Month: April 2024

2% ABV, 100% joy

Last weekend my longest-serving friend (god bless her) surprised me with a short holiday. I’d not been away on a holiday—a proper holiday, where no work was done underneath hot sunshine—in years, and it didn’t take long for me to remember just how good it feels to relax.

I thought what I missed about holidays was swimming in the sea, and sure, that was gorgeous. The cool, clear Atlantic washing my stress away. But what I really missed was gossiping on the beach, or by the pool, or on the apartment balcony, a can of Tropical Limón in my hand. €1 a can, ice cold from the Superdino fridge, the flavour of malty local lager mingling with zingy, cloudy lemonade. Unlike a Bitter shandy, which is the ultimate northern post-hill walk shandy, this shandy is the only drink that perfectly matches the specific mood elevation of a Spanish holiday, the sunshine, the blue of the ocean.

I’m not expecting the weather in England to improve any time soon, but when that annual heatwave appears, here’s how to replicate that sensation. Get a big glass and pour in 200ml of lager, I’d say Northern Helles, or if you’re going authentic, Estrella Galicia should do it. Flatten the lager a bit with a straw, then pour 200ml of lemon Fanta on top. Sit outside and raise your face to the sun. Enjoy with ready salted crisps and the scent of sun cream in the air.

Katie Mather’s The Gulp is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Other Stuff

• How the sounds of nature are changing as species adapt, move and disappear from British woodlands

• Incredible work by Rachel Hendry on Babycham and the Babycham Girl marketing behemoth of the mid 21st century for Pellicle

• Brewdog’s Lost Forest is largely dead.

• Ivan McClellan’s photography highlights black cowboy culture and every photograph is stunning

• There is something so wonderfully British about a tractor parking bay in a pub car park making national news

• Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

• Time travel with Eoghan Walsh

• A dissection of Tony Soprano as a sex symbol

• Nelly Furtado’s new dark EDM tune is a sexy summer banger

My(ish) Stuff

• The incredible illustrations for my piece on Gaucho wine culture in Argentina “Echoes Of The Gaucho” by Driss Chaoui have been chosen as a winner of American Illustration 43. I’m just so proud to have been part of the process.

Pubs are places to socialise, why should children miss out?

It’s not a new debate—God knows it’s been the favourite boring rant of grumpy pub-goers for as long as I’ve been drinking. Children shouldn’t be allowed in bars. People have opinions on this. Very big feelings about it. It results in some acutely unhinged discourse that only social media could germinate, as seen here in this incredible exchange.

Yes, it seems that people who don’t mind children in pubs and bars are obviously paedophiles. I honestly feel like X can’t shock me anymore, and then someone else with a sock account goes ahead and flummoxes me beyond prior flummoxation.

The thing is, I don’t have a problem with children in pubs, and I’ve never understood the common misanthropic personality trait of pretending to hate kids (to the extremes of calling them “crotch goblins” in some cases, a truly curséd term used only by total fucking idiots.) When you think of a child-hater, who do you think of? An older gent, trying miserably to enjoy a beer while an admittedly annoying little brat runs circles around his table? Fair enough. But in my experience, the people who claim to hate children, and make a big deal out of this fact about themselves, are younger. They are around 20-35 years old, and they invariably claim to like dogs better. Of course, personal choice is absolutely valid. It shows that they prefer unconditional love. Who doesn’t? What I find distasteful is the absolute disdain for children and their existence anywhere near their personal space. It’s brutally Victorian. It’s outmoded. It’s—I’m going to say it—it’s selfish.

Selfish in the true sense of the word, of only thinking of one’s self. The problem is, pubs are not made just for one individual’s comfort. They are places of socialisation and congregation, where groups of people of different ages, cultures, classes and education bump shoulders, relax, and enjoy themselves. Many adults of drinking age have children. Are we saying they should never visit the pub in case their child, who is still learning how to act within the convoluted and mostly-unspoken sphere of English societal rules and norms, makes a noise?

But some children are badly behaved!

Yes! They can be little shits! Guess what? So can adults, especially drunk adults. Both can be asked to be quiet, and to leave. If a bar or pub is not dealing with a badly behaved child “running around” (as is normally suggested by child-haters) then that is a safety issue, and the child’s adults should be asked to take responsibility. If that is not happening, if you have raised your concerns and nothing has been done, I’m afraid you are in a bad pub. Just as when I threw out a man for belligerently ranting anti-LBGTQIA+ nonsense from my bar, and just as when I had to ask somebody to leave because their dog was harassing everyone for food, bad behaviour isn’t cool and it should be properly dealt with.

Children are mostly not bad. In fact, most children are really sweet, polite, and caring. If you speak to them, not across them or over their heads, they have interesting things to say. My bar would not have been the same without our child customers. I would not be the same without my childhood pub visits. It’s where I learned to love them, and it’s where I learned to talk to people, and to listen to their stories. There doesn’t need to be an active appreciation of the children in or near your space—basic tolerance and human decency will do. Ignorance works too, especially if they are nowhere near you. If you ban children from these formative experiences, from spending time around adults of all ages outside of their family unit, they will not use the pub when they are old enough to, believing they are off-limits. And they will continue to close. And you will only have yourself to blame.

If you enjoyed this mini essay and would like to support my work other than by paying for a subscription to this newsletter, you can buy me a very much appreciated coffee here. Thank you.

