Matt Curtis

As i write this, the palpable promise of Christmas is building, and many of us will be drawn towards our favourite pubs, bars, taprooms and bottleshops to drink our favourite beers with our favourite people.

 And curiosity probably got us there, but what was it that sparked that in us?

 Today's guest is Matt Curtis, a journalist, author, photographer, and founder and editor of the magazine, pellicle.

 It's fair to say that Matt has a curiosity about beer, its history and the people that make it possible. A curiosity that we can all benefit from.

 And it's from people like Matt that we can learn and discover more about the culture and context around beer.

Matt's just written a book called Manchester's Best Beer Pubs and Bars and we hear all about how he made sense of Manchester after moving to the area by running from pub to bar to brewery and taproom joining the dots of the beer world and helping chart his surroundings.

So grab yourself a seasonally appropriate drink and join us as we head into the pub. 

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Matt Curtis:

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Pellicle Magazine

• @pelliclemag on Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram

• Website: www.pelliclemag.com

Transcript

Please note this is an automated transcript (so will certainly contain errors and mistranslations but should give you a good gist of the conversation):

Matt: Manchester is a city of borders and boundaries. Matt: Every neighbourhood's going to have five, six beer destinations. Matt: It's going to have a micro pub, it's going to have a craft beer bar, it's going to have two trad pubs. Matt: Use the word beer scene. Matt: We use that word a lot, don't we? Matt: It's like a beer diorama. Matt: There's just so much going on. Rob (Host): Hello and welcome to we are beer people, a podcast all about the many different people who help us enjoy beer. Rob (Host): I'm your host, Rob Cadwell, and I reckon if you're listening to this, then there's a good chance that you are one of the beer people too. Rob (Host): You might be involved in the world of beer. Rob (Host): You may want to find out more about the industry, or perhaps you simply enjoy drinking the stuff. Rob (Host): So join me now as I have a chat with one of the beer people. Rob (Host): As the palpable promise of Christmas builds, many of us will be drawn towards our favourite pubs, bars, tap rooms and bottle shops to drink our favourite beers with our favourite people. Rob (Host): And curiosity probably got us there. Rob (Host): But what was it that sparked that in us? Rob (Host): Today's guest is Matt Curtis, a journalist, author, photographer and founder and editor of the magazine Pellecol. Rob (Host): It's fair to say that Matt has a deep curiosity about beer, its history and the people that make it possible. Rob (Host): A curiosity that we can all benefit from. Rob (Host): And it's from people like Matt that we can learn and discover more about the culture and context around beer. Rob (Host): And Matt's just written a book called Manchester's best beer, pubs and bars. Rob (Host): And we hear all about how he made sense of Manchester after moving to the area by running from pub to bar to brewery and tap room, joining the dots of the beer world and helping chart his new surroundings. Rob (Host): So grab yourself a seasonally appropriate drink and join us as we head into the pub. Rob (Host): Thank you very much for joining Matt and a very big welcome to the podcast. Matt: It's an absolute pleasure. Matt: And we're in the prince, which is a pub I have a bit of a history with, so I'm really glad you decided to meet me here. Rob (Host): No, it's great. Rob (Host): Thank you very much for the recommendation and it's always good to come in and come off with a cold street into a nice warm pub. Matt: Absolutely. Matt: And duration on cask as well. Matt: I'm very happy about that as well. Rob (Host): It's lovely, nicer end to the day as well on that one. Rob (Host): So what brings you to the prince and what brings you to London? Matt: So I am in London this weekend to do a bit of an event for my book, Manchester's best beer pubs and bars. Matt: Some very dear friends of mine, Phil and Steph, have a bottle shop in Tuftnal park called caps and taps and I'm going to be there most of tomorrow afternoon with a big pile of books, hopefully selling them and signing them and then having a few beers with some friends. Matt: And I've got another beer writer, her name's Claire Bullen, she lives around the corner, so I stay with her and her partner in their spare room. Matt: So as someone who lived in London, in north London specifically for a long time, I love coming back to this area because it just feels like I've never been away. Matt: Really nice. Rob (Host): What's it like coming back? Rob (Host): Because I guess you've been away now for a few years. Matt: It's weird. Matt: So I lived in London for 15 years and I've now lived in Manchester for just over three years. Matt: And the first few times it was a bit weird because I've fallen deeply in love with Manchester basically, and it's where I hope to spend the rest of my life. Matt: But what I find when I come to London now is especially north London, is I get to experience. Matt: It's just going back to my roots, really. Matt: I moved to London when I was 22 and with no plans other than to live in London and I stayed here until I was 37 and so to come back is just nice. Matt: Tomorrow I'll get a coffee at my favorite coffee shop. Matt: I'll get a sausage roll from my favorite baker. Matt: I'll have beers in my favorite bars. Matt: Yeah, it's nice to know it's only 2 hours away. Rob (Host): Yeah, that's lovely. Rob (Host): A lovely nostalgic trip then, where you can sort of go and check out your old haunts. Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Rob (Host): Excellent. Rob (Host): And for those that don't know you, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? Matt: So my name is Matthew Curtis, I'm a beer writer. Matt: I have been writing about beer and pubs in in my capacity for about eleven years now. Matt: I started a blog in 2012 called Total Ales. Matt: This was based on the back of going from sort of someone who really enjoyed beer and I was a real ale drinker but I became an enthusiast and it's a story I've told many times. Matt: Apologies to those who've listened to it, interviews with me before they know where this is going. Matt: My dad moved to America in 2010. Matt: He moved to a city called Fort Collins in Colorado, about an hour north of Denver. Matt: Fort Collins is home to some incredible breweries. Matt: And on my first trip there, in July 2010, I went to visit a brewery called Odell Brewing, and I had a beer that changed my life, Odell IPA. Matt: It's still my favorite beer, probably because of the impact it had, but it means something different to me now than it did 13 years ago. Matt: I came back from that trip incensed and obsessed with seeking out beers. Matt: And I started writing about it because I blogged about things I was passionate about before. Matt: I love guitars and guitar pedals. Matt: I had a blog about those. Matt: Don't try and find it's awful, but I've always written stuff since. Matt: When I was at uni, I wrote for the student magazine, so I was always compelled to write. Matt: It's a creative output I really enjoy. Matt: But yes, it took me about 18 months from that trip to launching my blog because my partner, Diane was like, please do something, because you're insufferable just talking about beer all the time. Matt: But actually, what happened was, when I started writing about it, I got even worse because I was curious and I just kept going from there. Matt: So I wrote for a hobby. Matt: I never had an intention to become a professional beer writer, but that didn't just sort of happen either. Matt: It started by just sort of happening. Matt: About 18 months in, I started to get emails saying, would you like to write for us, Matt? Matt: We'll send you a few beers. Matt: And I think one of the best things I did at that time was I turned around and went, could I have a little bit of money instead? Matt: And they, oh, yeah, all right, great. Matt: So I picked up a few writing gigs. Matt: Ferment magazine. Matt: I've written for them for over eight years. Matt: I started hosting a weekly beer club in a local pub in Highgate, north London, called the Duke's Head, with some people who became very good friends. Matt: We had some pretty big nights of beer in there over the years. Matt: And then in May 2015, I remember getting this email from good beer hunting in the US, who offered me a writing gig, and they offered me more money than I'd ever been offered for. Matt: And I was like, bloody h***, this is serious. Matt: And so I worked for good beer hunting for about three years, and I was one of the editors there for about 18 months. Matt: Did some events, a couple of beer festivals in the UK with them. Matt: But a lot of things came to a head by the end of 2015. Matt: It wasn't just that I was writing and things were going well for me, but what happened was I would work full time. Matt: My job, which I was in distribution, selling musical equipment and I'd get home, I'd eat, and then I'd get on my computer and I'd stay up till two, three in the morning writing about beer. Matt: And that started then to overlap into my job where I'd do all my work and be like, I have nothing to do. Matt: So I'd pull up a tab and start writing my beer blog at work. Matt: And I got pulled into a room, my boss at one point, and he just sat me down and said, matt, what's total ales? Matt: And I had a disciplinary at work. Matt: Six months after that disciplinary, I went back in for my review, and I've been pretty good. Matt: And I said, before the review starts, I'm leaving my job. Matt: I'm going full time as a beer writer. Matt: And my boss was like, great. Matt: So February, I remember it because it was elite year. Matt: February the 29th, 2016 