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FLIGHT
BIÈRE DE GARDE
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AIRPORT BEERS
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RAILWAY PUBS
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AUSTRALIA
The Mash / The Art of Beer
INSIDE ISSUE 22
Flight of fancy
CONTACT daniel@originalgravitymag.com +44 (0) 1323 370430 ADVERTISING martha@originalgravitymag.com Website: originalgravitymag.com Twitter: OGBeerMag Facebook: /originalgravitymag Instagram: ORIGINAL_GRAVITY Editor: Adrian Tierney-Jones Editor-at-large: Pete Brown Design & illustration: lindoneast.co.uk Publisher: Daniel Neilson Cover: Adam McNaught-Davis
Flight: there are several meanings to this issue’s theme. You could, like Katie Taylor (p22), go on an airplane, but given that she’s scared of flying the crowded airport bar is a refuge, her last chance to drink a beer on solid ground. Then there is the idea of fleeing somewhere, taking refuge, which for Laura Hadland (p20) is the post-work railway bar, a liminal space that provides enough breathing space and perspective to put the working day to bed
peaceably. Finally, from a personal perspective, my flight to Paris (p18), fleeing a broken relationship and a crap job, would bring me face to face with a beer style that years later would still call out to me. Add to this Nottingham (p28) and Pete Brown’s defence of intoxication (p26), as well as our usual reviews and whimsy, and there’s an Original Gravity that can be a much valued companion in your flight from day-to-day life. Ad astra. Adrian Tierney-Jones
CONTENTS 04/ 14/ 16/ 24/ 26/ 28/ 31/
The Mash Tasting notes Feature Photo essay Essay Beer traveller Your round
Boundary art & Juan Mayorga Carlsberg. Really Flight and beer Australia Intoxication Nottingham Your ‘pub pet’ pics
Contributors Pete Brown, Laura Hadland, Daniel Neilson, Katie Taylor, Adrian Tierney-Jones
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© 2019 Original Gravity is published by Original Gravity Media Ltd. All rights reserved. All material in this publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without the written permission of Original Gravity Media Ltd. Views expressed in Original Gravity are those of the respective contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publication nor its staff.
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The Mash / The Art of Beer
The Art of Beer / The Mash
Boundary Brewing ARTIST: JOHN ROBINSON Boundary is a brewing cooperative based in Belfast. It is owned by its members and has proven a successful and inclusive model. John Robinson has painted the labels from the very beginning.
Harrison the designer does an awesome job working with the images and text to make it all work together. Was it a matter of adding your existing style to the cans or developing something different? I think of the Boundary paintings as a specific project where I have freedom to experiment and try stuff out, but I normally approach them in the same way I would a landscape - the beer is an experience and I respond to that.
How did you get involved with Boundary? Matthew [Dick] knew my work and approached me at the start to discuss what it would look like to make paintings for beer. I made three initial paintings for the core series, then began on every beer.
How do you approach each can? We do a tasting of the beer or talk about the concept behind it, then I normally mull over it for a while before starting to paint. I think about a physical landscape or environment where the beer might belong and start with that. Sometimes the painting expresses the character of the beer through
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How did you settle on the design style? My work is landscape inspired, sometimes figurative but often quite abstract. We decided early on that the Boundary paintings should be abstract. My aim is simple: make real, expressive, beautiful paintings that connect to each beer. Phil
colour and form or sometimes it’s more conceptual. The light, colour and atmosphere of the natural world and the experience of being present. What other artists do you admire? I’m inspired by Romanticism, the Sublime, American abstract expressionism, contemporary light art and painting in general. I was inspired by a recent trip to Berlin and the amount of great painting going on there How do you balance creating your own art and the designs for Boundary? For me it’s all part of my art, I have no problem wearing different hats. I often get inspired by a Boundary painting to develop something new in my other work. / @johnrobinsonart / johnrobinsonart.com
Six pack / The Mash
SIX
PACK
Everyone has a cause. Something that affects them, that stirs them, that makes them want to do good. Breweries have long realised that succeeding in business is more than making money, making great beer, it is also supporting a community, a charity, a cause. In this edition’s Six Pack, we’ve picked out half a dozen of the very many breweries who are raising money or awareness for people who need it. We’ve never had such amazing interaction on Twitter than when we asked about beers that had a cause. It turns out, brewers are a caring bunch. Thank you! DN
PROUD LGBTQIPA 4.1%
Cullercoats Royal Sovereign 11%
Described as the UK’s first queer beer, more than 20,000 bottles of this light IPA have been sold, raising money for PROUD’s LGBTQ+ charity partners. Grab the beer at their website.
Cullercoats Brewery in the north east has raised more than £42,000 for the RNLI over the years by donating money for every beer. Royal Sovereign is a stunning English barley wine.
Brewgooder Clean Water 4.9%
Many Hands Herd 4.5%
Brewgooder’s Clean Water Lager was made with the aim to provide access to clean water for 1m people, and it’s well on target. It is brewed at BrewDog and couldn’t have a cleaner taste.
