CL-046 Mark Spence Owns His Feelings

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get the behind-the-scenes look at some of our favorite articles. I’m Claire Bullen, and I’m the Editor-in-Chief at Good Beer Hunting.

One of the greatest pleasures of my job is fielding pitches that our writers send in, which range from the bold to the brilliant to the baffling. Recently, GBH staff writer Jonny Garrett sent in an idea that was a mix of all three; as soon as it came into my inbox, I remember thinking—“this is something we have to publish.” That pitch evolved into his recent piece, “TL;DR – Tracing the Origins of Beer Language, from Michael Jackson to Emojis,” which is part of our Mother of Invention series, underwritten by Guinness.

With this article, Jonny set himself an almost impossibly expansive task: examine the history and evolution of modern beer writing, from the groundbreaking author and beer personality Michael Jackson, who helped codify a formal language around beer in the ’70s and ’80s, all the way up to today’s frenzy of Twitter timelines, Instagram captions, and Untappd reviews. As the article’s title suggests, Jonny even digs into the role that emojis play in beer writing.

In researching his article, Jonny spoke to linguists and delved into the history books. He also examined how wine-tasting notes came to be, talked to one of Beer Twitter’s most infamous wordsmiths, and spent more than a little time scrolling through his various social media feeds. The result is an up-to-the-minute piece with a unique, metacritical scope. In the space of just a few thousand words, he manages to touch on everything from the debate around the term “craft beer” and the way that specialized vocabulary functions within niche communities to “crispy bois” and dank memes.

It’s a remarkable piece of writing, and it may well change the way you think about and describe beer forever. If you haven’t yet read his article, you can find that on GoodBeerHunting.com. For now, tune in and listen as Jonny describes how the idea for this article first came about.

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get a behind-the-scenes look at some of our favorite articles. I’m Jonny Garrett, and I’m a staff writer for GBH.

Today, I’m catching up with Anthony Gladman, a new writer at GBH. With the U.K. on lockdown, I thought this would be a great opportunity to transcend the physical distances and get some much-needed social interaction. The episode starts with a chat about how both are coping with the isolation—particularly now that Anthony is homeschooling his kids—before moving on to Anthony’s first full feature for GBH: a dive into the world of British cider called “Rebirth in England’s Orchards — Find & Foster Fine Cider in Devon, U.K.”

Until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the British cider scene was gathering some momentum and press as both an off-shoot of the craft beer movement and a traditional part of Britain’s beverage heritage. Anthony and I discuss the unique conservational approach of Find & Foster, and whether the world of cider is better or worse placed to weather the current storm than beer.

This is Anthony Gladman on the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast. Listen in.

Welcome to this special series of the GBH Collective podcast, where we’ll be checking in with members of our global team to keep you updated on unfolding events surrounding COVID-19. I’m Ashley Rodriguez.

We’re consuming news at a rapid rate. The front page of the New York Times is totally dedicated to COVID-19 coverage, and many other outlets have shifted to focus on the current global pandemic.

I wanted to understand how folks who work in breaking news cover stories. We’ve shifted our editorial platform dramatically, so I’m first chatting with Kate Bernot, lead contributor to Sightlines, our news vertical. Kate has years of experience reporting on breaking stories, and we talk about how this moment is different—and the surprises she’s uncovered through a week of nonstop reporting.

Then we shift to Alyssa Pereira, GBH contributor and staff writer for SFGate, a news outlet primarily serving the Bay Area and Northern California. From their computers to yours, we talk about how to cover such an unprecedented event, and how you can look at the news through the eyes of a reporter. Here’s Kate to kick us off.

Welcome to this special series of the GBH Collective podcast, where we’ll be checking in with members of our global team to keep you updated on unfolding events surrounding COVID-19. I’m Ashley Rodriguez.

If you have an iPhone, it probably tells you how many hours per day you’ve looked at your screen. According to my phone, my screentime has been up 63%—and I’m sure I’m not alone. I’m doubly sure most of us are looking at articles that make us feel a sense of dread as opposed to providing comfort.

In this check-in, I wanted to talk to our team about the bright spots: the ways that folks have come together, the ways that communities have brainstormed creative solutions—anything that makes us feel better in this weird time. I catch up with Jim Plachy first, who is the community manager of the Fervent Few, our subscriber-based beer community. Then we jump to Jonny Garrett, one of our U.K.-based GBH contributors. He has been searching for small optimistic episodes within the pandemic—and offers some hot tips for folks who suddenly find themselves at home for the foreseeable with their partners and spouses.

This is the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast. Listen in.