was my first day as a full time freelancer. Matt: I'd saved up a little bit of money. Matt: I had about half the work I needed to sustain me. Matt: But it was a different time. Matt: 2016. Matt: Things were really still. Matt: It wasn't like it is now where things are really difficult. Matt: So many breweries were opening, there was so much excitement. Matt: And I found that just by announcing that I was available for work, I very quickly made up the deficit. Matt: I got a part time job in a pub, but I thought I'd need to support me while I became a freelance writer. Matt: I could only do that for three months, and then I had to leave and said, I've got too much work. Matt: So that's been good. Matt: And I have been freelance now for almost eight years, and that's been a wild ride. Matt: And this week actually encapsulates the freelance experience. Matt: On Monday, I rang my mum and said, sorry, mum, I can't get you a Christmas present. Matt: I've lost some work because it's tough out there at the moment. Matt: By the end of the week, I had two things come through and around my mum and said, what would you like for Christmas? Matt: That's freelance life, and I don't have a salary. Matt: It's all on me to sell my words. Matt: And I've made stuff difficult for myself, which I'll talk about because I also launched a magazine and so much of my time is spent working on pellicle and I really don't get paid. Matt: I don't really pay myself very much for that. Matt: I make my money by writing for other people, or sometimes I even have time to write for my own magazine and I can pay myself that way. Matt: Yeah, it's an interesting experience. Matt: But what I love about it is the autonomy. Matt: I love being my own boss. Matt: It's not a life for everyone, but I think I've been doing it so long now, I probably couldn't go back to working for someone. Matt: I'd be a terrible employee. Matt: I'd question every decision made by. Rob (Host): You'd have a tab up anyway on that. Matt: Writing a blog, I'd always be writing about beer. Matt: So, yeah, it was a string of circumstances that got me into it. Matt: But what ultimately led to it was just this desire I had to make a change in my life. Matt: My dad, my partner, they both said, you can't live this double life of beer at work. Matt: Because I wasn't just writing about beer. Matt: I started going to, like, press launches, beer nights. Matt: I was hungover quite a bit at work. Matt: I was in my early 30s. Matt: That's very exciting time. Matt: And it was unsustainable. Matt: And they didn't expect me to turn around and say, okay, I'm going to quit my job and be a beer writer. Matt: But now those two people, my partner, Diane, and my dad, Frank, are like my biggest supporters in everything I did. Matt: My second book, Modern British Beer, is dedicated to my dad. Matt: And this book, Manchester's best beer, pubs and bars, is dedicated to Diane. Matt: Because to write it, I had to lock myself away for six months. Matt: We'd have dinner and then I'd go, I have a deadline. Matt: I had to get it finished. Matt: It's a 60,000 word project. Matt: So this second half of the year has been a lot of. Matt: I've been cooking her a lot of nice meals, spending a lot of time hanging out with dai. Matt: So it's crazy when be asked that, actually, and to think about it, it's mad because I saw beer writers like Pete Brown and Melissa Cole, people I know really well now, but back then, these were like people who were like these successful writers. Matt: And now to know that I've had not been doing it for as long as them, but a similar experience and their peers, it's kind of weird. Matt: Today I'm feeling very happy and very content with it all. Rob (Host): Cheers to that. Matt: Cheers. Rob (Host): Was it always going to be beer that you ended up writing about, or was there turning point when? Matt: That's a good question. Matt: Because I've always struggled with hobies when I was younger and always flipped between things. Matt: I'd be really into something for two or three years. Matt: And when I got really into beer and I started the blog, and then I did turn it into my job, at the back of my mind, I was worried what if this is a thing and I start to get into something else and there are other hobies that I've picked up since I've got into beer? Matt: What's interesting about beer is it's never got less exciting. Matt: I've never lost that curiosity. Matt: There's a reason why it's what I. Matt: Not just beer, pubs as well, and agriculture. Matt: Everything about beer, it's just something that just compels me. Matt: And I've never lost, I guess, that fire inside me that makes me go, I'm just fascinated. Matt: I visit a lot of breweries is a good way of framing this. Matt: And every time I visit a brewery, I go through the same routine with them. Matt: When I've been shown around, they're like, oh, they're sorry for the mess. Matt: Do you want us to explain it? Matt: Like you've seen this a thousand times before? Matt: And I'm like, well, yeah, I have seen it a thousand times before, but I found every brewery fascinating because they're all different. Matt: The way they're laid out, the way they do things, the idiosyncrasies, and it never gets boring. Matt: So, yeah, there's a reason that it's beer, because I've never lost that curiosity. Matt: And where I might have with other things, it's just been something that I just keep wanting to find out more about. Matt: There are days where I'm like, oh, I'm not feeling it, but I know from experience that that means I maybe need a rest. Matt: I'm a bit burnt out and if I give myself a bit of time, I come back to it. Matt: I'm also much better now at boundaries. Matt: Like, I will go for a few beers tonight with some friends. Matt: And ten years ago, I would have had untapped out. Matt: I'd be checking in, making notes, smelling it. Matt: Now I know, like, my laptop's closed. Matt: I filed my piece for today. Matt: I wrote a piece about the beer scene in Belfast for ferment today, and I filed that, closed the laptop, and now I'll have this conversation and then I won't be at work anymore. Matt: And that's what's come with experience. Matt: I'm much better at setting the boundary between what is work and what isn't. Matt: Although really, it's always at the back of the mind. Rob (Host): Yeah, not too far away from a beer or anything like that. Rob (Host): You've mentioned curiosity a few times and that idea of sustainability, sustainable working and all that, how do you find those. Matt: Sort of play together? Rob (Host): So if you are really curious about something, how do you maybe check yourself and make sure. Rob (Host): You answer going too far and burning out. Matt: That's a good question. Matt: Again. Matt: So I have dry days every week, usually minimum two dry days a week and that's two to four if I can. Matt: I am much better at not working at weekends. Matt: Like I'll close my laptop on a Friday lunchtime and I'll pick it up again on Monday. Matt: I separate pellicle from my freelancing. Matt: So Monday, every Monday I do my accounts without fail. Matt: Monday Funday. Matt: I wake up, have breakfast, pull the spreadsheets up, put everything in, and I have to do two sets of accounts. Matt: I have to do mine and pellicles. Matt: I pay all pelicals contributors. Matt: And then Monday is about editing, laying out pieces for pellicle, arranging all that, getting the piece ready for Wednesday, and then when Monday's finished, usually Tuesday is like, right. Matt: I need one or two commissions a week to make a living. Matt: So I'll either have them or I'll be pitching. Matt: So my week is actually quite structured. Matt: It didn't used to be, but I guess again with experience, I've just figured out a routine that works for me. Matt: I'm not saying it's like that every time. Matt: It is a creative job. Matt: And there are days sometimes where I have to write a piece, part of the creative process. Matt: Sometimes it can be opening the laptop and sitting there for 8 hours. Matt: And then at the end of the 8 hours you shout at the laptop some swear words and then you slam it shut. Matt: And that's still creativity, that's still a day, that's still progress. Matt: And some days you open the laptop and you write 5000 words and you don't know where they come from and it's great. Matt: And I do have structure. Matt: Sometimes the process can change that. Matt: But I also try and work four days a week, but that doesn't happen. Matt: Usually Monday to Friday. Matt: But yeah, again, it's just experience. Matt: And looking after yourself is really important. Matt: I also run three or four times a week. Matt: I'll add that because I love my job and I would like to be doing it in 2030 years time. Matt: So not every day, but like three or four mornings a week I'll pull the trainers on and get out into the woods and run around for a bit. Rob (Host): Is it nice doing that in Manchester? Rob (Host): Have you got woods on your doorstep? Rob (Host): Yeah, I lived outside. Rob (Host): Aren't you? Matt: I live near the River Mersey and near this park called Reddish Vale, which is absolutely beautiful, which is. Matt: I'll run around there. Matt: I used to run a lot in north London as well. Matt: But the big difference between north London and Manchester is mud. Matt: It's a very damp climate, so I actually quite enjoy getting very muddy, which is a good thing, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be going out running much. Rob (Host): It's all about the mindset then, isn't it? Rob (Host): If you know what you're getting into. Matt: I also live, like, half an hour from the Peak District now and that. Matt: I jump on a train and I'm like, in Edale and it's gorgeous. Rob (Host): Fantastic. Rob (Host): Yeah, really good. Rob (Host): So what came first then? Rob (Host): Was it the beer, writing? Rob (Host): Was it photography or another part? Matt: So the writing came first and the photography was born out of my competitive nature, which has got the better of me a few times. Matt: And I'm happy to talk about that, if you ask. Matt: But people who follow me will know that I can be a bit spicy. Matt: But I was writing and I just wanted. Matt: In my total ales days, I wanted my blog to look really good. Matt: And I was reading stuff like good beer hunting. Matt: There was a really great blog called the evening Brews, and they had cameras and it looked really nice. Matt: And so I got my first little Sony camera and I started taking photos. Matt: I started taking photos of using my camera to try and improve that. Matt: And then I taught myself how to use Photoshop. Matt: And photography is like writing. Matt: Like, you can take photos, but then you need to spend as much time in the editing suite, picking the right shots and then editing them so that they pop and they showcase the right bits. Matt: So the photography came out of a desire to help my writing stand out, because there's so many good writers and I wanted this point of difference and that actually became its own thing. Matt: Like, I remember about 2016, not about freelancing. Matt: For six months, I had a brewery. Matt: It was the five points actually said, oh, we love your photos. Matt: Could you give us some advice on how we could do that for our brewery? Matt: And I said, would you like to just hire me to come and take some photos? Matt: And they went, oh, yeah. Matt: And now, actually, they have someone full time at the brewery who takes wonderful photos as a result of realizing that having those visuals on their instagram page, on their website gets more engagement and sells more beer. Matt: But, yeah, the photography was really just this desire to help the writing, to contextualize the writing. Matt: And when it came to setting up Pellecol in 2019, Johnny and I decided that the visual element was going to be as important as the written element. Matt: So it was really important for us to invest as much in that as well, because there's a lot of noise on the Internet. Matt: And I think putting that extra effort into the visual side of things just helps things stand out. Matt: If you need someone to stop for 20 minutes to read your website, they're going to pick the one with the nice photos because it gives that nice, like, oh, yeah, this is interesting. Matt: But also, as I said, it contextualizes the story. Rob (Host): It can make something two d, three d. Rob (Host): Exactly. Matt: Immersive and all that sort of stuff. Rob (Host): So what would you say to young Matt looking to get into beer, writing, publishing? Matt: I would tell him to do it. Matt: I'd give him a speaking to and said, look, you're going to find yourself, because. Matt: Thanks, dad. Matt: I have this really competitive nature. Matt: I was taken to play my first cricket match at nine years old, quit cricket, and it's just, he's competitive. Matt: Me and my dad are dead close, but when it came to beer icing, I just, like, I wanted to really, for my work to stand out and be read. Matt: And I would say all of the awards, all of that which you covet, doesn't matter. Matt: What matters is people read your work and they enjoy your work and none of the accolades should influence you. Matt: You should just put your energy into making good stuff. Matt: And I've had kind of a difficult couple of years. Matt: I really got into a bit of a rut in 2022. Matt: I was very outspoken about some stuff which I was quite regrettable about and I feel like I'm not a regretful person. Matt: I don't feel bad about it because it was a process that I owned up and I dealt with it and I've had some important conversations about it. Matt: But if I could go back to my young Self, I'll say, there's these times where you're going to be like, why aren't I being the one with the tankered on the mantelpiece? Matt: And now I'm like, do you know what? Matt: If they come in the future, that'll be really nice. Matt: But what matters is I own my own magazine. Matt: Thousands of people read and people hire me to write about beer every month and I make a living out of it. Matt: And you've met some of the best people in your life about it. Matt: And every time you put energy into the negative side, you diminish what you can put into the positive side. Matt: And I've learned, and that side of me, that competitive side, will always be there. Matt: I have some really good friends around me. Matt: So when they'll spot it and go, Matt, and I'll be like, oh, yeah, but I used to be obsessed with this line, stay weird. Matt: And I thought it meant try and force weirdness, and try and force creativity by being this weird guy. Matt: What I now have learned, actually, through this process is stay weird means be true to yourself. Matt: And I think that's the most important lesson I've learned in getting to have a creative occupation. Matt: And sometimes being true to yourself means saying, having a word with yourself and saying, none of this matters. Matt: Instead of feeling sorry for yourself for a few days, you could just move on. Matt: What are you curious about now? Matt: And write about it. Matt: I just did that. Matt: I just wrote my first. Matt: I could tell how much that affected me because it's been three years since I've written my first long form brewery profile, which is mad, because that's my favorite thing to write, three years. Matt: So I just finished a three and a half thousand word profile of Red Willow brewery in Macklesfield, one of the best breweries in the country. Matt: And I've visited the brewery five or six times, interviewed them multiple times. Matt: They must be so sick of me by now. Matt: And it's just that to do that, to go deep on a subject like that, that's where the energy should be. Matt: So, yeah, that's what I would say. Matt: And I'd also give them a kick up the bum. Rob (Host): That's fair enough. Rob (Host): It sounds like curiosity comes back again. Rob (Host): Yeah, really interesting. Rob (Host): But I guess it's learning to live with the ebbs and flows, which might be in a freelance life, but also the ups and downs that you get. Matt: From that's creative life. Matt: Being creative can be frustrating. Matt: I hate the term. Matt: I would never describe myself as a quote unquote creative. Matt: I find defining what I do is really difficult. Matt: Like, I've called myself a writer, I've called myself a journalist. Matt: I've learned you never go through security in american airport and say you're a journalist, because then you get a lot of questions. Rob (Host): Then they're checking their lists, aren't they? Matt: Yeah. Matt: So that definition has always been the weird part. Matt: But I do call myself a journalist now, because that's what I do. Matt: But yeah, it's staying true to yourself. Matt: I think that's the best advice I've ever been given. Matt: That's good advice. Matt: And own your s*** as well. Rob (Host): I hope you're enjoying our chat, and if you like what you're hearing, there are a few things you can do that will really help us out and help other people find the podcast. Rob (Host): Number one, follow or subscribe to we are beer People podcast. Rob (Host): Wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review or rating. Rob (Host): Number two, share the episode on your socials or even in actual real life. Rob (Host): And if you want to stay up to date with all things we are beer people. Rob (Host): You can visit our website, which is Wearebeerpeople Co. Rob (Host): Uk where you can sign up for a monthly newsletter and you can follow us on social media at we are beerpeople. Rob (Host): All one word. Rob (Host): And if you have any questions or comments or want to hear from any particular beer people, send me a message via the website or on social media. Rob (Host): Now back to the podcast. Rob (Host): What do you think was the biggest steps for you? Rob (Host): Was it leaving your previous job and going into beer writing full time? Rob (Host): Or was it setting up pellicle? Matt: That's an interesting one because I think the most challenging step was definitely quitting my job because there was an unknown and pellicle was built on logic and a business plan. Matt: Because I had ran a blog for a decade and I knew what traffic that got and I worked as an editor at a popular, award winning beer publication. Matt: So I had some experience there. Matt: So pellicle, I don't want to say I was confident that it would work. Matt: It was definitely a risk to it. Matt: But yeah, quitting my job was a different feeling because I was like, this could not work, this could bomb and I just have to get a job. Matt: What I did know is when I left my job, I wanted to work in beer. Matt: So if the writing thing hadn't worked out, like a lot of my friends, I would have hopefully worked at a brewery doing marketing or something like that. Matt: But thankfully the writing thing worked out. Matt: Pelic was a different thing because actually came from my friend Johnny, Johnny Hamilton, who is the head brewer at New Barnes Brewery in Edinburgh. Matt: He's taking a bit of a break from pelic at the moment because he's making a lot of beer and he doesn't need to come back from a twelve hour shift and have a text from me saying, can you proof this? Matt: Can you check? Rob (Host): This sounds a little bit like early Matt, who was working a full job and then going back and doing writing. Matt: Indeed, indeed. Matt: And I am a taskmaster, as my colleagues Lily and Katie will attest to. Matt: But when it came to Pelle call, I'd left good beer hunting. Matt: I was in a bit of limbo thinking about what I would have done and I would have probably done something like a substac wasn't a thing, but I would have done that sort of paid for newsletter route. Matt: But just by chance, Johnny worked at Beavertown at the time and we hung out a lot. Matt: We were good friends and we just had this chance meeting where he was about to go to the US and he says he's going to do a zine and call it Pellicle. Matt: And he had this stack of magazines in his hand. Matt: And I basically went home and registered the URL. Matt: We had