Many Hands Brew Co focuses on community, and champions inclusivity. 10% of all profits go to charity. Herd is a classic stout with a hint of lactose to bring a balanced sweetness.
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BEERS WITH A CAUSE
Toast Craft Lager 5% Brilliantly subtitled ‘Much Kneaded’, this crisp Pilsner is made from surplus bread, plus all the profits go to Feedback, a group campaigning to eliminate food waste. Great beer too!
Moor Beer Co PMA 5.3% Bristol’s Moor Beer Co has brewed this fantastic canconditioned pale ale and donates a portion of the profits to the charity Hardcore Hits Cancer.
NOTTING HILL NOW OPEN 97 GOLBORNE ROAD, W10 5NL @realale_ltd
@RealAle_com
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Answers / The Mash
ANSWERS I met Juan Mayorga in 2017, when I was judging beer in Peru. In 2015, he had set up Cerveceria del Valle Sagrado in the town of Ollantaytambo, which is in the middle of the mystical Sacred Valley, one of the Incas’ holiest spots. His Inti Punku IPA was the first beer I drank when I checked into my hotel and on a visit to his brewery and adjoining tap house a day later, we had a porter, a saison and more of the IPA. They were all rather delicious. Recently over in the UK, where he did a stint at Hogsback Brewery, I caught up with him. ATJ
Brewing in the Sacred Valley is where we want to brew. We are very passionate about keeping it small, focusing on quality and on knowing where our ingredients are coming from. We all share a very passionate idea towards sustainability and rural lifestyles and brewing in the mountains. Chicha is the Incas’ beer, a traditional beer that has been drank in the Sacred Valley for hundreds of years. We have never made chicha though we have made a chicha Pilsner, playing off a pre-Prohibition lager style with the idea of bringing in 50% jora, a germinated corn together with barley and lager yeast.
The craft beer scene in Peru is exploding, it is super fun to be part of it. It has grown massively is the last few years, with new breweries popping up all over the place, mostly located in the major cities, Cusco, Arequipa and Lima. It is a super fun scene with all the players really involved in sharing information, and understanding that together we have a better chance of growing the industry.
As a brewery we have focused on innovation and have developed and brewed from over 80 different recipes over the years, including sour beers, barrel aged beers, stouts, lagers, various IPAs, including British ones, Belgian wits, saisons and various US styles. Innovation is important to us, it keeps us young and fresh, and keeps us passionate.
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JUAN MAYORGA / SACRED VALLEY
I was born in Peru to a British mother and Peruvian father, but when I was 10 we moved to the US where I spent 20 years before returning to start the brewery with a good friend of mine Joe Giammatteo and his wife Luisa. Joe was a brewer in the USA, having studied and worked at different breweries including Russian River. I was a home brewer but had worked in a couple of breweries in the US. We chose the Sacred Valley as an area because we really felt that at the time there was very little being done towards craft brewing in Peru and also saw the location as a lifestyle choice.
My time at Hogsback was very interesting. We are a very small brewery focused on diversifying our product list, while Hogsback is focused on creating a brand. The owner Rupert Thompson is really knowledgeable on the scene, and working with head brewer Miles Chesterman was a lot of fun. I came into it not knowing much about cask beer, and how the brewing practices and yeast management is done. One of the things Miles and I worked on was a couple of sour beers. We are focused on keeping things small, on creating a high quality product, keeping growth sustainable and well managed and keeping our product local. The idea of a local brewery that produces for the Cusco region using local products and local inspired beers, that is something that is really fun for us and that idea has been part of us since day one. / cerveceriadelvalle. com
The Mash / The Big Picture
The blessed airport of Stansted on a late Thursday morning and over 200 Equity Punks (and several members of the press) are waiting to set off on the inaugural BrewDog Airlines flight to Columbus. It’s check-in time and people are whooping, calling out to friends, displaying new tattoos and generally in a state of high excitement. In the airside Spoons, the Punk IPA and Elvis Juice gets the kind of hammering usually associated with football fans on the razz. Once airborne, BrewDog’s James Watt and Martin Dickie organise a beer-tasting or as Watt says, ‘this is the most fun stuff we’ve ever done, so screw you Heineken’. The flight is smooth, though as was reported back in the UK, the loos on the plane had to be closed 90 minutes before landing such was the use they were put to. No big deal. And all the time I was in Columbus, visiting BrewDog bars, their brewery and hotel, and various other taps and breweries, I kept thinking of an analogy with the Beatles — of how the band took American R’n’B and distilled it into their own lightweight pop and then returned it back to America in the process becoming bigger than Jesus. Is this BrewDog’s future? ATJ
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THE BIG PICTURE
Beer meets / The Mash
BOOKS Are there too many beer books being published? Probably. Do any of them sell? On the other hand, if you like to drink beer and dowse yourself in its culture, then beer books are an essential accessory. The three books we are reviewing this issue are all different takes on beer, food and pubs and all are worth your time and come from a smarter part of the universe.
