News, nuggets and longreads 31 August 2024: Concrete Island

Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time we’ve got wartime lager, perfect pubs, and more.

First, news of an event: there’s an opportunity to find out more about brewing material held by the London Archives (formerly the London Metropolitan Archives) on Friday 13 September. You need to book tickets. We’ve done lots of research there over the years and it’s a great library with a fantastic collection of brewing logs. If you’ve ever thought about researching some aspect of brewing in London, this could be a good place to start. You’ll need to book a slot.

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We often give the top slot in this round-up to pieces from Pellicle but this week’s, by Will Hawkes, really is a stand out. It tells the story of Dr. Dora Kulka, a Jewish refugee from Austria, who ended up working in Sheffield during the war:

Dora produced a stout (“Your vitamin stout is good,” Erna Hollitscher, to whom she sent a bottle, told her; “In spite of the protest of some English people I still don’t think it is so very different from beer!”), a pale ale and, most significantly, a lager. She probably thought little of it, but for the powers-that-be at The Hope Brewery it was like a lightbulb flickering on. Just a few years later, Claywheels Lane became the first British home of Carling Black Label, the beer that started the British lager revolution, and that has been the nation’s favourite since the early 1980s… It started with Dora.

And the statement from a 91-year-old interviewee that “Sheffield water was similar to that of Pilsen” offers another lightbulb moment.

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Jane Stuart writes detailed blow-by-blow accounts of pub crawls in British towns and cities, often on matchday. This week she takes us on a tour of Clitheroe in Lancashire:

I was asked if I was drinking inside or out. Whilst I was hoping for inside, it was busy in here, so I couldn’t be certain of bagging a seat. I therefore hedged my bets and ended up with plastic glasses. This isn’t something that bothers me as it does some folk; they’ve still got beer in them, which is the important thing… As it was, I headed out back and found a seat at a table with a lot of empty glasses on it (profuse apologies were offered when it was cleared) but otherwise I didn’t have to share my table… There wasn’t much signal going on here either so I took to earwigging on the group at the next table… ‘I’ve got beers and champagne for later by the way. No food.’… I figured that would get messy.

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For Pursuit of Hoppiness brewer Kieran Haslett-Moore has written thoughtfully about the positive part beer plays in the lives of drinkers:

I spend my days working in a brewery separated from the dining room of our restaurant by a glass wall. While people look on and watch me the reverse is also true, and I get to watch people sitting and drinking beer together hundreds of times every week. They are taking part in something that has been happening since the dawn of civilization. The coming together to slowly ingest an intoxicant, which when things go well, relaxes those taking part, reduces their ability to use guile or deception and lowers the barriers to social cohesion… Alcohol sedates the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is crucial to lying, subterfuge, and the suppression of desires. By taking drink together we are ritually ingesting a truth serum. And so I watch people drink beer together in business meetings, after work, on dates, before weddings, and after funerals. I watch them find unity in their tribe or — to use the modern terminology — I watch them engender a sense of belonging.

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Pete Brown has played the beer writer’s favourite game: attempting a fresh spin on George Orwell’s famous essay ‘The Moon Under Water’. Pete’s perfect pub is called ‘The Old Stone House’:

There’s a big open fire at one end of the room. In winter, you have to be here at opening time to claim the table next to it. There’s also a large, shiny-seated wooden chair opposite. It’s the kind of chair you just know you don’t sit in unless you’ve been drinking here since the pub was built… The walls and ceilings are decorated with random stuff – nothing as obvious as horse brasses or old black-and-white photos of the pub. A lot of the décor relates to the name of the pub (which isn’t really the Old Stone House.) But on top of that (sometimes literally) there’s a collection of old scythes. A bowsaw. A 1930s policeman’s helmet. A case full of arrows.

We guessed the twist – the LED bulbs gave it away. It’s made us think there’s probably a whole anthology, or at least a zine, in this idea. Moons under Water maybe?

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Speaking of (maybe) perfect pubs (or cafes) Franz Hofer has painted a picture of the Poechenellekelder in Brussels:

A one-time puppet theater, Poechenellekelder hides out in plain view across from one of the most famous statues in the world. The café does get its share of tourists, many of whom sun themselves on the large terrace that spills out in the direction of Manneken Pis, but it’s not nearly as touristy as Delirium Café on the other side of the Grand Place… And it’s unique. The well-worn interior with warm wood tones is given over to a comprehensive collection of dolls and puppets, including renditions of the famous kid outside. But that’s not all. Poechenellekelder is also a riot of old comic strips, dusty hops strewn from the rafters, barrels of various sizes, old photographs and engravings, beer signs, old musical instruments, and even a vintage sled and crossbow. It’s abuzz with conversation in the evening, the dim light limning the puppets ready for their cameo in a cabaret act that could seemingly begin at any time. If you arrive during the day, the best seats are along the Rue du Chêne, where you can divide your time between watching the people outside and inventing stories about each piece of interior décor.

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Finally, from BlueSky, an evocative image…

Quiet in The City (although only slightly quieter then normal in the pubs). Much nicer this way

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— Will Hawkes (@handle.invalid) Aug 30, 2024 at 14:57

For more good reading check out Stan Hieronymus’s round-up from Monday and Alan McLeod’s from Thursday.