I’m on the train on my way home from London, where I attended the British Guild of Beer Writers Awards.
Pellicle, the magazine I’m deputy editor of, had 10 contributors win awards. This is unbelievable. This is fantastic. This is what we wanted from the magazine — not to win awards as such, but to publish work that resonated and felt worthwhile. Without being intimidating or worthy. We want to publish writing that sets the land around the drinks writing industry alight. I’m hugely thrilled that our writers have been given the accolades they deserve for being insightful, skillful, and entertaining.
I also won an award of which I’m really proud. I was presented with the silver award for short form writing, which means this newsletter is now award-winning.
I use this newsletter as writing practice, and as a place to share ideas I’ve not fully formed yet. It’s a space where I can write without the restrictions of a house style, and with only the strictness of my own editorial eye. I have been writing this newsletter for around 6 years now, maybe more, first as a Tinylettrler and then as a Substack because I liked the CMS better. I enjoy having it. Unlike writing for magazines, it’s a platform where I have to have complete conviction in what I’m saying because nobody else is involved. It’s just me and the send button. There’s a thrill every week that exactly what I wrote will reach hundreds of people. That’s why I keep doing it.
Thank you for reading The Gulp, and for supporting my writing in all the many ways you do so. It’s rare for a person to love what they do, but I do. And I couldn’t write if people didn’t read.
During the pandemic, I joined in with a micro-craze that all my UK-based wine nerd friends were participating in—I bought a bagnum of orange wine.
A bagnum is a plastic pouch with a tap fixed to it. Basically, it’s a Bag-In-Box, or more literally, a bag-without-box, that for some reason captured imaginations like no other wine fad that year. Call us starved of things to do in 2020, but I really think Le Grappin, the originators of the fad, managed to grasp something exciting. Orange wine, which to many was an unfamiliar treat at the time, in a bag. It just felt fun and accessible. It had a little handle. It was simple. More importantly, the wine was pretty good too.
Le Grappin don’t appear to still sell their orange wine in bagnum format anymore, but their rosé, white and red wines are still going strong. Jancis Robinson is quoted on their website as saying “The finest wine I have encountered in a pouch are Le Grappin’s burgundies…” an incredibly specific compliement, given there are about three makers on the market using pouches or bagnums, but I’ll let them have it.
It confuses me why more winemakers don’t use pouches or bagnums—or why other drinks makers don’t use them either, come to think of it. I was happy to see Wishbone Brewery, a small independent brewery based in Keighley, West Yorkshire, trialling real ale pouches for Christmas rather than using cumbersome, expensive minikegs. They make sense. They’re light, easy to fill, easy to use, easy to fit in your fridge, less ridiculous-looking than a big glass magnum bottle, and have a lower carbon footprint than single-use glass… there is only one downside for me, and that’s their recyclability. They can’t, they won’t, so don’t try to recycle them.
Glass bottles make up around half of a winery’s carbon emissions, thanks to the effort it takes to ship the empties to the cellar, then to package up and ship the bottles out again once filled. They are heavy, breakable, and while they’re still industry standard because of their traditional use, they’re far from a perfect solution. I’ve been happy to see winemakers using kegs to sell wine in bars—why not? I used to sell Judith Beck’s Ink from a Lindr machine and it worked a treat. Beautiful wine sold efficiently, accessibly, and with less impact on the planet. I don’t see a problem with it at all.
I’m always keeping an eye out for glass bottle alternatives being used, and this news story from the San Francisco Chronicle on California Nouveau wines caught my eye. Family-owned and run winery Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah! is releasing their take on Beaujolais Nouveau with their own Mourvedre-Primitivo rosé and a Chenin-Roussanne-Viognier blend, made to be enjoyed young. I want to drink them very much. These wines are being sold in refillable, reusable Kleen Kanteen bottles, which are themselves made from 90% recycled steel. You can’t age a wine in stainless steel, but it’s the perfect way to carry your nouveau around until you’ve drank it. They’re not meant to stick around anyway.