a few beers that night. Matt: I'm like, yeah, let's do this. Matt: And then I said, I've written a business plan. Matt: We raised six months of capital and said, if we can't get it paying for itself in six months, then it's probably a bit silly to do it. Matt: We haven't been able to do what we wanted. Matt: We were going to do a print magazine. Matt: The pandemic happened. Matt: The cost of printing a magazine, like, physically the paper and all that, is twice as much as it was so pelical. Matt: It was very different to going freelance, where I was only half prepared. Matt: I costed the whole thing up. Matt: I wrote a business plan. Matt: I had that vetted. Matt: I read about the law of publishing, just went online and googled it and was like, right, I don't want to get sued. Matt: And that's why I decided to set up a limited company, which is, we are such a tiny entity, turnover wise. Matt: We don't have employees or anything like that, but it's like, oh, yeah, legally, that would be a more sensible thing to do. Matt: And we're paying people and all that. Matt: So we did that. Matt: It's just a proper business, if you will. Matt: And then, because I'd been publishing my own blog content, I was like, right, I want. Matt: The first three months content was already. Matt: We had, like, five articles were published. Matt: We had the next five already in. Matt: And actually that's been that since. Matt: Not to say that sometimes behind the scenes, it's not super organized, because it's not. Matt: Because it's a magazine. Matt: Something doesn't get turned in on time. Matt: We have a draft that's like. Matt: That needs editing, it needs contextualizing, it needs fact checking. Matt: At the moment, things are like, we just had our record month for traffic, which is ridiculous. Matt: And we didn't have a single. Matt: We've had big months in the past, and when we've had a big month, we've had one piece that's gone mad. Matt: Reese Hughle's piece on bank beers went viral. Matt: I'm trying to think of another. Matt: I wrote this thing called the essential Guide to IPA, which was obnoxious, and it was deliberately so about the session IPA, and that got on a radio station in LA, and it was silly things like that that make lots of people read it. Matt: Casey Mather wrote this thing about bread rolls that to this day gets thousands of hits a month. Matt: Because every time someone argues about bread rolls, they say, you should just read this. Matt: It has all the answers to your questions. Matt: But this month we just had this constant stream of traffic, old articles, new articles, and it feels like this is where we are, where curiosity might have been the driver. Matt: And is that important creative factor. Matt: The important thing for pelical is consistency. Matt: And it's about making sure every Wednesday we have a really good article to read about something that we're interested in and we think other people would be interested in. Matt: That has been edited, subbed. Matt: So it's tight, snappy, engaging, because we ask people to pay for the magazine, we're free to read. Matt: But the more people we can convince to pay for it, the more we can do, the more we can pay our writers. Matt: If we can pay ourselves more, that means my goal in 2024 is to pay myself enough money from pellicle so I can say, well, now, Monday and Tuesday are my pellicle days, and Thursday, Wednesday and Thursday are my freelance days. Matt: That would be the dream because it wouldn't be about more content either. Matt: It would be about maybe working on print projects, designing merchandise, talking about it more, just keeping it going and getting it out to a wider audience. Matt: I can invest that time. Matt: So, yeah, pelical is weird, even today, actually, my approach to pelical and my approach to my freelancing are like they are one and the same, but it's almost like I have two jobs again. Rob (Host): It's happened again. Rob (Host): Can I get two pints of railway for lovely? Rob (Host): Thank you very much. Matt: Here you go. Matt: Thank you very much. Matt: This is one of my favorite beers. Matt: Cheers. Matt: Cheers. Matt: Thank you. Matt: In case you want to cut this into the podcast, we're drinking five points railway porter, and it is tasting phenomenal. Matt: Absolutely delicious. Rob (Host): We've both got two beers here and we both got cask. Rob (Host): What are your views on cask and keg? Matt: Oh, God. Matt: Right. Matt: So if you've been listening to this podcast, you've just had the first, like 45 minutes or so. Matt: Now we're going to talk about cask for an hour. Matt: So I'm going to show you my arm. Matt: I've got a tattoo of a sparkler. Matt: There's a few of us have got them now. Matt: That happened because a friend of mine, Ross, he. Matt: Well, they just finished the podcast, the Beer Nomicom podcast. Matt: Friend of mine in Manchester, he has this rubber stamp. Matt: And we were in the cloudwater tap room and he stamped my arm with this parkler stamp. Matt: And I looked at it and, huh, that's cool. Matt: But I got it shortly after I moved to Manchester. Matt: And I'm not from London, I'm from. Matt: I am from North Lincolnshire. Matt: And I always felt more affinity with towns like Sheffield and Doncaster than I did, say, Petersborough and Cambridge. Matt: So moving north, it feels a very natural thing for me. Matt: But Cask is an interesting one because I became obsessed with american beer. Matt: Obsessed. Matt: And after american beer took over my brain, I thought, everything should be 7% full of hops. Matt: And bear in mind, this was 2010, so I don't think people were even making hazy ipas then. Matt: It was like I was buying beers that had the most ibus, 1000 ibus, whatever. Rob (Host): I remember that point in time when everyone was chasing Ibu and it was going higher and higher and higher. Matt: Ridiculous, ridiculous. Matt: And there was a lot of tired american imports on british shelves that tasted of, like, oxidized crystal malt. Matt: And then brewers in the UK were like, oh, this is what american beer tastes like. Matt: And they were brewing these really malty, sickly sweet beers that were also really bitter. Matt: And I loved it. Matt: And I thought camera was rubbish, and they had no idea what they were talking about. Matt: And they were missing out on this american craft beer revolution. Matt: And before lockdown had started to change, I loved drinking casp beer as much as I did keg beer. Matt: Then lockdown happened, and I think what we all got is perspective. Matt: And I craved the pub. Matt: This is where this book came from. Matt: This is why I pitched it. Matt: I would go on long runs in Manchester in lockdown, because I'd just moved to this city. Matt: I didn't know where anything was and what I had seen. Matt: I'd got on a train or a bus, so I knew point a, point b, but nothing in between all these neighborhoods, like reddish, Shorten, Didsbury, I didn't know the lay of the land, whereas this part of north London were in. Matt: I lived here for so long, it's like the back of my hand and it's burnt into my brain. Matt: So I wanted to figure out my way around. Matt: So I'd pull my running shoes on and I would map runs by pubs I was interested in visiting when they opened. Matt: And on the way to those pubs, I would find more pubs. Matt: I'm like, oh, there's a pub. Matt: And I saw these brewery owned pubs owned by Holtz and Hydes and Lee's and Robinson's, the four family brewers of Manchester. Matt: I was like, God, they've got a lot of pubs. Matt: I wonder if these are worth going to. Matt: But when pubs reopened, my first pint was actually. Matt: I remember it was squart Pavo, which is their pale ale, because that was what was on at Paul Street Beer House. Matt: It's the first place I went for a pint outside, and I wanted it to be track Sonoma, because I love that beer. Matt: But track was so nervous about what the market would be like. Matt: They didn't make any cas Sonoma for a few weeks. Matt: When they did, it was like, oh, my gosh. Rob (Host): I think no one could have guessed, really, just how much pent up demand there was for cask at that point. Matt: I think it's not just me. Matt: I think generationally millennials. Matt: I'm going to get a bit philosophical here. Matt: Our parents'parents went through generational trauma with the second world war, and that is instilled in our parents. Matt: My dad's 70, so he was born in 53, so his parents would have still been freshly experiencing rationing bombing when he was growing up. Matt: And I'm not comparing what we went through to that, because that's horrid. Matt: But we went through lockdown. Matt: It was a traumatic time and it changed us all as people. Matt: And I think for our generation, it made us realize the importance of third spaces, which for us is pubs. Matt: Somewhere that isn't our home and isn't our office. Matt: Somewhere that. Matt: Because at home you've got admin, you've got washing, the constant clothes washing. Matt: Where does it come from? Matt: At work, you've got to do work, come to a pub, and you're free of that. Matt: And whether you're on your own or with friends, it just lets your brain rest. Matt: And I think that came out of it. Matt: And so it recentered for me where beer was. Matt: And I got so obsessed with beer in the early part of my beer drinking career that I'm putting the beer in front of me. Matt: It had to be the center point of the conversation, the flavor, the taste. Matt: Now, beer is at the side of me, and I can focus on it if I want, but it's also just a pint I'm enjoying. Matt: And I think Cask is at the center of that. Matt: But I've also. Matt: So I joined camera in 2020 in lockdown, because I wanted to read its literature, its magazines and that sort of thing. Matt: And I thought maybe I should get involved. Matt: Recently, in the last six months, I've started going to my branch meetings and getting involved with my camera branch and one of the youngest people there. Matt: And I realized, yeah, they do festivals and they