The Pellicle Podcast

I first met Chris Schooley, and his business partner Steve Clark, back in 2015—not long after they had established their business, Troubadour Maltings, in the city of Fort Collins, Colorado. I had visited malthouses in the UK before, and looked on in awe at their immense scale, but what I found at Troubadour was something different entirely, not just in terms of their smaller scale, but in terms of the quality and flavour of what they were producing. Initially working out of a concrete saladin box that allowed them to produce up to five tons of malt at a time, what I discovered at this little malthouse was familiarity; I saw craft beer in what they were producing. Over time, and repeated visits to the malthouse, I got to know Steve and Chris well, and they became good friends. I would love listening to Chris in particular wax lyrical about the “potential” of barley malt, so much in fact that I credit him in my book, Modern British Beer, for helping me to properly connect beer back to its agriculture. Troubadour has gradually grown into a well-regarded “craft maltster”—as they are known in the US—one of about 70 nationwide. And things didn’t slow down for them in lockdown, when they installed equipment that allowed them to triple capacity, as well as a new roaster that allows them to customise darker malts to brewers exacting specifications. Over their relatively short lifespan they’ve provided malt for large breweries like Odell, Oskar Blues, and New Belgium, as well as smaller breweries including TRVE, Cohesion, and Primitive. Honestly, you’ll have to take it from me that you can really taste the difference in Troubadour’s malt, and the beer it produces. Where often you’ll hear this ingredient forms the “backbone” of beer, for me it’s about more than that. It’s about flavour, and freshness. If you ever find yourself in Northern Colorado seek out a glass of TRVE’s Cold keller pils and taste it for yourself. Beers like this, and how maltsters like Troubadour are working closely not just with brewers, but with farmers—closing the loop on the agricultural supply chain—make me excited for what could be ahead in beer’s future. This episode of The Pellicle Podcast is sponsored by Hand & Heart. We’ve partnered with them to offer listeners of The Pellicle Podcast a free 30-minute advice session. You could be a business owner wondering what the hell DEI means, an employee wanting to upskill, thinking about starting a business, or at a loss of how to develop your current business. To sign up head to www.handandheart.eu/pelliclePellicle is supporter by our Patreon subscribers — please consider helping to keep our independent magazine and podcast sustainable with a monthly, or yearly donation.

A disclaimer: this episode of The Pellicle Podcast is intended as a piece of escapism. Since this episode was recorded in early February, a lot has changed in the world around us. As much as we don’t want to minimize this, we also accept that this is a podcast largely about beer, and other tasty beverages, and this episode is presented very much in the spirit of that.While the majority of our episodes are either driven by an interviewee, or by an idea our host wants to spend a little time mulling over, this time we’ve changed things up. Several of our regular listeners have sent in questions over the past few weeks, which over the next hour Matthew dutifully works his way through. What came as a surprise is that it afforded the opportunity to really dig into what’s happening in beer at the moment, and expand on what that might mean for makers and drinkers alike over the next few months and years. We hope you enjoy this episode. If you enjoyed it and you think we should do it again, or if you have any feedback about the podcast in general, drop us a line to matthew@pelliclemag.com. This episode of The Pellicle Podcast is sponsored by Hand & Heart. We’ve partnered with them to offer listeners of The Pellicle Podcast a free 30-minute advice session. You could be a business owner wondering what the hell DEI means, an employee wanting to upskill, thinking about starting a business, or at a loss of how to develop your current business. To sign up head to www.handandheart.eu/pellicle