What I like about the Kleen Kanteen idea is that the bottles are engraved—no doubt stealing the idea from Tom and I when we did the same for a pair of wedding present Kanteens for our friends. (Obviously the Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah! Kleen Kanteens were not engraved at the Timpson’s in Kendal like ours, because they don’t have mistakes on them.) They’re just like growlers—remember those? I’ve got at least two hidden in the kitchen somewhere, stainless steel and engraved, once filled at a tap room and then never refilled again. With beer, though, it’s fizzy. It’s not ideal for a refillable situation. Wine, on the other hand is perfect for a BYOB set-up—they manage perfectly well in mainland Europe to refill their own wine receptacles and have their beer bottles reused by the breweries too. Are fancy water bottles how we crack it? Can wine encourage a more habitual refill lifestyle than beer managed to achieve here in Britain if only they choose the right refillable bottles?
Other Stuff
Shoreditch wine bar Leroy closes. “Despite what our government may think, this is a noble profession and indeed any small business owner has our enduring respect.”
Young Chinese people are accessing information and studying at free lectures in local pubs, while freedom of expression shrinks within schools and universities. “It’s actually tough for us to air any political views in class – unless they’re extremely mainstream and unshakable… But in the pub, a place without authority… People are more likely to speak their mind.”
There’s a world of fascinating wild, blended and farmhouse beers out there to drink. But I guess you need to know what they are, first.
This piece was originally written for Glug magazine earlier in 2024. To sign up for their excellent wine club, visit their website.
I’m sitting on the stony ground of a vineyard high above the Mosel river. In the warm evening sun, German winemaker Jas Swan hands me a bottle of Braueri Kemker mixed fermentation beer from the back of her van to pour my own generous measure into my mug. As the sun sets over the Mosel valley, and Simba the border collie runs riot around the vines, I sip and wonder. Why is a winemaker drinking beer?
Braueri Kemker are one of Germany’s new-wave farmhouse breweries, so-called because their beers and their recipes are based on the rusticity and tradition of farmhouse brewing, a technique that involves using naturally-occurring yeasts and bacteria to create unique flavours and aromas within the beer. If this sounds familiar, it’s because many wines are made this way. Some say it’s a major component of terroir—the yeasts providing localised character unavailable anywhere else. Many winemakers, Jas included, are fans of these types of beers because not only are they delicious, they share her winemaking values—they are complex and balanced, they are made with care and precision, and they have a definitive sense of place.
“It makes sense to me, because I think there are definitely comparisons between wine and blending beer,” says Will Harris, co-owner, brewer and blender at Balance Brewing and Blending in Manchester. “Particularly in our process—we use wine barrels to age our beer, so there’s a physical connection to wine too.”
Not every brewer uses wine barrels to make their beer. This extra step is how blended, farmhouse, and aged beers are left to rest, just like wine, in order for their flavours to mellow and the character of the wood to mingle with the beer. At Balance Brewing and Blending, their barrels come from a range of winemakers, using American oak for vanilla notes just as a winemaker would for their Chardonnay, and making use of the flavours left behind from the barrels’ previous occupants.
“One thing that runs through the whole process is the fact that our beer is made from moments,” says James Horrocks, who co-owns and runs Balance Brewing and Blending with Will. Unlike other beers, you have the fermentation in barrels, then the blending moment, then bottle conditioning or kegging that changes the evolution of the beer. It creates this idea of “you are having this beer right now, it will never be like this again.” There’s something really exciting about that.”
There’s romance in blended and wild or farmhouse beers that a wine lover could appreciate. Just as James feels each bottle of his beer is a once-in-a-lifetime, transient experience, you’ll hear the same story from top vignerons, their wines expressing a moment captured in time. What’s more, their attention to the agriculture of their produce has definite crossover—how is that moment in time created without the influence of the grapes, or the yeast, or barley, for that matter? Many mixed fermentation and blended beers are made with fruit, the most famous being kriek, which is a beer made with cherries. For brewers, the addition of fruit opens up another dimension of flavour profiles, and for the drinker, it once again offers an easy side-step into the world of wine. Balance Brewing and Blending create fruit beers using locally-sourced and waste fruit, and use winemaking techniques such as carbonic maceration to gather flavour and texture from the fruit they use, and breweries like Cantillon and 3 Fonteinens use seasonal fruit and even flowers to produce their beers. Cantillion’s elderflower beer “mamouche” is sought after every single year, the floral aroma mingling perfectly with the tart, acidic flavours of the lambic beer.