have, like, meeting and minutes, but they also just getting drunk and enjoying some nice beers. Matt: And it's like, this is a social thing and it's precious to me. Matt: The other thing that happened is I moved to Manchester. Matt: Now, Cas beer in London is good. Matt: This is a nice pint. Matt: Manchester's, and not just Manchester, but the north, Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds, all the towns that surround it. Matt: Cask never stopped being a normal thing. Matt: More people drink it, it turns over faster. Matt: It's kept a little bit cooler. Matt: The sparkler thing, it's a very easy way to wind people up, and so people should know that I'm joking. Matt: I want my cask to be sparkled. Matt: But really, I don't care how you drink your beer, like, put ice cubes in your beer for all I care, if it makes you happy. Matt: Cask it became. Matt: I don't know, is cask my new obsession? Matt: Cask is to me now what Odell IPA was to me 13 years ago. Matt: It represents for me the center of the culture of british beer. Matt: And I think it's so important and so incredible when it's at the best. Matt: It's my favorite thing to drink. Matt: I've been in a few pubs recently and I've realized, I've looked at the hand poles, they've got ten keg on, and I've ordered my cast, and I've not even looked. Matt: And they might have something amazing, an IPA, Sierra Nevada torpedo, or something like that. Matt: And the beers that I would have gone out my way to find ten years ago. Matt: But no, the first thing I'll drink is a pint of bitter, because I just want to drink british beer at its best. Matt: And it's just doing the book. Matt: I went to 200 pubs over 18 months for the book, and someone had to do it. Matt: Someone had to do it. Matt: There are cities that you can get casks different, like Bristol does. Matt: Amazing cask. Matt: But I don't like the way they serve it. Matt: Norwich is amazing for cask. Matt: I hate the short spout, but that's fine because that's how they do it there. Matt: It's just not how I like it, but I don't know. Matt: The northern serve, not just the sparkler, but the way they pour it on the bar and they let it foam up like too much foam, and then they just top it up, just knock a little bit of foam over the glass. Matt: Historically, it would have been sucked up in autovax. Matt: They don't do that anymore. Matt: All of that, like, the ritual of it cask has become. Matt: People are giving me s*** about it. Matt: It's like, oh, it used to be all about the IPA, Matt, and now you're all about the cask. Matt: And I'm like, it's the same thing. Matt: I still love the IPA, but I just feel like I once was doing some talks at a beer festival and I was approached by the head brewer of Firestone walker, Matt Brittleton. Matt: And he came up to me and he said, where can I get a good pint of cask in London? Matt: And I said, oh, no, you want to go and drink the colonel and you want to go and drink pressure drop. Matt: You want to go to mother Kelly's? Matt: And he just went, no, I'm going to go to. Matt: Is it called ye old Cheshire cheese? Matt: I want a pint of Sam Smith, old brewery bitter. Matt: And I was like, why would you want to drink that? Matt: And I realized that him going to a pub and drinking landlord or old brewery bitter is the same as me going to Odell and drinking IPA. Matt: It's a cultural reference point, it's important. Matt: And I've learned in my career that Cas beer is like, it's the most valuable food stuff in the UK. Matt: People talk about fish and chips, which isn't even british in the first place. Matt: Steak and kidney pie, they come up, they're great. Matt: But Cas beer is, like, culturally the most british food you can have. Matt: And now I'm a cameraman because I'm like, yeah, I want to campaign for real ale and talk about it. Matt: I don't know if you've seen pelicool this year, but we've put articles about bass and all sorts of trad stuff. Matt: And it's funny because they get so many people read those articles because they're like, yeah, it's important. Matt: One of our most read articles this year is about the closure of Jennings Brewery by Marston's. Matt: And it's written by a young writer, Jacob Smith, who is from Cockamouth, where Jennings were based. Matt: And it's melancholy. Matt: It's like he used to walk past the brewery to school and then when he turned 18, he drank Jennings bitter. Matt: And now you go and it's all closed up. Matt: That's a legacy. Matt: Black sheep nearly closed down this year. Matt: I've just written about how I'm very wary of pe firms, but I'm glad it's not gone because it's a legacy brewery. Matt: Cask beer is central to everything I write about. Matt: It's the most important thing I write about. Rob (Host): I think it's realizing what we've got and how close we might be to not having that in the future. Matt: The grass is always greener. Matt: Right, yeah. Matt: I got obsessed with american beer and I'm glad I went. Matt: I became a bit of an evangelist for craft beer. Matt: I've grown to hate the term and it's led me to realize I write more about what's happening locally. Matt: To me now. Matt: I used to be like, oh, what's happening in the Czech Republic? Matt: Or what's happening in New Zealand, or what's happening in California? Matt: And now it's like, what's happening in Preston? Matt: What's happening in Huddersfield? Matt: What's happening in Macclesfield? Matt: I tell you what's happening. Matt: Amazing pubs serving amazing beer that people absolutely need to go to. Rob (Host): I think those pubs and breweries, though, are such. Rob (Host): You can look at cask and say, I don't, it's cask or keg, but to your point earlier, it's regional, it's all done differently. Rob (Host): Cask in one place, made in one brewery, is brewed in one way, in another Brewery, it's completely different. Rob (Host): You might have a sparkler. Rob (Host): If you're north, you might not have a sparkler. Matt: I know the pubs in London that use them. Rob (Host): That's it? Rob (Host): Yeah. Rob (Host): You bring your own, maybe? Matt: No, I do have a sparkler. Matt: And actually, I have been in a pub, I've been in the cocktavon and I've seen a Jordy pull one out of his pocket and said, can you put that on the tap, please? Matt: I don't think that's very hygienic. Rob (Host): He'd want to see the supply chain for that. Rob (Host): Fair play. Matt: But the Pembroke tavern and the old fountain are two pubs in London that usually sparkle their beer. Rob (Host): You can get it. Rob (Host): But, yeah, I absolutely love cask. Rob (Host): I think I grew up next to Fuller's pub in a village. Rob (Host): It's like my first pub experience was drinking, like, pints of pride. Rob (Host): I don't think it was everyone's experience when they first. Matt: My first cask beer, and maybe this is why I was, like a bit anti casp for a few years, was John Smith's cask, and that's not a very good beer. Matt: And I'll say that with all honesty, it does not taste nice. Matt: And the pub, the bottle and glass in Scotland and Lincolnshire had the smooth flow and the cask, and lots of regulars would drink the cask. Matt: But they started calling it rough. Matt: It said rough and smooth and it sold well because it was the only cask beer they had. Matt: When they brought in landlord, people just stopped drinking the John Smith because the landlord first, they're like, oh, it's a bit expensive. Matt: And then it's like. Matt: It was just really good. Matt: I remember coming back from uni, I was about 21, going to the pub with my dad, and we got landlord and I had three pints of it in a row. Matt: And that was when I was like, yeah, I think this is something I like drinking. Rob (Host): Yeah, absolutely. Rob (Host): And to your point earlier, again, when you have a pint of cask at its absolute best, I don't think there's anything better. Matt: Oh, no. Rob (Host): It's just knowing you can get that good pint. Matt: It really is the pinnacle of beer for me. Matt: I even learned to enjoy bass this year. Matt: For years, I've not enjoyed it, but there's a couple of pubs in Manchester, Fox and pine in Oldham and Greater Manchester, I should say fox and Pine in Oldham, and the swan and railway in Wigan, who do draft bass. Matt: And it's sublime when it's treated with reverence and care and has turnover like any beer. Rob (Host): Absolutely. Rob (Host): And they can be found in the. Matt: Book, I presume they can both be found in the book, yeah, absolutely. Rob (Host): So have a look there if you want to find those as well. Rob (Host): I think we've talked about lots of different things there. Rob (Host): I want to ask you what your favorite hat was to wear in all of the freelancing that you do. Rob (Host): What's the thing that you most like spending your time doing? Matt: I'm glad you asked this, because I've said to myself, in 2024, as much as I will be doing my freelance work, I write for ferment. Matt: I write for a brewing supply company called Getterbrewed. Matt: I'll be doing all my freelance work, but I'm going to throw as much energy as I have behind pelical because it's our fifth birthday in May, when we were ten months old, we went into lockdown and I thought we would fold. Matt: I thought we'd run out of money and we didn't. Matt: And that's amazing. Matt: You can actually go back and read what I wrote some posts on the site about our plan, our contingencies, and I'll read it now. Matt: And I'm like, God, that was such an overreaction. Matt: But no one knew what was going to happen. Matt: No, my plan is. Matt: So I've got two amazing people I work with at the moment, great writers. Matt: Two of my favorite writers, Katie Mather and Lily Waite. Matt: Lily is also doing the queer brewing project. Matt: So she's doing a me. Matt: She's doing too much work. Matt: But she said to me earlier a couple of months ago, like, I really want to do as much pelicans I can, and I'm like, I can't believe it. Matt: You're mad, but that's wonderful. Matt: Katie was running a great bar in Clitherow in