Speaking of Katie Mather as both a peer, and as a friend, she is someone who continually impresses me. I first came across her work through her old blog, called The Snap and The Hiss, and was enamoured with her writing from the very first sentence. Since then she’s gone from strength to strength, producing a series of wonderfully evocative articles, and taking on editorial roles both at new wine publication Glug and here at Pellicle.Having her on board as a regular contributor alone was a thrill, and if you read her pieces such as this one on the nostalgia of burger vans, or her epic taxonomy of the British bread roll (the most read feature we’ve ever published) you’ll soon understand why. Taking her on as an associate editor deepened her connection to the work we publish. What editors do largely happens behind the curtain, but you can see her influence on pieces such as Josh Barrie’s profile of a very special branch of Londis in North London, or in my own feature about Sheffield’s Brewery of St. Mars of the Desert. We are so stoked to get to work with her, and can’t wait to see what else she brings to our little magazine.But the depth of Katie’s talents don’t end there. In late 2019, she and her husband Tom finally got the keys to their bar, Corto. Based in their hometown of Clitheroe, situated in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley, Corto is part of a new wave of bars slowly emerging within the United Kingdom. Inspired by the food and drink culture of Northern Spain, the bar merges the concepts of craft beer, natural wine, cider and delectable small plates into something that is far greater than the sum of its parts. I’m biased, but you should visit. You’ll be planning your next trip there before you’ve got halfway through your first pint, or whatever’s by the glass on that particular day.As a bonus, before the interview I dig into some of the bigger beer news that’s occurred lately. From Monster acquiring the Canarchy collective of breweries in the United States, to Lion announcing it is to sell UK acquisitions Fourpure and Magic Rock, there’s a lot to dig into. And that’s before I take the chance to chew through the BBC’s recent documentary on Scottish brewery BrewDog, and why I think its behaviour reflects badly on the entire British craft beer scene.It’s a bumper episode, and I hope you enjoy listening. Don’t forget to hit subscribe and leave a rating if you’ve got a second, as this will help more folks find the show. You might also see we’ve got a new logo thanks to our resident designer Tida Bradshaw. It felt like it was time to give the podcast a little spruce up, so we hope you like that. This episode of The Pellicle Podcast is sponsored by Hand & Heart. We’ve partnered with them to offer listeners of The Pellicle Podcast a free 30-minute advice session. You could be a business owner wondering what the hell DEI means, an employee wanting to upskill, thinking about starting a business, or at a loss of how to develop your current business. To sign up head to www.handandheart.eu/pellicleIn the show an article I wrote for Novara Media is referenced, which can be read here: https://novaramedia.com/2021/06/15/could-brewdogs-cancellation-trigger-a-reckoning-across-the-craft-beer-industry/

Look, here’s the truth. I would love it if more of you listened to my podcast, and so please accept this episode as a bribe. I want you to know what my favourite beers, wines and ciders of the year are, and I want you to revel in the joy of experiencing them as much as I did. But if you want to find out what they are, which includes no less than 17 beers (in hindsight, post-edit, I will make this smaller next year) then you’ve got to tune in. I won’t be sharing this list anywhere else.I love making this podcast, it’s become one of my favourite mediums for creativity. This has become especially the case since I switched up the format of the show towards the end of 2020. I’m stoked that those who listen to it enjoy the style, and my off the cuff riffing on our favourite beverages, and I pledge to try and record as many as I’m physically capable of in 2022.I’m especially thankful of the support of both our new sponsor, Hand & Heart, along with our generous Patreon subscribers. Thanks to them I’ve got a bit more time and space to spend more time producing podcasts this year, which means more episodes for you to enjoy! If you’re able to support our content at Pellicle, then please consider signing up to our Patreon. Every penny goes back into making more features and podcasts.Please enjoy this list of things I really enjoyed over the past 12 months, and stay tuned, because we’ve already got more episodes in post production that should be released soon!This episode of The Pellicle Podcast is sponsored by Hand & Heart. We’ve partnered with them to offer listeners of The Pellicle Podcast a free 30-minute advice session. You could be a business owner wondering what the hell DEI means, an employee wanting to upskill, thinking about starting a business, or at a loss of how to develop your current business. To sign up head to www.handandheart.eu/pellicle