As a wine lover, these are the beers that could set your soul on fire. Yes, wine drinkers do occasionally enjoy a cold lager on a sunny day, or a pint of Guinness at the pub. But it’s these carefully crafted beers that pay homage to their provenance that elevate them from being simple thirst-quenchers. If you love wine because it gives you flavours to explore and lots to think about, give blended, wild, and mixed-fermentation beers a chance to shine for you. You might be surprised at how much crossover there is.
“We’re looking at similar kinds of flavours as in natural wines—funk, Brettanomyces, and acidity as creators of flavour,” says Will. “Some of the character that is actually conveyed from the barrel…and because of the nature of the barrels, you can grasp some of those oxidative notes and characters too. Fino sherry and our dry saisons have a really nice flavour crossover, some of that umami and minerality, and definitely some of the structure.”
For Will, and for me too, the way these beers progress in the glass is what makes them stand out. Unravelling the nuances within the beer, just as you might with wine, gives you the full picture of this beer’s making—from the grain to the glass.
“Drinking it is an experience—evolving, mingling, and changing. It’s evocative, it’s thoughtful, it goes beyond just taste,” Will says.
Top restaurants are starting to see the fascination with blended beers, using their complex characters and unusual, unique flavours to complement and contrast with adventurous dishes on tasting menus. Chefs like Tom Barnes of Skoff in Manchester, and Mark Birchall at two Michelin star restaurant Moor Hall in Ormskirk, Lancashire are including blended and mixed-fermentation beers on their wine lists and tasting menus. You may be offered one at your next meal. I wholeheartedly hope you accept a glass, and enjoy it for what it is—not wine, but a beer that can be just as special.
Types of Mixed Ferm and Blended Beers
Saison: A light, dry, historic beer from Belgium that’s sometimes sour, and pretty hard to sum up in one sentence.
Lambic: A traditional Belgian style. Very tart.
Gueuze: A blend of lambic of different ages, which is then further aged. Complex and tart. The brewery’s approach to “Grand Cru”.
Kriek: Lambic aged on cherries.
Mixed-Fermentation: Sour beer made by mixing yeast and bacteria for specific end results. Fruit can be added. Almost a catch-all term for all of the above (but not always.)
Is there something cynical about celebrity farming?
When I was first asked if I’d seen Clarkson’s Farm, I thought it was a Peter Serafinowicz miniseries I’d somehow overlooked, but no—Top Gear’s leading shirt-and-sheux belligerent had actually bought his own farm. With hilarious consequences, I’m told.
Watching the David Beckham documentary last year, David introduced us, the viewer, into his peaceful pocket of agriculture, where he raises chickens for eggs, keeps bees for their honey (or “DB’s Sticky Stuff”) and has begun growing organic vegetables with his daughter Harper. He says it’s calming, and I’m sure it is, being that it’s a retirement allotment on the grounds of his £12m estate in the Cotswolds.
Vinnie Jones, everyone’s favourite 90s hardman nutcase, has discovered Swedish hunting apparel brand Härkila and bought a “rundown” 400 year old farmhouse in West Sussex. I have a modicum more time for Vinnie’s farming exploits, simply because he seems to have a genuine passion for protecting the countryside—fervour for hunting aside. Still, his interest in farming comes from a place of escape, just as Clarkson and Beckham’s does.
Martin Clunes has a farm. JB from 00s pop group JLS has a farm. Calvin Harris has a farm.
What all of them have in common, apart from their fame, is their assertions that farming is the perfect way to unwind and relax, and to disappear from the responsibilities and hectic schedules of their normal life. I can’t say that any farmer I have ever known has agreed. It’s a gruelling job that takes up every single day of your life—as my old landlords would say, “Cow’s don’t celebrate Christmas!”
It’s not all bottle feeding lambs and driving shiny Massey Fergusons—there are supermarket prices to contend with, and taxes, and having all your generational wealth tied up in land that’s worth millions to developers but relatively fuck all as a muddy field full of sheep. If you’re at all interested in the current financial difficulties farmers face, this piece in The Guardian, and its comment section, lays out a lot of detail (it is an opinion piece though, so pinch of salt etc.)
Farming is hard, essential work that ensures food is grown and supplied to the population, and many farmers are finding it harder and harder to keep up with demand while also dealing with ever-more erratic weather that regularly destroys crops. It’s a job that most are in for life, training for their future in tandem with their school days—although this is getting rarer. The average age of a farmer in the UK is 59, because young people are less and less likely to choose a career in farming when they could do literally anything else.