AIRLINES BEER
MEETS
You know that feeling all too well. You want a beer as you look down on the Alps or scan the endless canvas of gunmetal sea, but all that’s on offer, between the scratch cards and boutique tat, is a tepid tin of the kind of lager you gave up drinking in school. However, there is something in the air, whether it’s Punk IPA on EasyJet or various craft beers on planes crossing the USA. So come and meet some members of the mile high hop club.
A Natural History of Beer Rob De Salle & Ian Tettersall There’s science and chemistry, biology and bits of stuff on molecules and atoms, but there’s also history and the how-and-why we drink beer and what it does to us and a feelgood feeling in this rather excellent book.
BrewDog Flight Club 4.5% ‘Transatlantic pale ale’ specially made for the BrewDog Airlines jaunt to Columbus and ideal for drinking at high altitude. Hazy pale yellow in colour with grapefruit and hints of lemon on the nose; soft mouth feel, subtle dry finish.
It’s the Beer Talking Ian Clayton This memoir of a life spent in pubs is a moving, funny, farfetched and honest as any yarn you’ll hear after a lock-in. This is how we save the Great British pub: making people sad they’re not in one right now.
Snæbjört 5% This pale ale is brewed by Boyne Brewhouse for Icelandair and is delicately and harmoniously fruity, with a hint of peach before it finishes bitter and dry. Apparently the abv of 5% is the average temperature within Iceland all year round.
The Beer Lover’s Table Claire Bullen with Jen Ferguson
St Austell Tribute 4.2%
Subtitled Seasonal Recipes and Modern Beer Pairings, this beautifully-photographed book divides the inventive recipes in beer styles, and sprinkles the chapters with interviews and insights. Such a sumptuous book. 11
Flying with BA? You’re due a Tribute then, as specially made 330ml cans of this zesty, citrusy, juicy, boisterously bittersweet beer are now available. We’re waiting for Big Job to follow next, which will really make the journey go turbo.
TELLING STORIES BRANDING / DESIGN / CONTENT MARKETING / WEB PRODUCTS
F R O M T H E P U B L I S H E R S O F O R I G I N A L G R AV I T Y M E D I A P R O P E R T I E S
DA N I E L @ D O N T LO O K D O W N M E D I A . C O M / D O N T LO O K D O W N M E D I A . C O M
DIRTY
JAM
UMEBOSHI
GOSE
PICKLED PLUM SOUR
Portfolio / The Mash
PORTFOLIO Seth Smith gave himself the task of drinking 500 beers and illustrating each one of them. To date, he’s up to 705 beers. / @the.art.of.beer / Buy prints from theartofbeer.store
You set yourself a task of drinking 500 beers and illustrating them all. Why? Big question. Long answer. The 500 beers a year idea was a rip-off from John Ashdown, a Guardian sport journalist. He mentioned it one week on Guardians flagship podcast Football Weekly, and I was daft enough to think, “thats a good idea”.
and improve my design skills. The project however, has become an integral part of my life. I’ve not stopped because I struggle with depression, and the daily illustration has become a great medicine. Keeps the mind busy in the evenings. Where are you up to with the illustrations? To date, I’ve illustrated 705 beers. It took 300 illustrations to really find my signature style. There’s been a few ropey illustrations - you’ll see some may been deleted in shame. The problem is I drink quicker than I draw, so I’m about 600 beers behind.
How did you get into illustrating beers? I’m a Creative Director by day at a Nottingham design agency. I get to be hand-on less and less, so at the start I was looking for a way to continue to finesse
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SETH SMITH / THE ART OF BEER
Thank goodness for UnTapped. Who has influenced your illustrations? All sorts really. I’ve always loved the use of concise shapes married with simple block colour. I think this derives from my love of Lego. There’s a beauty and art form in creating a visual narrative from a minimal number of parts. Illustrators Christoper Niemann and those at Noma Bar are the champions of storytelling with minimal marks. Their work is smart, but not showy, and inevitably aims to make you smile. I aim to do the same but my way.
The Mash / Tasting Notes
Carlsberg Pilsner 3.9%
Black Isle Brewery Marmalat 3%
Unbarred Brewery Tropic Soda 5.8%
I have tried three of the BrewDog Overworks range so far, you know the beers with mixed fermentation, esoteric ingredients and the use of foeders — or sours if you like. I loved Funk V Punk, while Aplomb Bomb was a case of ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ and I couldn’t finish it.
