Author: Katie Mather

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 love food. I would give anything to be the type of person who, when presented with a tray of chargrilled fish eyes thinks, “ooh, great, thanks.” But I’m not.

I’m becoming fascinated with the idea of disgust — how it’s a visceral feeling within you. You don’t just have a distaste. Your body physically recoils, tears fill your eyes, your skin prickles, your throat closes up. That’s true disgust. It’s an amazing reaction. It used to save our lives.

I usually crave salty, fermented, aged, almost-but-not-quite rotten flavours. I love cheeses, cured meats, breads, beers, wines and ciders. I love spice and heat and bitterness. I told myself for so long that I was fussy; a picky eater. As I build up the tasting thesaurus inside my brain, I realise I was just putting cold hard facts before flavour. I was scared of reality, and the grimness of cooked things, rather than my desire for their tastes, and the journeys they would take me on.

So I ate a softshell crab this week. I liked it, but wanted more salt and a lot more heat. I’d tasted it, rather than thought about its body, soft and helpless in its molted state. It doesn’t sound like it, but that’s progress.

Other stuff:

• I think this beautiful, mournful, soaring, heartbreaking essay by CJ Hauser called The Crane Wife has changed how I will write forever.

• I found out about Bangkok’s current fixation with private fine dining experiences while I was reading this relaxed interview with Cristina Bowerman, who has some unique ideas of the “sense of place” everyone’s obsessed with at the mo. Funnily enough, her ideas were a total juxtaposition of what the very polished NYT article about Thai private dining expressed. She said: “I don’t want guests to be able to pinpoint where something is from; it must be an organic whole.” I like that.

• The enthusiasm and excitement Lilian Min has for mangosteens and her wonder at Etsy becoming a marketplace for rare tropical fruits is infectious. The last line was my fave.

• Jonathan Liew is so good, so engaging, that he makes me care about sports. This time: tennis.

• I really liked this piece on natural wine bars and tinned fish from the SFC. It made me hungry and thirsty.

• Take a sec to enjoy these stunning, dremay, angsty photos of teenage Appalachian Ohio by high school students.

I’ve just realised that pretty much all of the above are from American publications. I blame my sudden obsession with east coast immigrant-American cooking and food culture thanks to the film Always Be My Maybe and a fifth rewatch of Ugly Delicious.

My stuff:

• If you didn’t see it already, I wrote about one of my favourite subjects for Ferment mag — how do you know the historically-brewed beer you’re drinking actually tastes like it would have done back then?

• I’m working on a few articles at the moment, but nothing’s been posted up in a while. Check back next week for more updates, I guess.

• I went to a photography class last week run by Matt Curtis (shoutout) and I really enjoyed learning about how looking at photos that inspire us can help us become better photographers. I love the idea that beauty can install itself in you, ready for you to use it at a later date.

ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATION © DANIEL GRAY-BARNETT
I looked through The Crane Wife for a perfect illustration, and it turns out,
this is the only one. I imagined the rest. That’s how good it is.

This week one article in particular got me thinking about what it is we love about pubs.

I know, how original.

But listen, right. Jessica Furseth is an excellent writer who focuses on culture and urbanism, and above all, her beloved changing city of London. 

In her piece for Huck called, dramatically, “The Curse of the British Pub Refurbishment“, she heavily laments the encroaching circular saw of ‘progress’ as it reaches her favourite pub, The Coach on Greek Street in Soho. Like most pub pieces it’s full of heart and deep, emotional attachment, but there are some really interesting sections about how sympathetic development is eventually adopted (even if it’s initially boycotted). Blue Posts is the case in point here.

Anyway, a question that stuck with me is: why do we (I) want to hang on to every single bit of history — even the crap bits? Does a lick of paint change the molecular structure of a place? Why does cleaning the brass up or swapping out paintings of the hunt for prints by local artists bring about an achy sort of sadness?

For The Coach, things are different. It’s being bought by Fullers, not an enthusiastic beer historian keen to retain its noble features. But even if it was, would that still mark the end of an era? And why?

Someone joked with me at the pub I sometimes work at that because I’d cleaned the toilets earlier that day, it counted as a renovation. He said “Everything’s changing, don’t change this place.”

Bear in mind the pub I sometimes work at is no more than four years old.

Other things:

• I really enjoyed this article on a huge toilet roll because a) the attention to detail is astonishing b) it’s really funny c) haha toilet paper

• I’m not the world’s biggest Beatles fan, but I loved this on Yesterday.

• I’ve been thinking a lot about veganism. This tells the story of the Impossible Burger, and how it went from odd futurefood to being accepted by chefs, then shops, then consumers.

• I loved this about beer in Caballero country by Alex Duell. Read it now.

• I was delighted to then find this listicle about cool, hipster craftspeople and artisans in Mexico City.

My things:

• I promised a blog post this week but guess what, I haven’t had the chance, what with Carnivale Brettanomyces (which was EXCELLENT) and everything. Expect at least one in time for next week’s bulletin.

• This restaurant review I wrote got a lot of “creative criticism”. Apparently. I don’t read the comments.

• Charlie Papazian shared my piece on hops in the Orbigo Valley, which means he’s read it, nbd.

• If you’re not already following me on Instagram, you can do so here. If you want.

• Tom (my husband) has joined Twitter.

As a freelancer it’s easy to disregard every feeling that you might be working too hard because:

a) You’re doing a job other people tell you they’d much rather do,
b) You chose to live like this.

I’m taking a moment to complain. This week has been relentless and left me relatively unable to write creatively, thanks to a pod of submarines.

The Submarine Client: A client who doesn’t pay on time, asks for the moon in a tight pair of pants and disappears for months, but resurfaces during your busiest times with an offer too good to refuse.

I’d say no, but flattery and praise is on the cards.

WePresent by WeTransfer

If you’ve ever used WeTransfer, you’ll have noticed that the background of the site is usually papered with distracting photography, art and design. I bit this week and clicked the “read more” link, and realised I’d been missing out on a chunk of pristine alt culture writing and documentary #content for, potentially, years.

Here are my faves from an impromptu deep dive:

• The new wave of exhilarating new Spanish musicians and artists. You might already know I’m a Spanish language music obsessive. This article is fizzing with energy and goes some way into explaining why.

• Marco Aguello’s photo doc on the absurd, beautiful world of shokuhin sampuru — Japanese plastic food art — and the artisans who spend years perfecting their craft. The best part for me is how he’s chosen to use harsh flash in his photos, otherwise how would we know the food wasn’t real?

My Stuff

• I’m heading to Amsterdam for Carnivale Brettanomyces today. I hate flying. Read this from Original Gravity on how airport beer gets me on the plane. (pp22–23)

• I had a very drunken trip out on the East Lancs Steam Ale Rail Trail last weekend. My hot tips if you’re planning the same thing will be ready in time for next week’s newsletter.

Stuff I Liked This Week

• Alistair Humphrey’s My Midsummer Morning got bumped to the top of my “to read” list.
  “I appreciated the slowness of walking in a fast world. It is the ancient way of travel, and even technology cannot help. Only persistence and effort make an impact…You learn a lot about someone by hiking in the hills.”

• In this by Ciaran Thapar, food is what connects us, and what individually defines us too.

• Cooking With Ntozake Shange: Valerie Stivers cooks recipes from Shange’s work, as part of her “Eat Your Words” series.

• This “whole fruit experience” of a piece on citrus by Tim Anderson