Tag: beerylongreads

On Saturday 30 November, we’re going to post something longer than usual.

When we did this back in September, quite a few people were kind enough to keep us company, and it would be excellent if anyone felt like doing the same this time round.

When we say ‘longer than usual’, we mean 1,500 words minimum, but we’re aiming for 2,000+ this time.

As before, pro-writers might want to consider using this as an opportunity to give an airing to something from their back catalogue, or publish a piece that’s never found a home.

Our fellow bloggers might want to give their writing muscles a workout, perhaps by conducting research or interviews, and telling a bigger story than they would usually attempt. (That’s how we’re approaching it.)

Or, screw that — just have some fun with a stream of consciousness, personal memoir, a list — whatever.

Last time, we avoided suggesting a Twitter hashtag because, ugh, hashtags, but several innocent bystanders did suggest they’d have welcomed an easy way to find people’s contributions. With that in mind, how do people feel about #beerylongreads?

Now, with astounding arrogance, we present some tips and ideas…

1. If you pick a big subject, you’ll sail to 1,500 words.
2. Alternatively, pick a small subject, but go into ludicrous detail —  perhaps tell the story of a single grain of malt.
3. Or go high concept: present a review of a single beer as a round table discussion between ten historical figures.
4. Go to the library and skim a few books or old newspapers. You’re bound to find a story worth telling.
5. Michael ‘Beer Hunter’Jackson’s first writing gig was a column called This is Your Pub in a local paper in Yorkshire — why not paint a portrait of your local pub, its history, regulars, and the publicans?
6. Struggling to make 1,500 words? Drop in one or two 100-word quotes. This is how Norman Davies gets his books up to the requisite fatness.

Several bloggers (and writers with blogs) have posted something a little longer than usual today –longreads, if you like.

We’ll try to keep this list updated throughout the day.

• Paul Bailey (no relation) has dusted down a fifteen-year-old piece on his induction into beer appreciation.
• The Beer Nut give us a history of Dublin’s Messrs Maguire brewpub (with a shout out to Brendan Dobbin) and a review of the beers currently being produced under its new J.W. Sweetman identity.
• Bryan ‘Beer Viking’ Betts didn’t make it to 1500 words, but he has stretched out a little in his piece on whether beer has terroir.
• Mark Dredge’s Fix: the Greek Word for Beer — a history of Greece’s oldest beer brand.
• Ed has taken the opportunity to write up his notes on Horace ‘as in the medal’ Brown, a pioneering British brewing scientist.
• ‘Fatnakago’ wrote about a favourite bar, the Port of Hamburg in Milwaukee. (First half of the post only; second half is upon subjects diverse.)
• Lars Marius Garshol provides a summary of what he’s learned about Lithuanian beer from his recent travels.
• Phil Hardy recalls his heavy-metal youth and draws comparisons with today’s UK ‘craft beer’ scene.
• Derek G Harrison writes about Walkerville, the only brewery in Windsor, Ontario.
• Stan Hieronymus resurrected a still-relevant piece on the global impact of American ‘craft beer’, originally published in 2009.
• Mark Landells recalls pub crawling in Glenrothes, Fife, c.1990, where the beer was Tennent’s Lager or Tennent’s Lager.
• Matthew Lawrenson’s post about the transience of pubs isn’t that long, but it’s longer than he usually writes, so it makes the list.
• Bringing up the Perfect Pub Dog by Leigh Linley — starring Wilson the Border Terrier.
• Alan McLeod at A Good Beer Blog has used this as an opportunity for a bit of personal reflection.
• Richard at the Beercast has collaborated with his Dad on a takedown of Heineken’s plans to target the over-sixty market.
• Ron Pattinson wins, at least in terms of word count: he’s posted 35,000 words on the glory days of porter from his work-in-progress history of British beer from 1700 to 1973.
• Adrian Tierney-Jones has revisited a 2006 piece on stately home brewing: ‘One early writer described a fierce brew rather eloquently as “the sort that would make a cat speak”.’
• Velky Al also wrote something shy of 1500 words but longer than usual, on the importance of people in beer culture.
• And, of course, our own Brief History of Women and Beer — an attempt to balance the bloke-heavy content of our book.

Stan Hieronymus has suggested that we do this again next month, while Alan McLeod proposes a quarterly schedule. We’ll give it some thought and name a date.