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Wine To Give To Hecate

Pouring one out for a real one.

It is a supermoon, and a blue moon at that, in Pisces. Today the torrid emotions of the past week or so are coming to a head, and I feel as though I’m at the eye of the storm. I haven’t had it particularly easy over recent weeks. I’m going through what could euphemistically be described as a “turbulent period of change” and what’s more—things aren’t slowing down. There’s more to come.

Two weeks ago I had a tattoo of a longbowman nocking a flaming torch inked on my right forearm as a symbol of strength, to remind me to step back from the melee and try to gain a wider picture of the battle at hand. Not easy to do when you feel like you’ve been flailing with a broken sword for months, the mud loosening your steps, arms and back tiring from the onslaught. I need a rest.

The universe has a sense of humour, I can tell, because all of the freedom and rest I have been asking for has arrived at once, in the form of both of my main jobs coming to an end. To seemingly underline the essential nature of taking opportunities when you can, a friend and Kibosh teammate died while racing at the Manx GP last week. I am being given absolutely no choice—I have to keep going.

So then, today’s full moon. It’s an important one to me for two reasons: the first that it means this period of unbearable intensity is almost over, and the second is that I’m getting to spend it with friends who also need to recalibrate, focus and strive.

Despite the tragedies of the past months, spending time with friends is always a celebration, and I intend to treat it as such. My main contribution to the evening’s events will be the wine we drink during feasting and the extremely technical/spiritual practice of “burning shit”. I need to choose carefully. It should be wine that’s good enough to change our fortunes and lift us up. Wine good enough to offer to Hecate, wine good enough to stir our souls and clear our minds. It also needs to pair well with a vegan barbecue.

The smoke, the flames, the moon, the tears—I’m thinking quickening darkness, like the peaty waters of the Yorkshire Dales. Loose and fresh, bracken and blackberries, woody and mossy and spiced. A Syrah, Côte Rôtie almost definitely, and if I can find one with mushroom intensity and umami bacon fat richness, so much the better for our Pagan godly tributes.

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Never Known Fog Like It

A love letter to a beer that’s been through it all with me.

In the beginning of my career as a beer writer, I visited a local brewery called Rivington Brew Co.. At the time it was a smallish place with a cult-like following of fans who turned up for regular Tap Beneath The Trees events—in lieu of a taproom the brewery used the woodland at the foot of their farm as an outdoor micro festival during the summer months. Rain never stopped them.

On that visit I drank a mug of tea in the company of their first fermenters, situated in a small outhouse a short drive away from the farm, and learned about the small team’s commitment to lab-based QC testing. I was impressed. I told Ben Stubbs and Mick Richardson, the owners of Rivington Brew Co. who had taken time out of their day to show me around, that Never Known Fog Like It was one of my favourite beers of all time. I said, with what now seems like tragic dramatic irony, that if I was ever to open a bar of my own, Fog—as it’s called—would be my permanent Pale.

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Since that first visit the brewery has grown, and I’ve been lucky enough to call the Rivington crew my friends, and their flagship beer, my bar’s permanent Pale Ale—a promise kept. Fog quickly became Corto’s flagship beer too, a beer that turned visitors into regulars, that brings people out of their homes in the darkest, rainiest evenings. Those pints of hazy, sunflower-yellow beer glowing in the light cast from our big front window. An image that will stay with me long after the bar closes down.

Why do I love it? Why does anyone love one hazy Pale over another? I believe Never Known Fog Like It is the culmination of years of NEIPA experimentation. Since I began writing about beer in 2018, the desire people have for hazy juicebombs has never waned, and yet, to me, there has largely been no development in the subgenre. I try newcomers with interest, and yet nothing tops Fog for me in the specific category I’ve created for it—a comfortably swiggable beer at a warming 5.2% ABV, not sessionable to the likes of me, more a treat after a long day. A beer to look forward to. A standard, a trusty sidekick, a partner in crime.

Fog succeeds because of Rivington—because of their attention to detail, their fantastic brewing team, and their passion for getting it right, for not being afraid to tweak and improve. I will miss serving it in Corto and seeing the enjoyment it brings. But I won’t miss the beer itself. I’ll still be drinking it, from the other side of the bar, in their new taproom at Home Farm. In Preston, at Plug & Taps or Chain House Brewing Co.’s taproom. Wherever I can find it, I will drink it, and I will remember good times, and plan new, better ones.

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  • Thank you, first of all, so much for your generosity after the last newsletter I sent out. Your tips enabled me to cover a very stressful end of month, and I’m so grateful. Your kindness was needed and appreciated. You are the best.

  • Salads! One of the things in life that brings me most joy. Thank you Pellicle for publishing my thoughts and dreams on the beautiful world of salad prep.

  • The profile on Rivington Brew Co. I referenced in this week’s newsletter.

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  • Tom and I are planning to set off in our van once the world ends (Corto closes). I’ve set up a TikTok to document wine and beer we experience on our travels.

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