A small piece of me permanently exists in the city of Fort Collins, Colorado. Ever since my dad emigrated from the UK and took a job here in 2010 I have visited often, and become more enamoured with the place each time I do so. While it was the beer that first made me form an attachment with Fort Collins (and, indeed, start writing about it) over the years it became more to me than simply a place I visited. Trips were about seeing friends, hiking, relaxing by the Poudre River, and, over time, the beer became less central to each visit. At least, that’s what I convinced myself.The truth is, as a true beer enthusiast it was always about the beer. And I was reminded about how much this matters to me when New Belgium—headquartered in Fort Collins and once the fourth largest craft brewer in the United States—announced its sale to Australian firm Lion in November 2019. The news of this triggered in me a deeply emotional response. So tied had I become to the story, the people and the product of this place that I could not figure out how to deal with it.I had hoped to reconcile these feelings on a scheduled visit in April 2020, but when the inevitable happened and my flights were cancelled, this thought process had to be temporarily paused. Thankfully I was finally able to make my way back to Colorado in November 2021 (and I reflect on this trip during the episode.) This meant I was finally able to visit the New Belgium Taproom, enjoy a pint, chat to my friends who work there, and try and figure out how I feel about the next stage in this brewery’s journey. Those thoughts stowed away, once I returned home I turned on the mic and riffed on those feelings. Is it truly irrational to have a strong emotional response when a brewery you’re fond of sells out? In this episode, I make my best attempt to answer that question.I’m also thrilled to welcome on board a brand new sponsor for this episode. Hand and Heart is a business consultancy focussed on supporting industries including hospitality—and that includes breweries and other beer-centric firms. We’ve partnered with them to offer listeners of The Pellicle Podcast a free 30 minute advice session. You could be a business owner wondering what the hell DEI means, an employee wanting to upskill, thinking about starting a business, or at a loss of how to develop your current business. To sign up head to www.handandheart.eu/pellicleIf the Hand and Heart sound familiar, it’s because they recently published the documentary podcast Super Cool Toxic Workplace, investigating the allegations of abuse and toxic workplace culture at the Danish brewery, Mikkeller. We’re thrilled to partner with a business that shares the values we have at Pellicle, and thank them for their support in helping our own podcast to flourish.

I couldn’t imagine Burning Sky Brewery and Blendery being located anywhere else. Situated in the village of Firle, nestled amid the rolling South Downs National Park, here is a brewery that’s very much of time and a place. The beers it produces—from traditional cask ales, to US-inspired IPAs, and the sublime beverages that come from its barrel ageing program—are a reflection of this, and of the people who brew and blend them. In the latest episode of the podcast, I sat down for a chat with the brewery’s founder, Mark Tranter. With over two decades experience in the beer industry, it was wonderful to get the opportunity to pick his brains, reminisce about some of these experiences, and to find out what the future has in store for Burning Sky.Visiting Firle, and the neighbouring town of Lewes, has become something of an annual pilgrimage for me. The first time I travelled there in 2017, Mark kindly arranged for me to visit the magical Harvey’s Brewery, as well as some of the amazing pubs the town has to offer. On subsequent visits I’ve discovered new treasures, including Beak and Abyss brewery, as well as deciding on my definitive Lewes beer destinations. (The Brewers Arms, The Gardners, and Patch Beer Café, for those interested.) On this trip I was also lucky enough to brew a beer with Burning Sky which we called The Broad Spectrum of Joy, after the first chapter of my recent book, Modern British Beer. The beer was subsequently released a few months later to celebrate its launch. It was during this arduous day of brewing, on a scorching hot July day, that I found the chance to catch up with Mark, and record this conversation, which I hope you enjoy. During the intro of this podcast I also mention another podcast by Kate Bailey, called Super Cool Toxic Workplace. As I alluded to during the episode, this is an essential listen, and more context can be found on episode 25 of The Pellicle Podcast. Find Super Cool Toxic Workplace here.

The start of 2020 was an especially weird time for me—not just for the obvious reasons with the pandemic swirling around us in those early stages—but because right at the cusp of it I signed a book deal. I’d come up with the rough idea and concept for Modern British Beer in 2018, having thought at length about how the emergence of well over 1000 new breweries in the UK had changed our beer culture forever. But what I didn’t realise then was the idea needed time. Some of that was to allow the idea to properly gestate and to become fully formed, but the rest of it was waiting to find the right home for it. That home turned out to be the capable hands of CAMRA Books; the publishing arm of the Campaign for Real Ale, and the gracious editing of Alan Murphy and Katie Button, to whom I am incredibly thankful. In this episode I work through the ideas at the book’s core. I explore how I created my own personal beer philosophy, which I call “the broad spectrum of joy” as well as explaining why my definition of what constitutes beer as being “modern”, at least, in context of the book and how I think about beer these days. I then try to explain (or make excuses for) how I selected the 86 beers to use as case studies which, together, I hope form a solid case for how I feel beer in the UK has changed so dramatically over the past 20 years—but also, in many ways, has stayed exactly the same as it has always been.I’ve also used this episode as a chance to pick up on some current affairs—namely, the controversy presently surrounding Denmark’s Mikkeller Brewing company in the wake of numerous accusations of sexual harassment and toxic workplace culture from several former employees. This situation escalated on the eve of the brewery’s annual Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen (MBCC) event in late October, which saw over 40 breweries pull out at the 11th hour so as not to associate their brand with the accused. Kate Bernot at Good Beer Hunting has been covering this in some detail for several months, and I recommend catching up on what’s happening by reading her excellent reporting here:https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/sightlines/2021/7/1/former-mikkeller-employees-allege-culture-of-bullying-harassment-and-indifferencehttps://www.goodbeerhunting.com/sightlines/2021/10/29/mikkeller-meetings-a-chaotic-situation-as-brewery-focuses-on-hr-issues-not-survivors-voicesModern British Beer is available now from all good retailers, including several brewery tap rooms and bottle shops. You can get yours direct from the publisher here:https://shop1.camra.org.uk/product-category/modern-british-beer/