Yes, that Carlsberg. The cheap, cooking lager you’ve completely ignored since you tasted your first can of something awesome with some cool, wiggly drawings on the side. Carlsberg Pilsner will never be the most interesting beer we review in OG, but it’s worth mentioning because, in response to the growth of interest in flavourful beer, Carlsberg have taken the extraordinary step of saying “You know what? You craft beer guys are right. It isn’t good enough. We’re scrapping one of the biggest beers in the UK and reformulating it.” Dry-hopped and fuller-bodied, the new Carlsberg Pilsner still pulls some punches, but as a halfway point between cooking lager and proper Pilsner, it actually kind of works. PB
In all honesty, I thought I’d be writing about Black Isle Brewery’s imperial stouts, those beers that have been sleeping in whisky barrels sourced not far from the brewery. And don’t get me wrong the Oatmeal Stout East Coast Edition is a rich 10.2% liquid. You want to spend as much time breathing in its heady aromas as drinking it. But instead I find myself attracted to a 3% table beer. Marmalat is described as a Seville orange table beer. The dark, bitter notes from the organic Seville orange is there, but never overpowers. The depth of flavour, thanks partly to the organic barley and wheat, some of which is grown on their own farm, is nothing short of remarkable. Black Isle gives an appealing blend of principle and curiosity. DN
Talk about the wheel of life. For this beer, passionfruit, pineapple and mango have all been picked at some stages in their lives and little did they know that some of them would have ended up in NE IPA style beer made by a brewery in Sussex. The beer? Eclectic and stark raving mad according to a mindset I might have had several years ago, but perfectly acceptable now so I drink it and get the immediacy of mango and pineapple, sweaty, ripe, chopped up fruit pulp on the nose; I take a few gulps and get the vibe of a fruit juice that has gone rogue, fruit juice with added weight and heft, mid-palate sweetness and flurries of pineapple, mango and blueberry. It’s not the style of beer I like, but somehow Unbarred have made a style of beer I like. ATJ
ORIGINALITY (O)
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GULPER (G)
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Panavision Pink, however, is a delightful little drink, a phrase I never thought I would write about a beer with roses and rosehips in it. There are delicate rose-like notes on the nose, almost suggestive of Turkish Delight, with more of the same on the palate contrasting with an effervescent mouth feel and a bracing tartness in the finish. I tried it with a well-aged blue cheese and my delight continued. ATJ
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BrewDog Overworks Panavision Pink 5.5%
Tasting Notes / The Mash
Brooklyn Brewery Defender IPA 5.5%
Camden Town Brewery Week Nite 3%
Gloucester Brewery Imperial Stout 9%
Brasserie de la Senne Tripel Verschueren 8%
There’s a theory in beer circles that, given the potency of three simple initials, any beer can be rebranded as an IPA. Hoppy porter? Black IPA. Hoppy wheat beer? White IPA. Hoppy IPA? Er… Early in 2018, Brooklyn Master Brewer Garrett Oliver was caught off-guard describing New England IPA as an ‘Instagram beer’, and received some flak for it. Twelve months later, I can’t help seeing (and tasting) Defender (Defensive?) ‘Golden IPA’ as a wry response to that spat: Aren’t all IPAs golden? Sure, but this one is crystal clear and bright, and yet full of juicy tropical fruit aromas, with an easy-drinking low bitterness at the finish. If there are now two worlds in IPA, why not be the best of both? PB
This is the kind of beer that makes such perfect sense, it is almost like it’s always been here. Week Nite from Camden Town Brewery is a brand new 3% lager, an ‘Any-Day Lager’, that packs so much flavour, that it barely registers as low alcohol. What is apparent, is that it retains the flawlessly crisp and bone dry lagering that Camden Town exists for.
Gloucester Brewery has been quietly turning out excellent beers, whether it’s fantastically hoppy IPA or a cask golden ale. And the judges have been paying attention too, notching up dozens of awards. The most recent award from SIBA was for this Imperial Stout. It’s not a pastry stout, and there are no chillies in it. Instead, it’s an Imperial Stout that is simply exceptional. What makes it so good? Well, it’s the balance of fruit and bitter coffee, of warming alcohol and an admirable dryness. At 9%, it’s also manageably drinkable, not obnoxiously strong. Gloucester is a brewery that gets the basics nailed first, before pushing the boat out, and that’s to be respected. DN
When you’re reviewing any product in a magazine, it’s generally accepted that it’s polite to stick to something the reader can physically buy: otherwise you’re just showing off. Any reader of OG can in theory buy this beer no problem: all you have to do is jump on the Eurostar, head to Brussels, and walk about 15 minutes to the stunning Art Deco Brasserie Verschueren. Celebrated Brussels brewer Brasserie de la Senne brews this beer especially for the bar. Softer and smoother than a classic Tripel, but replete with all that style’s spicy, heady notes, it’s absolutely worth making the trip for. Ask nicely, and they’ll sell you a stupidly good value four-pack to bring home on the train. PB
O
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As with many low alcohol beers, brewers have turned to wheat to add flavour, and in Week Nite it brings a rasping complexity that makes it so very drinkable. There are more and more fantastic low alcohol beers out there, and this 3% lager strikes just the right balance. DN
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Flight / Feature
You lift me up For some it stokes fear and for others drives excitement. Three writers explore how beer is so often flight’s wingman.