A story about the people you get attached to at the pub.

On a Sunday, the New Inn is a comfortable place. The anxious pre-weekend drinking of Friday is gone, the busy Saturday night rush has long evaporated. Step into the pub at 4pm and it’ll be quiet except perhaps for the local Irish and Folk band playing in the back room—everyone else is at home cooking, eating, or digesting a roast dinner. Visit at 6pm and it’s a little busier. By 8.30pm, Sunday night really gets going.

I’m privileged to call myself a local here. I’m not really, I never will be. I moved to Clitheroe in 2012. Even so, I’ve been bestowed with the unspoken right to sit in the Front Room, the one on the left as you walk in, with its own side of the bar and the fire that’s most likely to be lit. I love walking into this room on a Sunday evening. Everyone I know from the pub is here, people I never normally see. Whether I’m sat with Tom for a quiet pint, or I’m with friends playing the limerick game (go round the table clockwise, everyone has to make up a line of the poem—try it, it gets super competitive and fucking hilarious) there will be folk popping up everywhere to say hello to.

My two favourite pub friends are always in on a Sunday. These days I don’t tend to go as late, so I’ve missed them. I’ve decided to make the effort to go in so we can catch up. I asked them if they’d like me to use pseudonyms for them. “Those blokes off the Muppets,” they said. So that’s what we’ll call them. Statler and Waldorf.

Statler and Waldorf, contrary to their opinions of themselves, are two of the friendliest blokes in the whole pub. They join in with our stupid debates. They shared genuine compassion and sympathy when our bar closed down, and they always ask after what we’re doing and how we are. The other week they saw me with a friend’s baby and got the shock of their lives—it was as though they were grandparents again for a moment. Their huge smiles and classic pub humour (sarcasm, dry comments) are exactly my cup of tea. I love to see them, and I’m going to make more of an effort to drink, not with them, but amicably across the room from them. Just how they like it.

Other Stuff

• Really enjoyed this story on Narragansett by David Nilsen for Pellicle, a brewery I’m somewhat ashamed to say I knew very little about!

• A stunning album of electronic music fused with poetry by Lord of the Isles and Ellen Renton

• An house is for sale in Castletown on the Isle of Man. It’s an elliptical mansion with a Neolithic stone circle on its land, designed by the horologist inventor of the safety switch inside your kettle. The listing is incredibly interesting. His personal website is an even more interesting read. I particularly like his facts and quotes on each page.

• Feeding The Worms by Danusha Laméris

My Stuff

• Join myself, Matthew Curtis and many other beer folks to celebrate the Pellicle 5th Birthday Party in Manchester on Saturday 11 May. It’s taking place between Sureshot, Cloudwater, Track and Balance breweries. FOUR VENUES! Who the bloody hell do we think we are?

For your sailing pleasure.

The bar on board the Manxman, the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company’s brand new ferry, is a step beyond necessary in the most admirable way. It is a glacé cherry on a double fudge brownie cupcake. It is pink lemonade.

The bar on board the Manxman is the smartest flagship bank branch waiting room you’ve ever seen. Its textured plastic walls ripple with soft uplighting in a tasteful fashion. There is no music.

Katie Mather’s The Gulp is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The bar on board the Manxman serves local beer, and Guinness too. As long as you have it in a plastic cup. There are two sizes to choose from, half or pint. Your wine will come in a half.

The view from the bar on board the Manxman is panoramic—floor-to-ceiling glass looks out over Merseyside, then the Irish Sea, then Douglas. From here you can see the gas rigs and wind turbines of the alluring Morecambe South Gas Field.

The bar on board the Manxman truly believes you are on a cruise. It gestures to the bar stools around a mood-lit console table, and wonders why you are not wearing a cocktail dress. The seating is a realistic shade of leather. Take in the atmosphere, make yourself comfortable. Prepare to disembark in an hour or two.

Other Stuff

• How does Paris stay Paris? By spending billions on public housing.

• 10 more BrewDog employees have signed the open letter to BrewDog to demand recompense and acknowledgement over the damning issues within the BrewDog Waterloo pub—some of which are illegal, dangerous, and honestly, psychotic. Who gives inedible food to a homeless person to get them to clean up? Gross. Don’t drink BrewDog.

• I am a (very tenuous) member of Team Kibosh, a motorcycle racing team who focus mainly on the Isle of Man TT. My friend and rider Shaun Anderson, who is racing for Team Kibosh again this year, was interviewed for the official TT podcast this week, where he was called “The fastest rider you’ve never heard of.” Which is pretty fucking cool.

• Finding out which pubs are actually the oldest in the country using proper research and TREE RING DATING.

• The Pellicle merch machine has roared into action! Get your hands on our Black Beer t-shirt, which looks very similar to a band shirt I’ve been told, but I can’t see it personally.

My Stuff

• Live deliciously like a Venetian with an Ombre

• Me on cicchetti, one of the finest things in life

• I will share this as many times as I can throughout my life because I genuinely think it’s one of the best things I’ve done. My favourite pub is a petrol station forecourt.

• ICYMI, a couple of weeks ago I wrote about picking apples at Nightingale Cider and their beautiful pink cider Love Bird for Pellicle.

Katie Mather’s The Gulp is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.