Lancashire, where she lives called Corto, which she sadly had to close down. Matt: For me, I've had this unforeseen benefit where she is like my right hand, picking up all the work I don't have time to do. Matt: She's an incredible editor. Matt: She's so compassionate with the writing she works with. Matt: And I'm a big old Meanie. Matt: I say horrible things to writers. Matt: I'm not that bad, really. Matt: Good cop, yes, but no. Matt: My plan is we've had this really great month. Matt: We're quite organized at the moment. Matt: Because we're organized, the three of us found time to write. Matt: So a lot of our early 2024 content is actually editorial. Matt: It's the editors writing, which is great, because if you have that content and you're asking people to pitch, you can say, this is what we're doing, and this is the kind of stuff we want. Matt: It helps us. Matt: We're only as good as what we publish, and if we're getting the right pitches, then we can publish better content. Matt: And if the editors are able to write, then people, this is what they're doing, so this is what they want. Matt: We're working with some amazing writers next year. Matt: David Jeze Dyson has got more in the pipeline. Matt: He's written a profile of to. Matt: I can't wait to publish it. Matt: We've got incredible writer Dr. Matt: Anna Sulan massing writing an article about whiskey because we've just decided, let's just be a drinks magazine. Matt: I was thinking about just going beer and cider and dropping wine, but I'm like, actually, no. Matt: Tim Anderson wrote an article for us recently about sake, and I was like, that's so good. Matt: I would publish any good drinks pitch, because if it made me excited, I would commission it. Matt: What? Matt: We don't have the reason why I'm not commissioning a lot of stuff like that. Matt: In case anyone was like, oh, I'll pitch pellicle. Matt: We've been gradually losing money. Matt: Very slowly. Matt: It's like a tap that just drips, drips, drips. Matt: It is still dripping. Matt: Part of the reason I want to throw my weight behind it is that if I can get 100 subscribers in the next couple of months, we would start building up a reserve of cash. Matt: And cash will give us the ability to commission without being worried about going out of business. Matt: The whole business is cash based. Matt: I have no loans, I have no debt, and it will always be that. Matt: The plan is basically, it's in the business plan. Matt: If we run out of money, we will just close. Matt: It means no one goes bankrupt, no one knows anyone, any money. Matt: But we can only commission as many articles as we have money in the bank. Matt: What's great about being a successful publication is people think we're in a big office and there's like 20 of us and it's like, no, we're just here on Mondays and we have no money. Matt: So 2024 for me is I feel like it's going to be a good year for pelical. Matt: I'm going to put as much energy as I can into it. Matt: I'm feeling more positive about it than I ever have. Matt: I see the stats. Matt: More people every day, thousands of people come and read my silly little magazine. Matt: And it gives me a deep coming back to what I said earlier about if I could have a word with myself, like, look at these numbers. Matt: And what's great about pelical is not about me. Matt: It's about just creating a platform for great writing and making sure that every week there's something we put out, something that is as good as the last piece doesn't have to be better, just as good as the last piece. Matt: And sometimes we publish something and not a lot of people read it. Matt: And sometimes we publish something and it does get very well read. Matt: Now, I've been doing it for five years. Matt: I go back to those old pieces and it's funny how something from three years ago that had like 500 hits and you're like, oh, that didn't do very well. Matt: You look at it's like, why has that had 5000 hits? Matt: And you drill down into it and it's like someone posted it on like Brighton and Hovalbian FC Supporters Forum and they had a whole conversation, oh, did you see this one? Matt: It got posted on the drowning sound forum and they had a whole conversation about it. Matt: So I realized we're not publishing something for that day. Matt: And those retweets or whatever it is, it's like when we put out a piece, it's like that's there, that's an essay and that's there forever. Matt: We're going to revoice ourselves. Matt: We're a bit wishy washy on our about page about celebrating the joy of beer. Matt: Actually, some of the stuff we've done, we've written about racism in beer, we've written about, we had a great piece that just won an award, gold British Beer writers awards, about having hearing loss and how hard it is to go to a tap room in a big, echoey space. Matt: We have pieces that are not about the joy in beer, and so we're going to sort of reassess how we put ourselves out there, not majorly, just to tweak, because we're five years in, and I think that's a good time to go. Matt: How do we present ourselves? Matt: The business plan also said that at ten years, we're going to have a serious conversation, because I think ten years is a good time for a project. Matt: And really we're going to say, is it worth carrying on with? Matt: Because also, people get older. Matt: I set the magazine up when I was 35, and in ten years I'll be 45, and things will be different for me. Matt: Will people still be reading pellicle next year and the next five years? Matt: Where we are with traffic now is the numbers was what I put in my business plan for 18 months because of the pandemic. Matt: But it's taught me a lesson about not being too eager and about slowly building it and just pay more money to writers. Matt: Like, if we get more subscribers, we're putting our word rate up to 25 p. Matt: It's 23 at the moment. Matt: If we pay more money to writers, it means a writer can take, you know, they can go, oh, pelical are paying me this much so I can take a few more days, maybe visit the source in question. Matt: It's all about giving a writer time and space to create something and then giving them guidance in edit so we can polish it for them. Matt: That's it. Matt: Pelical is the pelical is the 2024 plan. Matt: I'm very excited. Matt: You might have guessed that. Rob (Host): Really cool. Matt: I've just been on a train to London, just writing and planning. Matt: 2022 was a difficult year for me, and this year has been mad. Matt: I wrote a book, bought my first house, turned 40. Matt: I need to stop this month and go, wow, I really did a lot. Matt: But I also had to have a word with myself about the way I interact with people, the way I go about my business and what's the goal. Matt: And it all comes back to Pellicle, which is not what I expected. Matt: It's a very special thing. Matt: I'm very lucky to do it. Rob (Host): It's funny how life brings us to those points. Matt: Yeah. Rob (Host): On that point, you were talking about commissioning work and stuff. Rob (Host): Is there anything that you say to people who might be considering getting into writing or writing about something? Rob (Host): How should they approach it? Rob (Host): How should they approach Pellecol? Matt: So if you want to be a writer and you're not self publishing, you need to start self publishing. Matt: You should not expect to pitch me or anyone and go, I'm thinking about getting to writing. Matt: Would you do this? Matt: If you are a creative person, you want to write, start writing. Matt: If you want to get into writing, you should treat it as a creative exercise first and a financial 1 second, because the financial rewards for writing are very small. Matt: It's not a very well paid job. Matt: I'm proof you can make a living out of it, but it's not a great one. Matt: Self publish. Matt: Start writing a blog. Matt: Start writing a newsletter, substac, whatever. Matt: Just give yourself the space to create. Matt: And then when you have an idea for a magazine, you can say, this is what I've been working on. Matt: And that's the number one thing. Matt: Like, just do the work. Matt: The next piece of advice would be, treat every publication individually, and the first thing you have to do is read it. Matt: You have to sit down and read as much of that publication as you can. Matt: Because successful publications, one of my favorite is Vittles great food newsletter. Matt: I love it. Matt: Written for them a couple of times. Matt: They get so many pitches because so many people want to write for them. Matt: They have so many subscribers. Matt: They pay 800 pounds for a feature, which is, imagine if pelical could do that. Matt: What a writer could know how much of time they could put into a piece. Matt: If we had two and a half thousand subscribers, that's what that gives them. Matt: And they are putting that back into the writers. Matt: But they have a voice, and it's very well defined. Matt: And that's something that's important to pellicle, is that it's about consistency. Matt: We have this voice. Matt: I turn a lot of pitches down, and sometimes people don't react very well to that. Matt: Sometimes people do. Matt: But it's about, we don't have a lot of room. Matt: We're going to publish 60 stories next year, and we've probably already got 20 of them. Matt: So we don't have a lot of room. Matt: So read as much as you can about the publication, and then we have a guide. Matt: Make sure you do it. Matt: Make sure you read the pitching guide and voice your pitch like they've asked. Matt: But the last thing is, don't go. Matt: Here's three ideas. Matt: Here's five ideas. Matt: Pick one really good idea, something you want to write, because if you want to write it, the editor will know. Matt: If I get a 500 word pitch, I know I want to commission it by the first two sentences. Matt: Genuinely. Matt: It's very easy to see those. Matt: Reese Hughle had never written a piece before, and when he sent me the bank beer, he's like, I really want to write about bank beers. Matt: This is