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Illustration: Adam McNaught-Davis
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Feature / Flight
Flight / Feature
1. City of flights PARIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ESCAPE FOR ADRIAN TIERNEY-JONES. IT WASN’T. BUT SIX MONTHS IN THE CITY’S UNDERBELLY WAS LIFE-CHANGING
I had visions of sitting at a cafe table reading Hemingway or James Joyce or Thomas Wolfe, drinking beer or coffee, smoking the odd Gauloises, debating bollocks, Paris in the spring, drawing out words with the virtuosity of Toscanini waving his baton. The reality was different. ‘Mate, where’s that tab of acid you just gave me? I think I just dropped it.’ It was as clear as clingfilm and the Brit with a top-knot who’d sold it wasn’t happy. Grumbles, threats, the maleficent cock fights of men when pissed followed by proclaimed friendship and all was in the clear, just like the tab. ‘Don’t lose this one.’ I had another bottle
of Jenlain and went off to a party thrown by someone we didn’t know and remember sitting in a big armchair at around 6am thinking that I might have just turned up in Brideshead Revisited. I had intended to live in Paris for five years, after taking flight from an unhappy relationship and shitty job (I learnt oodles about publishing), write shit poems, possibly a shittier book, marry a model or a countess (from the Rhine, hopefully), possibly a stint in the Foreign Legion (very unlikely), improve my French (even unlikelier) and improve myself (I tried). This was flight. The phone rang. I was in the office of an English language magazine called Passion, where I learnt
how to proof-read and generally hung around and picked up the rudiments of journalism (incidentally it was where I had my first ever article published, a review of a shop that specialised in Navajo artefacts). It was my mother. ‘How is it going?’ ‘Fantastic.’ ‘I’ve sent you a cheque.’ ‘Fantastic.’ ‘Hope you’re not drinking too much.’ ‘Er.’ The truth was: this six month sojourn in Paris was one of the steps that took me onto what I write about today. We — an Irish photographer, a Texan Joycean scholar, an Oxbridge painter, a Parisian artist and several 19
This is where the ideal of flight leads you.
soixante-huitards — hung out at weekends in a bar called Bleu Nuit, which I cleaned on Sundays when it was shut. We drank Jenlain (before I knew what biére de garde was — that came later on reading Michael Jackson) and rhapsodised about the wine bottle size, the cork and the wire cage. Coming from countries where either Guinness, keg or Bud was in its ascendency we loved the display and enjoyed the beer, the depth charge of flavour that I can still recall today, even though we’d had a few bottles of what we called clochard wine before coming out. My flight ended six months later when I realised I wasn’t going to hook up with a model or a countess from the Rhine and that my French was going to
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Feature / Flight
BeerHeadZ This Nottingham pub, loved by Laura Hadland, is set in the Grade II* listed ‘Cabman’s Shelter’ by the main train station and has a superb selection of cask ales, keg beer and cider. Euston Tap One of the older craft beer venues in London. With 47 lines, this tiny spot is a muststop for anyone heading north out of Euston, or just if you fancy a great pint in London. Sheffield Tap Within the former Edwardian Refreshment & Dining Rooms of Sheffield station. It is a lovingly restored taproom and microbrewery with hundreds of beers from around the world. York Tap Set in a Grade A listed Edwardian building in York Train Station, this homely pub has 32 lines of cask and keg beer. DN
remain as bad as it was in school. Besides London seemed pretty cool for someone who wanted to write about music. On the other hand, this flight of mine brought me, in 2005, to Brasserie Duyck, the home of Jenlain, where I was late for an interview with the then MD Raymond Duyck. He was positively testy but I didn’t care as I was finally connecting with somewhere that had been an important part of my flight when I was young.
around bundles of bottles, while workers watched. Robotic arms took pallets of beer around the room before polythene smothered each pack of beer. And of course I couldn’t help but
remember those boozy days in Paris where a bottle of Jenlain was a reward and was now a memento of my flight.
2. Supliminal spaces
‘Come back tomorrow, my father will show you around,’ he said to me, before I left to stay in a weird chateau in the village where statues of the Virgin Mary skulked in odd corners. The next day, sharp and polished, I arrived at the brewery, as forklifts darted about, strongarming pallets of beer onto lorries and met Duyck senior. He took me through the brewery, explaining the process in French, I nodding as if I knew what he was on about. Then into the packaging room where bottles tinkled as they whizzed about on a conveyor belt, before packaging emblazoned with the logos of the brewery was tucked
LAURA HADLAND VISITS THE STATION PUB, AND ENJOYS THE SPACE IN BETWEEN SOCIETY Pubs often occupy liminal spaces in society. A crisp, refreshing pint or two of an evening is often the equivalent of an airlock between work and home life, allowing enough breathing space and perspective to put the workinzzzzzzg day to bed peaceably. My post-work pint is the one I have always prized most highly for this reason. But perhaps straddling boundaries in our lives more than most are railway station pubs. Here the rules and timings of the trains
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STATION PUBS
CONTINUED
inform the behaviour of drinkers as well as defining the rules of engagement. They provide an infinitely more preferable environment in which to kill time as compared to waiting bleakly and mutely on the platform. For pub goers, taking them out of their usual spaces and bestowing perceived freedoms leads to experimental behaviours. You may find a sudden inclination to try that 12% peanut and goji berry stout for the first time (unless you
home. Perhaps it is romantic of me to see the train station pub as more sociable than its more central counterparts, but I do enjoy the temporary suspension of reality that these transitional spaces create. Time stops. Voices flow. The beer glows.