There is a common stereotype of the rich farmer sitting on thousands of acres of land, and the reality TV shows that have become part and parcel of the celebrity-to-bumpkin pipeline reinforce it. To the average person buying food in a supermarket and seeing the prices rise and rise, there is no connection between the RRP and the cost of getting their produce out of the soil and into the shops. Farmers are not thought of outside of rural communities—in your 24 hour Tesco Express and Sainsbury’s Local, food is infinite. Without that connection, the people who produce, pick and process the food we eat aren’t seen, and their problems certainly aren’t understood. For the only reference point to then be David Beckham picking broad beans (or whatever) and smiling in the sun, it’s difficult to express how anti-idyllic farming life truly is. Even Jeremy Clarkson seems to hate his new job at times.
So why are famous people so keen on becoming agriculturalists? Well, farms, by design, have land. They also happen to make up the lion’s share of the UK’s countryside, and in recent years there has been a need to ensure farmers and landowners are keeping their portion of the country eco-friendly, even beautiful, if you’re a part of an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty or a National Park. It’s expensive and time consuming for already under-pressure farmers to take care of these additional tasks, so there are a number of incentives in place to make sure they get done.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive or SFI is a form of income support for farmers “for actions that support your business, food production and the environment.“ Countryside Stewardship or CS payments are financial incentives to get farmers to protect the environment. The Farming Investment Fund or FIF is a system of grants available to farmers, who can apply for funding for new farming equipment and technology, water management and slurry infrastructure, and more. The Adding Value grant is now closed for round one applications but will offer up to £300,000 to farmers who can prove they require the money to “improve productivity or the environment.” Much like the government’s SEISS payments during Covid-19, this grant process is now running for a second round of payments for eligible farms. The England Woodland Creation Grant (EWCG) offers up to £12,700 per hectare for newly planted woodlands on land larger than 1 hectare. If you’re a farmer in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or a National Park, funding is available on application based on fulfilment of requirements such as: “providing opportunities for people to discover nature” and “protecting or improving the quality and character of the landscape.” The Cotswolds is an AONB, for example. I could go on. In Ibiza, where Calvin Harris has a sheep farm, a financial incentive is paid to citizens to encourage them to raise grazing animals and maintain the landscape of the island.
The existence of these grants and income support structures is a good thing. Farmers who need them are hopefully gaining what they need—although I’d like to see some evidence that all farmers are aware these options are available to them, and that there is support given for those who are not well-versed in writing bids. If you know more about this, please do let me know. I would like to think they’re doing some good, to both incentivise better practices in farming, and to support the people who need it most. What I am sure of is that each and every rich person who’s moved to their dream manor in the countryside is well aware of the tax breaks and funding opportunities available to them—or at least their accountants are—if only they buy a few rare breed heifers, or plant a couple of hectares of organic carrots outside the front door. Get some bees and say you’re contributing the the ecological repair of your local area. Plant some hedges. If you’re going to do that, you may as well get yourself a pair of Dubarrys and a flat cap and call yourself a farmer. Seems like the cheapest way to gain your own estate in the most sought-after land in the country to me.
Pellicle Stuff
Every week I write the Pellicle email on a Tuesday, to go out at 6am the following Wednesday. It’s the best way to find out about our latest stories and news, and I also sprinkle it with a bit of industry news too from our sponsors.
I’d really appreciate it if you could sign up—this week’s story is an absolute beauty and I want as many people to read it as possible.
Upholding an entire economic sector is difficult when you’re skint.
Pubs are where you put the world to rights. I’ve decided to keep track of the bright ideas I have at the pub and occasionally share them on here, for better or worse.
There’s something truly joyless about the way our country views the hospitality industry. Unlike other job and service providing sectors, it seems that hospitality is viewed as a lesser economic contributor, simply because it exists to ensure people enjoy their leisure time. I have a problem with this.