why. Matt: And it was a long pitch, but by the first paragraph I was like, I have to publish this piece. Matt: I need to see what he does with it. Matt: No writing experience, so it shows that anyone can come in and do that, and he's going to get edited to help him with sentence structure and smoothing stuff out so it's nice and easy for the reader to digest. Matt: That's the job of the editor. Matt: So do the work. Matt: Research where you want to write for and send the pitch, but also don't spend too much time on it. Matt: You shouldn't spend a day on a pitch. Matt: You should give yourself half an hour and go, right, this is what I want to do, because you should spend the time on the article, the sources, the research, putting it together. Matt: So don't dwell on it, don't overthink it. Matt: But yeah, if you want to be a writer and you're not self publishing, start a blog. Rob (Host): Makes sense. Rob (Host): Do you like someone who's self published, who has a good idea to begin with, and then you can sort of tell from their kind of tone of voice and the way they're writing. Matt: I guess self publishing is you get to make mistakes. Matt: Like the first piece I had that went, that did well, like I said earlier, I'm not a regretful person. Matt: I wrote this piece about wetherspoons, and the head brewer of the Alchemist in Vermont brewed a beer with Adnam's, and I went into wetherspoons with my friend Peter, and it was there and I went on a big rant about how it's too good for Wetherspoons. Matt: It's classist rant, basically. Matt: It's really an unfortunate rant. Matt: Got lots of traffic and kind of more people started reading my blog after it. Matt: That wasn't the intention. Matt: I generally got home from the pub after two pints and wrote this thing. Matt: More people should be about this. Matt: Why are american brewers selling beer into Wetherspoons? Matt: Yeah, it was really unfortunate. Matt: But if I look back at that now, that piece was so important to me because it gave me, I would be one of the commenters now that said, what are you on about? Matt: This is nonsense. Matt: And I think self publishing gives you this space to make mistakes. Matt: And being creative, you have to make mistakes. Rob (Host): So Pelleco's five in May next year. Rob (Host): Have you got any plans to celebrate that or mark that moment. Matt: Yes. Matt: Actually, I'm not going to tell you what they are now because they're not finalized, but there will be a party in Manchester that will take some shape or form. Matt: It will be a free to attend, open to everyone party. Matt: I used to do a lot of ticketed beer events back in the day, but I think we're in an era of like, especially because we're in the northwest as well. Matt: So we'll have a big party and there'll be a lot of beer and there'll be some collabs and we'll have a good time and everyone's invited and we'll do it in a way. Matt: So there is so much space for you to come and enjoy that in our own way. Matt: So, yeah, we'll turn five. Matt: We're going to keep putting out articles and I will be also probably talking about my book and trying to came out just before Christmas, which is very convenient. Matt: It was actually meant to come out in August, but I was buying a house so I had to have a bit of a deadline extension, which meant it came out in October, which is a good time for a book to come out, as I've experienced, but no, pelical is. Matt: Yeah, we'll have a party and we might put out a print zine. Matt: We might start selling some cool t shirts that I've got underway. Matt: But mostly just like it's all consistency. Matt: Every Wednesday I want to put out an article. Matt: We'll have more comics from David Bailey. Matt: I'm trying to give more space to Katie and Lily because they're two of the best writers I know. Matt: And if they're editing, they're not writing. Matt: So if we're ahead of schedule, I can say, go write something. Matt: And they've both done that. Matt: Lily has just written a massive profile of Ideal Day brewery in Cornwall. Matt: James Rylance, really great brewer with a long story. Matt: And Katie has written basically a 1500 word poem about torside brewery in new mills, which is a very special brewery that makes a lot of smoked beers. Matt: I've written about red willow. Matt: I'm writing some other stuff. Matt: I've got more on the go for Pellicle this year than I have done since I started the magazine. Matt: I want to write more for my own magazine and remember it's a platform, but just so people like, I don't write and go, ha. Matt: I publish it. Matt: So Lily has my red willow piece. Matt: Lily's more brutal than I am, but that's great. Matt: She's going to tear that piece apart and make me put it back together again and it'll be a better piece for. Matt: Yeah. Matt: And then we're working with some exciting writers, as I mentioned earlier. Matt: And the biggest thing for me is I'm determined that the model we have works, that we're free. Matt: Because beer is such a niche culture. Matt: Beer writing is within. Matt: So drinks writing is a subculture of food writing, so it already has less readers. Matt: And then beer within drinks writing is specialist, so it has less readers. Matt: And what we ask people to do is like, oh, if you like the magazine, you should pay us four pound a month off. Matt: We've got a one pound option. Matt: If you're a business, you can pay us 40 pounds a month and you don't get any advertising. Matt: We just say thank you and put your logo on our about page. Matt: It's not a lot, but we get to exist. Matt: There's, what, four beer magazines? Matt: Five beer magazines. Matt: Consumer. Matt: So trade magazines like the Brewers Journal and the Morning Advertiser, that is people writing for the industry. Matt: We write for drinkers. Matt: And there's what, there's us, there's beer. Matt: But that's a camera members magazine. Matt: You can only get that if you're a camera member. Matt: It's a great magazine, though. Matt: Ferment magazine. Matt: You get that if you subscribe to beer 52. Matt: There's beerium collective, who are brilliant, and more people should read them and support their magazine on Patreon as well. Matt: But other than that, there's not a lot of consumer magazines. Matt: And what I think, I think we talked about cascale. Matt: If cascale is to be culturally important, it needs to be written about by journalists and authors to contextualize that. Matt: Because that's what writers do. Rob (Host): It means it's cheerleaders. Matt: Exactly. Matt: It's not just about cheerleaders, actually, I think there needs to be more criticism in beer, which is very. Matt: Beer is like one of the hardest things to criticize, because it's like, it's beer, it's all nice. Matt: And I've learned that the hard way by maybe going a bit heavy. Rob (Host): But. Matt: Beer needs context, and that's what writers do. Matt: Because I read amazing food writing every week and I consider beer a genre of food writing, and it should be written the same way. Matt: Jay Rayner has a column every Sunday in the observer, and he might rate a restaurant or slate a restaurant. Matt: Why not pubs? Matt: Why is there not someone saying, this is a good pub or a bad pub? Matt: You talk about saving pubs. Matt: Jerina gives context to dining. Matt: Pelical's job is to give context to beer culture and drinks. Matt: Culture. Rob (Host): And you mentioned you're going to celebrate in Manchester. Matt: Yes. Rob (Host): And I know the perfect book for that there. Rob (Host): So do I. Rob (Host): I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about. Rob (Host): Mean, you've talked a little bit about how the idea came around, but I wonder if you could just talk about that a little bit more with us. Matt: So I wrote this book that came out in 2021 called Modern British Beer. Matt: I was approached just before lockdown. Matt: I was actually in Liverpool, staying in a hotel full of athletico Madrid fans. Matt: Didn't end well for me, I'll tell you that. Matt: Well, I'm here and it's fine. Matt: I was very poorly, but I'm fine. Matt: But Alan asked me March 2020 if I had a book and I'd been trying to get modern british beer. Matt: I've been trying to get a contract for modern british beer since 2018, and I didn't know the first thing about writing a book, pitch a book treatment. Matt: And I realized more of it's about, you have to basically convince them that it's going to sell. Matt: It's not about, like, I've got this brilliant idea. Matt: It's so poetic and philosophical. Matt: It's like, no, I'm going to do this. Matt: It'll sell this many units. Matt: It's quite dry. Rob (Host): I guess you have to start off with the market, in a way. Matt: Exactly. Rob (Host): Explain to them. Rob (Host): Pitch your case for why exactly. Matt: I used to be a salesman, so once I learned that, alan approached me and I said, I've got this idea, and he helped me revise the pitch into one. Matt: That camera said yes to Monbridge. Matt: Beer was an interesting book. Matt: I learned a lot about it. Matt: I'm very proud of it as a piece of work, but it's very personal. Matt: It maybe wasn't the time in my life where I should have written a more personal book, but it's old and I hope that people will go back to that book and say, oh, yeah, this is what happened in beer in 2020, 2021. Matt: But it's all well enough for Alan to come back to me, said, would you like to do another book? Matt: And he sort of mooted doing a modern british pub. Matt: And I was in Manchester, and like I say, I was doing these runs and I met him and I said, you do this book, London's best beer, pubs and bars, why don't you do any other cities? Matt: And it's like, oh, there's probably not really any interest. Matt: And I said, well, I've been living in Manchester for 18 months and there are so many great pubs that off the radar at, like, traditional pubs, craft beer bars. Matt: You have to put a guide out and I want to write it for you. Matt: And I sent him a 5000 word treatment, knowing what I did. Matt: And it