Personally, I’m one of those who is drawn towards the more unusual offerings on the bar top. I revel in discovering a new brewery and an unusual flavour as a part of my jaunt out. I enjoy discussing what I am ordering with fellow travellers. Unusually, none of us are driving, but also none of us will be staying until last orders as we all have trains to catch. This allows for more of a no strings attached conversation, a willingness to dive in to a discussion in the knowledge that you have an easy escape route should your new companion turn out to be a bore.
Of course, playing host to a shifting, swaying population means that the more torpid publican has the perfect excuse to play fast and loose with quality control. After all, if an endless stream of faceless punters is passing through your doors, why bother spending all that time cleaning the lines thoroughly? The British railway system is about to spit another sucker out in your direction.
This makes this unique breed of pubs a little more chilled — they are part of the journey, but rarely a destination in their own right. The experience goes hand in hand with the extravagant gesture of grabbing a well chosen train can for the journey
This attitude does exist, but thankfully is not all pervasive. Finding a train station hostelry that really goes the extra mile in terms of service and a stock choice that impresses is not that hard. Half of the joy is discovering them unplanned and unannounced. Many around the country have built up loyal followings. In addition to small communities of geographically local regulars, those venues that boast a quality offer, knowledgeable
bar staff and a well kept pint find themselves held dear by loyal ‘frequent flyers’. These punters will stop in for a pint whenever they are in the area and they spread invaluable word of mouth recommendations back at their own local. In this way these pubs become ‘destination’ venues in their own right — places where you are assured of a welcome as warm as a glowing coal fire. They are almost habit forming in our human desire for the familiar. My station pub of choice is Nottingham’s bijoux BeerHeadZ. The Grade II* converted Cabman’s Shelter makes a charming and quirky venue. The solid range of beers and ciders underpinned by knowledgeable staff means they are consistently winning 21
see the pained look of the face of someone drinking it). You may also discover yourself swapping tales with other punters in a very uncharacteristic celebration of conviviality — how unBritish.
new loyalties from the slow but steady stream of passing trade. Some station pubs do not court this sense of transient community. The Parcel Yard in London’s Euston Station gives the air of a much more functional space. Every seat, ledge and flat surface groans under the weight of commuter posteriors seeking to avoid the purgatory of the dreary platform. It’s the pub where no one knows your name, packed to the gunwales due to the sheer mass of humanity that moves through our nation’s capital. But at least they have that comforting train station pint, a shining amber beacon guiding them through the transition from work to home.
Feature / Flight
3. Fly me to the mash tun SCARED OF FLYING? KATIE TAYLOR IS, BUT HAS FOUND A RITUAL IN THE AIRPORT PUB THAT HELPS I am not superstitious but around airports I become a slave to ritual. I hate to see a plane take off before I get through security; I put my hand on the outside of the plane before I step inside; I always sit by the window; I scrunch my eyes shut as we taxi down the runway, forcing clear visions of my destination onto the inside of my skull. And I always have a beer before I fly. The crowded airport bar is a refuge, my last chance to drink a beer on solid ground. I like to order something easy and soothing, like a pale ale or a bitter (or God forgive me, a Smooth), the glass finding a familiar grip in my right hand, and scan pale, unfamiliar faces for fear on a par with my own. 22
I have become terrified of flying. It’s unnatural, this engineering wonder of the modern age. Being catapulted into the air shouldn’t be widely accepted as normal behaviour. I think of all the amazing feats of invention that make flight possible as I clench my teeth and lightheadedly think about Little Langdale (my happy place) but the fact is, I don’t care. The whole thing is wrong. I hate the whoosh of the thrusters as the plane fights gravity, and the steep pitch as we climb against the wind above Manchester, and all the nightmarish other things we have to endure before we’re expelled into the turquoise world of clouds and ice and brocken spectres above. It’s not right. Gives me the fear.