It’s been a hot minute since our last episode and for this I can only apologise. Work and life has gotten in the way for too long, however, and I’m pleased to present our latest episode at last. Over the next hour you’ll hear Pellicle co-founder Jonny Hamilton chat to long time friend, and regular Pellicle contributor James Albon. An exceptionally talented illustrator, James has illustrated for the likes of the Wall Street Journal, CAMRA’s Beer Magazine, and for us at Pellicle. You might recognise his work from Eoghan Walsh’s piece on Brasserie de la Senne Zinnebir, or Hollie Stevens’ recent missive on catering, catharsis and collapse. He’s also recently released his latest graphic novel, The Delicacy, which charts a pair of young, ambitious restaurateurs who struggle with the relentless demand of the high end dining world.Jonny and James talk about the book, as well as some of the real world stories in food and dining that draw eerie parallels. It’s a wonderful chat we sincerely hope you enjoy. Stay tuned, as we’ve got another bunch of episodes in the pipeline that we’ll try to get with you as soon as possible.Buy The Delicacy here.

Ever since I first tried the vibrant, deliciously spiced food at its original Leeds site back in 2014, I have been besotted with Bundobust. It’s 100% vegetarian/vegan menu changed my preconceptions of what a modern Indian restaurant offering could look like. Especially one with such a focus on craft beer—which is more often associated with food such as American barbecue (and its many regional variants) or other meat-focused fare. Although it was definitely the eclectic beer offering that first drew me in—and has made me something of a regular—Bundobust helped me understand, and get excited about regional variances in traditional Indian cuisine. A few years ago I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you what bhel puri was, or about the delights of the (now albeit somewhat ubiquitous) vada pav. But now this style of cuisine feels familiar, and comforting. Perfectly at home in the lively, modern surroundings Bundobust has set it within. But Bundobust founders Mayur Patel and Marko Husak are not content with operating just three successful restaurants. Venues that have received seriously high acclaim in the national press. In 2021 they’re expanding by opening their own brewery, which is housed in a soon to open fourth site on Manchester’s busy Oxford Street. For the past eight months, recently hired head brewer Dan Hocking has been toiling away on a brand new brewing system, fine tuning recipes which finally saw the light at the end of June 2021. I was delighted to have the opportunity to catch up with Mayur, Marko and Dan, and find out why they’ve decided to move into this direction. It was also the perfect opportunity to dig into the origins of the restaurant, as well as ask a few questions about the bigger picture, such as the gentrification of Indian food, and where Bundobust sees itself in relation to that. We also dig into the beers themselves, and where the restaurant sees itself going in the future. Here’s a couple of links to pieces mentioned in this episode:Jaega Wise talking about sexism in the drinks industry for BBC Radio 4’s The Food ProgrammeZarina Muhammad’s article “I Hate Dishoom” for The White Pube

It often dawns on me that, as cool as my job of being a writer is, it’s also pretty-fucking-weird. This never felt more the case than over the past nine months where I worked on not one, but two very different books. Not only is having a self-defined career writing (predominantly) about beer, cider and wine strange, but it’s also quite a lonely experience, and largely revolves around working solo. This has felt especially true over the past 18 months. This—incredibly self-indulgent episode—is part explainer, part therapy session, where I talk about the idiosyncrasies of what I do for a living, my process as a writer, and what it’s really like on my side of the screen. It’s something that I’ve wanted to talk about for a long time, and honestly it felt really good getting it out there. To round out this episode I also read what I consider to be my personal favourite piece of feature writing of my career so far: my profile of Sheffield’s Brewery of St. Mars of the Desert. If you’re interested in writing, especially regarding food and drink, then this episode is for you.You can pre-order Matthew's new book Modern British Beer here.