was like, yeah, the next day it was like, yep, you're on. Matt: And I said I could do it in a year. Matt: Which was foolish because I did it in 18 months from that point. Matt: So I started visiting pubs after lockdown ended. Matt: And then Manchester is a city of borders and boundaries. Matt: Manchester isn't even one city like in the river. Matt: Earl cuts it into Manchester and Salford and then surrounding it, you've got Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Rochdale, Boltonbury, Wigan, Alteringham and then Salford itself. Matt: Places like Eccles. Matt: There's just neighborhoods. Matt: Every neighborhood is going to have five, six beer destinations. Matt: It's going to have a micro pub. Matt: It's going to have a craft beer bar. Matt: It's going to have two trad pubs. Matt: There are even bits I've missed in the book. Matt: But that was always going to happen in a first edition because I'm not from Manchester. Matt: I hold my hands up and I did as much research and due diligence as I could because I reached out to every camera branch and said, send me the list of your pubs. Matt: I had the good beer guide, but I still missed one or two gems. Matt: One of them the Salisbury, which will go in the second edition. Matt: In town, it's a rock pub that has all peculiar on permanently. Matt: I went in there and I had a very sub average experience and I was at word count. Matt: So I had to draw lines through pubs. Matt: And I said like, yeah, sorry, this one's gone on a whim. Matt: I've been back and I'm like, yeah, I made a mistake. Matt: That's what happens when you put a guide together. Matt: But more than that, I think there's pubs in there that people come to Manchester and they do the same pubs. Matt: They'll either do the breweries track, cloudwater, shoreshot, balance. Matt: That's a good route. Matt: Now they'll do Port street, fierce northern Monk, Pelican. Matt: They might do Cafe Birmoth, the city arms, the new Pomona pub. Matt: But will they do the pevil of the peak? Matt: Will they do the Britain's protection? Matt: Will they do the Greyhorse on Portland street? Matt: Will they do the lower turks head? Matt: Will they drink some holtz bitter? Matt: You're not really getting Manchester if you just drinking a few sonomas and a couple of dippers. Matt: You get Manchester by getting out of the bubble. Matt: Cross the river just into Salford, into town. Matt: You've got jewel, a great little craft beer bar that's going to be pouring stuff that you won't find anywhere else in the city. Matt: And then over that, you've got the new Oxford, which doesn't serve its Castro sparkler. Matt: Shocking. Matt: It's the only place I went to that didn't. Rob (Host): How did you feel about that? Matt: It's an amazing pub. Matt: So I'll go on Twitter and I'll say I feel terrible about it, but in real life, it's brilliant. Matt: But I went in there recently and I had drank Ashova light mild. Matt: Ashova is a tiny brewery. Matt: And where else is selling that? Matt: So I wanted to write this book because I felt like it needed to be written, which is a very egotistical thing to say. Matt: But, yeah, I've fallen in love with Manchester. Matt: It's got in my blood. Matt: And I want people to experience what I have. Matt: I want them to get the train to Stockport and go to the magnet, which has got twelve cask and 14 kegs. Matt: So you can start on a sonoma or a red willow, weightless. Matt: And then maybe have one of the best value pints of steady rolling manual find anywhere in the country. Matt: Five pound 50. Rob (Host): Can't go wrong with that. Rob (Host): It's time, isn't it? Rob (Host): You're doing all of it. Rob (Host): You need to do all of these things. Rob (Host): You can't just do one of them. Matt: But you should go to these breweries. Matt: Yeah, because they're brilliant. Matt: You know, we've got track and cloudwater, right in the centre of Manchester, and they're both world class breweries. Matt: And now we've got shoreshop balance, as I mentioned, making mixed fermentation beers. Matt: We've got runaway squawk, blackjack, marble, the marble arch. Matt: But then there's breweries, sort of outlier breweries, like Phoenix and Pittish. Matt: I use the word beer scene. Matt: We use that word a lot, don't we? Matt: It's like a beer diorama. Matt: There's just so much going on. Matt: It's exciting. Matt: I am a bit of a creature of habit. Matt: And I'll go to heat and hops a lot because I live near there and they've always got great beer on. Matt: And I'll go to cafe beer, moth and the city arms a lot, because those are my two favorite pubs in town, unabashedly. Matt: But I'll pop into Port street and it's like, oh, they've got the Kirkstall heritage bitter on today. Matt: And I've got to stop in there on the way home. Matt: It's just, where did I go the other day? Matt: Pelican which is squawks bar. Matt: They're queer brewing on cask. Matt: And I was like, I've got to go and try. Matt: Know there's always something happening. Matt: We've got festivals like just. Matt: Manchester is very proud. Matt: It knows it's good, but when you get under that, it's actually very gentle and compassionate. Matt: And it just wants you to experience it. Matt: Like go to reasons to be cheerful in Burnage, which is like a neighborhood bar. Matt: And they will have three cascon that are impeccable. Matt: I think they always have the. Matt: And hob day London black on, which is nice to know where you can get that in Manchester. Matt: But the people in there are not beer nerds. Matt: They're just people who live around the corner. Matt: It just happens to have a really good selection of beer on. Matt: But there are a hundred places like that in Manchester and the beer isn't a weird out there thing. Matt: It's just. Matt: It's a beer city. Matt: It's normal. Matt: And I guess that's why I wanted to write the book. Matt: And I'm very pleased, very pleased with it. Rob (Host): You should be indeed. Rob (Host): I love your expression of it being like a diorama. Matt: Yeah. Rob (Host): And I think that's a really good way to do it. Rob (Host): Earlier you talked about how you're running around linking up all these pubs would help you build this map of Manchester in your mind. Rob (Host): Yeah, I think that's something as well, because they're like anchor points, aren't they? Rob (Host): For all of us to do that. Rob (Host): But when those points are pubs and breweries that help explain where we live and everything about them, I think it's something more, isn't it? Rob (Host): And you can look at one place and it can tell you 1000 stories about the people that are there, the beers that are made for there, the beers that are drunk there, all those stories. Rob (Host): And that can be different to the institution. Rob (Host): Sorry, the outlet that's next door to it. Rob (Host): And it can be different to the one that's several streets away and it's a region away. Rob (Host): And diorama, I think, is a great way of explaining that. Matt: And all the people who used to play Warhammer, like me back in the day, will be like, oh, yeah, Diorama. Matt: Used to paint a few of those. Rob (Host): This is where the word comes from then. Matt: Yeah. Rob (Host): Maybe that's something that pelicans could do then, is bring in the diorama then, for beer. Matt: Yeah. Matt: What I'll do is I'll build me, Johnny, Lily and Katie as like little space marines. Matt: No. Rob (Host): Who would paint them of. Matt: We can get someone like Tita Bradshaw or Dion Kitchen, who did. Matt: Dion did the COVID of the book. Matt: She's a Manchester based artist. Matt: We've got plenty of illustrators that could do that. Rob (Host): Yeah, that's fantastic. Rob (Host): Well, thank you so much. Rob (Host): I think we're probably running towards the end of our time here. Matt: We've talked for a long time. Rob (Host): It's been brilliant. Rob (Host): But I wonder if you can just share, just to wrap up how people can stay up to date with everything. Rob (Host): Matt Curtis and everything. Matt: Yes. Matt: For better or worse, I'm persisting with Twitter. Matt: I'm not on any of the new social medias. Matt: Total Curtis is my username. Matt: I'm much more active on Instagram than I used to be. Matt: Same username. Matt: Total Curtis pelical is@pelicomag.com and it's free to read. Matt: There are 300 articles. Matt: Just dig in, telling me you love it, tell me you hate it. Matt: It's all good. Matt: But the best thing is the conversation. Matt: I think one of the nicest things that's ever been said to me is reading your writing, Matt, is like having a conversation with someone. Matt: The pub. Matt: Someone in the pub. Matt: And that's the goal, really. Matt: We're just talking about beer. Matt: We try and make it all big and special, but it's just beer. Matt: And it does need that context. Matt: It is important. Matt: It does need that impetus behind it. Matt: But it's also, as I said earlier, sometimes you put it to the side and it's just not that important. Matt: That's what we do. Matt: But yeah, have a conversation. Rob (Host): Lovely. Rob (Host): Well, thank you very much, Matt, and cheers. Matt: Cheers. Matt: Thank you very much. Rob (Host): Cheers. Rob (Host): So thank you very much for listening and I hope you can join me on the next one. Rob (Host): And this is the part where I ask for your help. Rob (Host): If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the podcast, leave a review or rating, or share it with others. Rob (Host): This really helps us out and helps other people find the podcast, particularly as we're starting out. Rob (Host): And you can follow us on social media search for we are beer people. Rob (Host): All one word. Rob (Host): You can also email us at wearebeerpeoplepod@gmail.com. Rob (Host): Let us know what you think, share your thoughts, and if you have any recommendations for beer people you'd like to hear from. Rob (Host): And until next time, don't forget you, me, us, them, we are all beer people.

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