The functional bar in in airport terminal is my usual haunt, and as I sit buzzing with adrenaline, I can look for wild, anxious eyes in the constant waves of faces passing through. Despite the hand pulls and decorative wine bottles, this is nothing like a pub. We’re in a waiting room, ordering beers before we’ve eaten breakfast, and the laminated tables and flashing departure boards are carefully placed to maximise the sensation of transience. As I sip I think about the flavours and name them, and run through the brewing process in my head, and think about how the yeasts were tiny, inconsequential things set down in an alien land of plentiful food and warmth and about
BEST AIRPORT BARS ACCORDING TO.. YOU @Shark4ChipDrink & @rivingtonbrewco @SGBrewCo at Melbourne Airport @MelissaCole The open air World is Flat bar by the lily pond, which is airside meaning you get actual daylight during layovers [Singapore’s Changi Airport Terminal 1] @robbiegaston Mikkeller CPH @pettyintrigues I know it’s a chain, and in Utah with its crummy liquor laws, but the Gordon Biersch at Salt Lake City International has a couple gems on its list but also the most spectacular view at an airport bar I know of, set against the Wasatch front range. @jyandell23 @StoneBrewing at San Diego airport @PhilLowry Squatters SLC. Chicago O’hare has a craft bar, Publican. @brewerwolf Airbräu in Munich Airport
Flight / Feature
‘It’s the lack of control,’ I’ve been told, but that doesn’t add up. I know, after years of practice, that I’m just picking up the radiation
of everyone else’s emotions, divining every minor upset, every hyperactive imagination, every lost passport, argument and thrown wobbly. The sensation of stress hangs in the air and clings to me like static. Being alert
finish my beer, take deep breaths and try not to think about the safety announcements and their disturbingly cheerful depictions of plane crash survival. I wonder if anybody else is hoping that their plane is delayed so they can stay here, in limbo,
comfort, drinking to dull the persistent whirr of doom and dread that’s disturbing my mantras that tell me yes, this will be worth it. Because it always is. I am travelling somewhere, and I’m about to bring back an experience I
“THE FUNCTIONAL BAR IN AN AIRPORT TERMINAL IS MY USUAL HAUNT, AND AS I SIT BUZZING WITH ADRENALINE” is what sends me spiralling, and the friendly arm of alcohol feels so reassuring around my shoulders. It dulls the cycle of panic, and allows my mind to wander into happier rooms. So I
where we can’t drop right out of the sky. I go to the bar again. Are we drinking because we want to enjoy a drink? Perhaps. I’m certainly not. I’m clutching my beer for
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how soon, that will be my situation too. I start imagining where everyone else is going based on their drinks. I check calmer faces. Their excitement makes me feel safer. Their fear reassures me. Their choices make me feel less guilty. In this pre-turbulence purgatory, arbitrary yard-arms have no authority. We drink, no matter the time, no matter the situation. Get the pints in, we’re going on a trip. It needs a starting point, and this is it.
can visit in my mind for the rest of my life. The forgettable moments I’ll spend in the air with tiny cans of Heineken are a small price to pay.
Photo Essay / Fair drinkin’ Australia has come a long way from stubby coolers and cans of Castlemaine XXXX, gently perspiring in a January heatwave. In this series of photographs, by Nic Crilly-Hargrave explores why, when it comes to drinking beer in Australia, everybody’s needs good neighbour(hood taproom)s. Transporting its beloved café culture to its craft beer scene, Collingwood’s Stomping Ground is inside and outside combined. Greenery, exposed brick, mismatched furniture. Stouts, porters, IPAs – it gets cold here, after all – plus goses and sours, because Melburnians are nothing if not creative. Barefoot beer drinkers roll in from the surf to the serving hatch at Lost Palms for a pot of sessionable Summer golden ale. It’s all sunbleached t-shirts and tropical pastels at this Miami watering hole. Further along Queensland’s Gold Coast, a neon smile glows as the sun sets over Balter’s industrialchic warehouse in Burleigh, while Stone & Wood’s colourful, cavernous taproom pedals good vibes and tasting paddles. A different postcode, a different personality. That’s how neighbours become good friends.
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/ niccrillyhargrave.com
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Fair drinkin’ / Photo Essay
Essay / Intoxication
In praise of intoxication PETE BROWN PUTS HIS GLASS DOWN BRIEFLY IN ORDER TO INCULCATE IN US THE IDEAL OF INTOXICATION
I’m not three sheets to the wind, but I’m a long way out from the safe port of sobriety. I’m on holiday. The sun has just set, and I’ve been drinking since lunchtime. The amount I’ve drunk is irrelevant, because for different people, at different times, on different drinks, the amount it takes to get here varies. The point is, I’m in a state where I feel bawdy, belligerent and brilliant. The blood flowing through my legs feels like cold liquid fire. My arms feel strong enough to swing me up onto the balcony above. My skin is vibrating at a low, gentle buzz, reminding me just how alive I am right. Now. Most importantly, my consciousness/spirit/ soul (delete according to your religious beliefs or lack thereof) feels like King Kong tearing off
heavy iron shackles, a rocket thudding through the outer atmosphere nearing the point where weightlessness kicks in, your favourite band about to go onstage as the auditorium vibrates with the chants and stamps demanding their entrance. Intoxication is a sacred state. Before alcohol was a soothing relief at the end of a day’s labours, it was a ceremonial act of communion with the gods. It remains the blood of Christ. The naturally occurring sources of intoxication — be they fermented drinks or plants growing naturally — have without exception been explained in legend and lore as gifts from the gods, often as a consolation for the knowledge of our mortality. Intoxication is euphoria. We often describe how alcohol lowers social inhibitions, makes us feel more relaxed. 26
I’m writing this essay in a state of intoxication.
