighters in Dum Dum lollipop wrappers – Amy Sedaris

Since I never made it to galleries, and when I did I felt as though I shouldn’t be there, I never saw much art throughout my teens and 20s. I never interacted with art. Even the word was fairly meaningless to me. I never thought about artist interpretation, or style, or choices. I thought people were born with a talent for deciphering the hidden messages behind the paint; you either got it, or you didn’t. Some people understood art. I didn’t. I assumed it was because art was not made for someone like me.

I’ve always liked certain pieces — I like Monet’s studies of the Thames and the Houses of Parliament for eg. — but I’ve only ever used them as Facebook headers, or phone backgrounds. I felt guilty about this. Like somehow I should be appreciative in a more respectful way.

I’ve decided I was wrong.  If the most accessible way I can be inspired by great artists, and express myself through their work, is through a photograph of a painting on Instagram, then that’s what I’m going to do. Looking at and trying to understand art has become something I do every day now, because of Instagram. I’ve gone from thinking art was unfathomable and for other people to enjoy, to appreciating it every time I scroll through my updates.

There are gatekeepers at the entrance of every possible hobby, but when I look at paintings on my phone and get lost in the intense detail, or the beauty, or the abstraction, I feel like I’ve been shown in through a side entrance. In front of the non-judgemental glare of my phone screen I can soak in the textures of brushstrokes, or spend a moment experiencing deep feelings about light. Here I can learn and look and experience without feeling out of place.

(Kindof related, huge coincidence: This week I saw that the National Extension College announced they will be running an online History of Art A Level starting in January 2020. I signed up immediately.)

Other Stuff:

• Ashley Rodriguez at GBH shared this by Victoria James at Eater on how the lack of diversity in wine buying is affecting the industry and, ultimately, pushing more diverse winemakers further into obscurity.

• This thread introduced me to Fayum portraits of Egyptian mummies and I have been transfixed ever since. (More on them here.)

• Sorry but Rod Stewart was on the cover of Railway Modeller magazine with a ridiculously intricate model train city this week. I’d been talking about model villages a lot this week, so I found it really weird for this to be trending this week. “I find beauty in what everyone else sees as ugly – rugged skyscrapers, beaten-up warehouses, things that are very run down.”

• This piece by Hollie Stephens about McSorley’s Old Ale House in New York has compounded the issue that I need to go to New York.

• “In Star Trek I saw a future worth investing in” — a really, really, REALLY great piece about how Star Trek has been saving fans’ lives and giving people hope for decades.

• From the Ladybird Shell Guide, 1955: “Between the mild days, November frosts strip the coloured leaves of the shrubs and climbers of the Headrow so that all the fruits of early winter show more vigourously against a paler sky”

• This review of “Tropical Malady” by Tash Aw for his new column on Asian cinema in the Paris Review is especially fascinating to me because he talks about how confusing it is that forests to him mean danger, but in Europe, they are places of “manicured… rustic pleasure”. 

• The first paragraph of this really hooked me, because it’s so completely different to my own experiences of beer. It might be about bar food in the Bay Area of San Francisco, but it shows what we could have in the UK and Ireland too. Or what we might want to avoid.

My stuff:

I was shortlisted for the British Guild of Beer Writer’s Long Live The Local award for writing about pubs this week, which I am very chuffed about. I thought this week I might share the pieces I put forward in my submission to be considered for this prize.

• A Sense of Belonging

• What Makes a Pub Great

• Pump Country

• Maybe We’ll Stay In

• The Knack of Snacks

Fayum portrait of unnamed man, artist unknown. 
More reading: John Berger on the nature of
Fayum paintings.

Despite the Mercury Retrograde (which I am absolutely, resolutely ignoring, this week has been pretty good to me so far), I’ve been trying a lot of new things. I started running again, I enrolled on a course (WSET L2), I did some public speaking and I’ve gone on a press trip by myself — which meant flying by myself too.

Despite my severe fear of flying (I might have mentioned it) I was more concerned about the public speaking. I’m never a fan of being treated as an authority. I’m a journalist. I do research and collate it; I get other people to give me authoritative quotes, and I fan around them with decorative waffle. Giving my opinion on anything makes me extremely uneasy, especially because my memory is notoriously bad and I can’t stand up to further questioning. I’m also very willing to please, and hate getting into arguments. Everything unravels. Give me an hour and a sheet of paper and I’ll give you a decent explanation.

I think this is why I do things like enrol on official courses (see top paragraph) and all my books have annotations and bits of post-it sticking out of them. I want to learn. It would be nice to be an expert on something instead of a potterer in everything. But then people would ask me for my opinion, and I’d hate that.

I’m in Dublin now, which is why this newsletter is so early. I’m getting to spend an hour in Guinness’ archives. I think the stout festival should be more exciting — and I’m looking forward to it, don’t get me wrong — but an hour in the archives? Dream. Living it.

Other Stuff:

• Mothercare, yes, the baby shop, had a huge impact on music throughout the 80s, 90s and now. This tweet thread goes through it step-by-step.

• West Kerry Brewery has had a tragic and difficult recent past. Breandán Kearney’s emotive, heart-achingly sad, beautifully written piece on how owner Adrienne Heslin got through and how the brewery is succeeding now had me very literally in tears. No internet hyperbole for you there. I was crying in an airport Burger King.

• Staying with important music discoveries, Pellicle has begun a new series of mixtape features which I am fully on board with. The first is by editor and co-founder of Pellicle Jonny Hamilton and it starts with Arab Strab and I love it.

• This month’s BEER magazine (CAMRA’s monthly mag) was a really good read. I especially liked Matt Curtis’ piece on the new wave of cider. New wave cider? Nu-cider? Neo-heritage? Someone stop me from creating these horrible non-genres. Anyway, it’s great and really, really exciting to see in such a publication.

• According to Jacob Dean for Vinepair, local businesses are gaining solvency after economic decline in rural Japan. I met this in rural northern Spain too, and it’s super interesting to see hop growing taking the form of a cash crop and bringing craft beer to areas which may not have been into it to begin with.

• In photos: New Yorkers on their lunch breaks in the 1970s, captured by Charles Traub. A joy.

• Great timing for this piece for me — Beth Demmon talks witchcraft and brewsters in this interesting and informative piece about the ties brewing has always had to magic, and the brewers who use it in their everyday processes. 

• Caroline O’Donoghue is a peach on twitter, but she’s also a fantastic writer. This interview with Richard E. Grant from January earlier this year shows she’s also a warm, informed and incisive interrogator too.

• I liked this deep dive into the book Cork Dork because I just finished it this week and had So Many Thoughts… and because it’s a couple of years old, someone else had already laid them all out with answers for me. Useful!

• Hello to everybody who was at Salford Independent Beer Festival last week. What a wonderful festival, and what a warm, welcoming atmosphere. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

My Stuff

• If you subscribe to Beer52/Ferment mag, you’ll find two pieces by me in there this month — one about the amazing Abbeydale Brewery Funk Fest, and one about the history and relevance of amphorae.

• I put out a tweet earlier this week asking what you’d like me to write. I’m interested.

Unnamed Woman — Charles Traub, 197?