As the price of food, energy and petrol rises, we have to scale back our other expenditures. When we’re financially squeezed, be it through banking collapses, pandemics, recessions, or inflation, of which we’ve all lived through in just over a 15 year period, the first thing to go from our budgets are leisurely activities. There are lots of resources out there to help guide you through creating new, more restrictive budgets—as though we don’t understand how spending versus debt works. In my banking app, it tells me what I could afford to spend less on in future, and this is always a list of pubs I’ve bought pints in. It’s never told me to cut down my spending on bills, by far my largest outgoings. Quite frankly this is bullshit.
I’m not advocating that we spend less on food or heating. I’m saying we don’t have enough money, and that is the thing that needs to change. Everyone needs to be given some money to spend on enjoying themselves, now more than ever.
I don’t know where that money will come from, I’m not an economist. Figure it out yourself. All I know is that pubs are still shutting down because people can’t afford to leave their homes to enjoy a little bit of leisure and all-important social time, and the official reaction is, “oh well.” Where else is the consumer expected to be the sole supporter of an entire industry?
We can tell the government we want all kinds of financial support for pubs and bars, but I think we need more than that. What’s the point of saving a pub if it stays empty on a Friday night? Everyone needs a weekly stipend to spend in their locals, on whatever they want. I’m only half joking. Imagine Eat Out To Help Out, but better, because it’s not half-arsed and people would get to spend their money (or… credits? Tokens? A ration book? People love that “we’ll meet again” WWII crap, don’t they? Would a school dinner swipe card-type system work? I don’t care) everywhere, and the venues don’t have to jump through hoops to claim their money back.
It might be a stupid idea, but have you got a better one?
We’re not far off reaching our 2024 subscribers target over at Pellicle magazine.
If you enjoy my writing/newsletter, there’s a good chance you’ll love Pellicle. It’s full of features on pubs, beer, wine, cider, food, and everything else we love to talk about.
Pellicle is completely independent, and therefore continues to be one of the only independent food and drink publications in the UK not distributed by supermarkets or owned by large media groups.
Your support enables us to commission features and illustrations, and pay the artists and writers behind them fairly for their work. It helps us pay for the upkeep of our website, and it also enables us to operate as a (current) team of three editorial and marketing and PR staff—myself (Deputy Editor), Matthew Curtis (Editor-In-Chief) and Lily Waite (Editorial Assistant).
I’m a finalist for two British Guild of Beer Writers awards: Best Commissioned Beer Writingand Best Short-Form Beer Writing. I find out how I actually do on the 27th November at the annual Guild dinner.
Every autumn, Masterchef: The Professionals takes up a great deal of my time. I don’t care about the other iterations of this franchise—who cares if some normal people are good at cooking? I want to see real chefs who understand and have experienced the trauma of working in commercial kitchens struggle to make dishes they’ve prepared for years simply because a floor manager is yelling “THIRTY SECONDS! TWENTY FIVE! TWENTY!” and Monica Galetti is breathing down their neck. I want to watch a seasoned pro make the worst gravy of all time. I want to see a young chef beat the odds and dedicate a beautifully pink lamb canon with redcurrant jus to their Grandad. I need the excitement of a forcibly dramatised reality show at this time of year, the contestants blinded by white-hot floodlights while they are told their clam bisque is grainy, their samphire relish too salty.
This is my Bake Off, complete with a problematic member of the jury who really shouldn’t be on telly anymore. I somehow couldn’t get into the cake and pastry version, perhaps it’s a bit too village fete-y, but even an old fashioned fete would have some bitching behind the tombola. I like the overblown sterility of the Masterchef: The Professionals kitchen. The fabricated urgency of it all. How harsh it is. Come on, you’re a chef! You said you could do this!!
Every year, I like to collect new clichés from the culinary world, which help me to understand what sort of a state the current climate is within the restaurant industry. When there are challenges set based on picking ingredients from a groaning table of harvest wealth, I like to draw conclusions on what are up and coming trends in food, noting when beetroot is chosen over carrot, or tonka is shunned for carob. It makes me laugh when a whole gleaming cod is set on a slab and a chef uses its cheeks and bones citing sustainability and “whole animal” cooking. What happens to the rest of it? You should have made big juicy goujons! Everybody likes goujons!
To aid my enjoyment of this year’s competition, and to help you too, I’ve created a bingo card. You can use this to create a drinking game if you want, it would be easy to include an alcoholic element if that’s your thing.
I would have added “Gregg goes absolutely fucking batshit gaga over a cheeseburger” as a joke, but that’s already happened this season.
