It’s a standing joke amongst horror fans that you can make the case for almost anything to be part of the ‘folk horror’ sub-genre. But what about real ale?
This thought started with a conversation I was having on BlueSky about cultural cycles of reaction against technology in which I said:
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the Campaign for Real Ale, The Wicker Man and the English Morris dancing revival all landed at about the same time.
The Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy and released in 1973, is arguably the key text in understanding what folk horror means.
It stars Edward Woodward as a mainland policeman sent to a remote island to investigate the disappearance of a girl.
He finds that the people of Summerisle practice a form of paganism and, though they’re a weirdly friendly bunch, he soon discovers that sacrifice plays an important part in their religion.
Other important examples of folk horror include The Blood on Satan’s Claw, directed by Piers Haggard, released in 1971, and the 1973 novel Harvest Home by American writer Thomas Tryon.
For a fuller explanation of what folk horror is, or might be, check out this post from Rowan Lee and, indeed, her entire blog.
The main point is that many of the stories concern secretive cults which are unwelcoming to outsiders and cling to arcane practices and rituals. Which brings us to CAMRA.
Calm down! I’m kidding. Sort of.
If you’ve read Brew Britannia you’ll know that Jess and I made the case there for CAMRA as part of a post-post-war reaction against modernity. After 20 years of space age, atom age technology, including keg beer and concrete pubs, it felt like time to get back to basics – and to nature.
We highlighted connections with preservation movements, protest movements, and E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful.
In 1976 CAMRA founder Michael Hardman even wrote a book called Beer Naturally (we have a signed copy) which opens with this statement:
Beer at its best is a reflection of a golden field of barley, a reminder of the rich aroma of a hop garden. Scientists can argue endlessly about the merits of the man-made concoctions which go into much of today’s beer but the proof of the pint is in the drinking… the best of British beer is produced from the gifts that nature gave us and by methods which have been proudly handed down over the centuries. The story of beer is a story of nature and of craftsmanship; a story of farmers and brewers who join forces to create beer naturally.
Now, try reading that in the voice of Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, whose actual speech goes:
What attracted my grandfather to the island, apart from the profuse source of wiry labor that it promised, was the unique combination of volcanic soil and the warm gulf stream that surrounded it. You see, his experiments had led him to believe that it was possible to induce here the successful growth of certain new strains of fruit that he had developed. So, with typical mid-Victorian zeal, he set to work. The best way of accomplishing this, so it seemed to him, was to rouse the people from their apathy by giving them back their joyous old gods, and it is as a result of this worship that the barren island would burgeon and bring forth fruit in great abundance.
We’ve written before about the spooky potential of pubs, including The Green Man in The Wicker Man and, of course, The Slaughtered Lamb in An American Werewolf in London. That’s not generally considered folk horror but those scenes on the Yorkshire moors could definitely be framed that way.
Beer loosens inhibitions. Beer puts people in touch with their animal instincts. Beer is magic.
The crossover between folk + horror + beer is perhaps best captured in a traditional song recorded by Traffic in 1971 as ‘John Barleycorn Must Die’:
“There were three men came out of the West
Their fortunes for to try
And these three men made a solemn vow
John Barleycorn must die…”
Just to run over those dates again:
- The Blood on Satan’s Claw, 1971
- ‘John Barleycorn Must Die’, 1971
- CAMRA is founded, 1972
- The Wicker Man, 1973
Much as I was enjoying my thought experiment, I wanted a sense check, and immediately thought of Lisa Grimm.
She’s a beer blogger and podcaster who I also happen to know enjoys folk horror. She says:
The Venn diagram of real ale, CAMRA, folk horror and – depending on whom you ask, more or less tangentially – mainstream archaeology in the mid-to-late 1960s and 1970s is not quite a circle, but there is a huge amount of overlap.
While archaeologists have always liked their beer (I’m pretty sure I learned more about beer than prehistory in my two degrees) popular archaeology fed into the eventual folk horror media landscape starting in 1968, when Richard J. C. Atkinson’s work at Silbury Hill was broadcast on the BBC.
This makes its way into Doctor Who in 1971 in The Daemons, which ticks all the boxes: a traditional pub called The Cloven Hoof, predating The Green Man in The Wicker Man by several years; televised ‘archaeology’ summoning an ancient evil (albeit one from another planet, in this instance) from definitely-not-Silbury Hill; good witchcraft; a maypole; and even some dodgy Morris dancers thrown into the mix.
There’s no way the pub in this episode – or, indeed, The Green Man – wouldn’t pass muster with early-years CAMRA. These look like hardcore real-ale spots with aggressively local-rural clientele. The punters literally out of central casting also fit the stereotype – all beards and tankards, no kegged lagers here!
The other thing Lisa flagged is that modern breweries are leaning into this connection.
She highlighted Verdant’s collaboration with the people behind the Weird Walk zine and their Ritual Pale Ale.
This made me think about other ways folk horror, or pagan imagery, or horror imagery, has leaked into beer branding.
Hop Back sprang to mind immediately with its grimacing green man mascot, as did Exmoor Beast.
Oakham also has a sort of green man crossed with a hop – imagine meeting someone wearing that for a mask in a Kentish field at midnight before the harvest!
These days, folk horror has also leaked into the mainstream in some interesting ways.
Detectorists isn’t horror, it’s a gentle comedy, but its creator Mackenzie Crook clearly knows the tropes. And his Worzel Gummidge was practically The Wicker Man for kids. Both shows feature beer and pubs conspicuously as a benign symbol of Englishness, and of life on the land.
Then there’s Morris dancing, another revived folk tradition that surged in popularity in the 1970s. I recently watched Tim Plester’s interesting 2011 documentary Way of the Morris about the rebirth of Morris dancing in the Oxfordshire village where he grew up, and the role his father and uncles played in the process. It was distinctly beer-soaked and blokey but Plester’s gloss on the story also made it feel somewhat spooky – or, at least, mystical.
Another interesting artefact, from 2018, is this excellent video for the song ‘Apparition’ by Stealing Sheep:
Reframing beard-weirdy finger-in-ear folkiness as something deeper, darker, and more magical is a clever trick.
And it might work in real ale’s favour.