But follow it down the rabbit hole, drink mindfully, and you can see, and feel, that it’s more than that. It’s not just ‘lowering social inhibitions’, for gods’ sakes — it’s creating a sense of fellowship and mutual understanding. It’s not just relaxation; it’s a coming alive within yourself. It would of course be foolish to deny the problems that intoxication can cause. Intoxicating substances are dangerous, like fire or water can be dangerous. You need to know what you’re doing around them. But whenever someone excuses their sins with the pathetic plea of ‘The drink made me do it!” I think, well the drink didn’t make me do it, and I drank more than you. When some creep assaults someone at a party and blames the booze, we never point out that everyone else at the party was drinking the same
booze, and out of all the people who were there, this one creep is the only person that assaulted someone. We live at a time when intoxication itself — irrespective of what we do while intoxicated — has come to be seen as a sin. We have big brains weighed down with all sorts of existential fat, and it’s considered a moral failing to temporarily alleviate that weight by deliberately changing our brains with psychoactive substances. Intoxication is no failing. If it were, then religion, art, dance, poetry, courtship, crap knob gags and civilisation itself must all be counted as aspects of failure. Bollocks to that. Sorry for the language, but as I said, I’m intoxicated just now.
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Beer Traveller / Nottingham
NOTTINGHAM
By Adrian Tierney-Jones
Then, as the evening galloped towards the precipice of night, in a perverse fashion it finally dawned on me what the most striking and sensual feeling that embraced an evening on the beer in Nottingham was. At the tap for Neon Raptor at Sneinton Market, where I fell upon a glass of
Critically Endangered Imperial Porter as if it was the last beer on earth (it wasn’t even the last beer of the night), here was where I realised that when you go out in Nottingham you go out in a city of light. The light shone above the bar at Neon Raptor, where its name was picked out in a stutter and strutter of neon, flinging out its message, to the accompaniment of loud metal. The bar itself, behind which stood stainless steel tanks, was rather bleak and sparse, but the neon and a string of lights draped above gave it a luminosity and a sense of life you don’t always get in such taps. As I contemplatively sipped from my glass of Critically Endangered (creamy and slightly bitter), I continued 28
I’d spent an evening in Nottingham, poking my nose in and out of a variety of bars and pubs, busy places where words and laughter clattered into each other like particles in a particularly social Hadron Collider. I had drunk deeply of beers from the likes of Castle Rock, Angel Microbrewery and Black Iris, whose Gimme Fruit, Gimme Fire, Give Me That Which I Papaya was a juicy, fruity, hazy, milkshake daftness of a name.
to think about light. Earlier in the evening, at the Malt Cross, a former music hall dating from 1799 that had until recently stood as idle and unwanted as a washed up comedian, I stood on the wrought iron balcony and saw lights glittering everywhere. Down below the bar was a goldfish bowl from where voices roses like plumes of smoke to the glass arched ceiling, but it was the flitter and glitter of lights that made an impression. At the Barley Twist, a former sweet shop near the station, but now devoted to beer and wine, the small bar at the back reminded me of a confessional booth in a Spanish Cathedral, about which a bead of lights dipped and curved and cleaved through any darkness the thought of a confessional booth would evoke.
Though as if to act as a yin to light’s yang, the cave beneath the Angel, one of the oldest pubs in the city, was dim and slightly dystopian, a mood that soon lifted as I returned up to the pub and dived into a glass of Yippee Ay Ay, a Belgian style IPA brewed on the premises. I had returned to the light. Sometimes you can discover the soul of a city through its pubs and bars and that night at the start of February the light shone through the soul of Nottingham. You should try and bathe in it, which we, Original Gravity, will be doing with our live show during Nottingham Craft Beer Week on June 11. Come and join us. nottinghamcraftbeer.co.uk
Nottingham / Beer Traveller
“SOMETIMES YOU CAN DISCOVER THE SOUL OF A CITY THROUGH ITS PUBS AND BARS, AND THAT NIGHT THE LIGHT SHONE THROUGH THE SOUL OF NOTTINGHAM.”
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Clockwise from top left: The Angel Microbrewery, Barley Twist, The Angel, Malt Cross, Black Iris
/ Your Round @KieranSpeirs
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Theme: 'Pub pets'
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@OGBeerMag / #OGYourRound
WE’RE LIVING FOR THE WEEKNIGHTS, SO WE MADE THIS BEER. UNFILTERED, DRY-HOPPED AND FULL OF FLAVOUR, IT’S LOWER IN ABV, SO MORE LIKE DANCING IN THE KITCHEN THAN AN ALL-NIGHT RAVE (THOUGH WHAT YOU DO ON A TUESDAY IS UP TO YOU).
WEEK NITE ANY DAY LAGER | 3.0% abv AVAILABLE NOW IN TESCO