I’m writing and recording this from my home office. I imagine at this point, COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has affected your life in some way. Maybe you’re quarantined at home; maybe you’re a business owner who’s wondering what measures like social distancing will do your business, or maybe you’re just trying to navigate what is shaping up to be one of the weirdest times in our collective history. Either way, there’s a lot going on.

We decided to bring you a special edition of the GBH Collective podcast, checking in with our team of writers and editors across the globe. Our team has always consisted of folks reporting from their corners of the world, and this global crisis is no exception. One thing I’ve always appreciated about working for Good Beer Hunting is our willingness to be frank and have open conversations … and that includes bringing you folks—our listeners, supporters, and fellow beer professionals—in on how we’re handling the current state of affairs.

What you’re about to hear is a series of five short interviews that I conducted with members of our team. The first is with Bryan Roth, who is our Sightlines editor, reporting from Durham, North Carolina. Next, you’ll hear from GBH founder and creative director Michael Kiser, who will update you on how we as an organization are handling the pandemic. Next, we’re gonna check in with Claire Bullen, our editor-in-chief reporting on what’s happening in the U.K., and the influence of social media on community responses. We’ll then touch base with Eoghan Walsh, a staff writer reporting from Brussels, and lastly, we’ll go to the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak and talk to Dave Riddile about working in service and supporting local businesses in Seattle.

This is the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast. Listen in.

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get a behind-the-scenes look at our favorite articles. I’m Jonny Garrett, and I’m a staff writer and podcaster here at Good Beer Hunting.

Today I’m talking to Eoghan Walsh, who just had his first article for Good Beer Hunting published. Entitled, “The Last Crusade — Rich Soriano Wants to Talk to You About Lambic,” it’s essentially the story of a day with one of Belgium’s most beloved beer characters, Rich Soriano. And by a day with, I really mean a bar crawl with.

Eoghan’s piece manages to make it feel like the reader is right there with them, and over the course of a few thousand words, we travel to a number of special Lambic producers and pubs, slowly learning how an American has ended up being one of the faces of Brussel’s traditional brewing scene. We start, though, by addressing the fact that that’s the last way that Soriano would want to be described.

This is the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast. Listen in.

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get a behind-the-scenes look at some of our favorite articles. I’m Ashley Rodriguez, and I produce Good Beer Hunting's podcast.

I probably sit with our blog, Beer is Offal, more than anything I interact with on Good Beer Hunting. Not only is it something we produce totally in house—all the artwork comes through us and it’s written by a member of the GBH team, Mark Spence—but it’s also the only series we’ve captured entirely on audio. Mark has read every single one of his blog entries on our Out Loud series, where we record our favorite stories for our audience, and there’s a reason for that—Beer is Offal is special.

Beer is Offal is a food blog. That’s a simple way to put it. But that doesn’t capture all of it. It’s full of feelings, rants, brutal honesty, sometimes curveballs, and always this feeling of authenticity that I think is really interesting in the context of food writing. As Mark and I discuss in this episode, Beer is Offal is deeply personal—you get to know a lot about him pretty quickly—but it differs from most food writing in that it’s not a series of recipes, it’s not about someone trying to learn a new cuisine or venturing into traditions and styles of cooking that aren’t part of their background. It stays so close to the chest, and in that way, the lessons and ideas Mark talks about become wonderfully universal and relatable. It’s sort of remarkable how he makes that happen.

I sat down with Mark and talked about what it means to write about things happening to you right now—in real time. Beer is Offal isn’t just a collection of lessons learned, but is very much about things going on in Mark’s life, and his attempts to slowly acknowledge and work through them. Mark is admittedly not a very “emotional” person—as he says himself, he’s much more likely to be the guy in the corner of the room sticking close to his friends. So what does it take for someone like him to put all his stuff out there? How does he transform into, as he calls it, “a food and feelings writer?” Let’s find out.

Here’s Mark Spence. Listen in.

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get a behind-the-scenes look at our favorite articles. I’m Jonny Garrett, and I’m a staff writer and podcaster here at Good Beer Hunting.

I first met Breandán Kearney in 2015, when he swept the board at the British Guild of Beer Writers Awards. I, like quite a few people in the room, had no idea who he was at the time, but I only had to read a few of his articles to see what a brilliant writer he is. And you’d have to be brilliant to tackle the article we talk about in today’s podcast.

Breandán’s latest piece for Good Beer Hunting is titled, “Flying With Clipped Wings — West Kerry Brewery, County Kerry, Ireland.” It tells the heartbreaking story of a brewpub on the Irish coast. Few beer articles have two deaths in their opening paragraphs, but even fewer manage to tell such an uplifting story of personal grit, and success against the odds.

The piece also serves as a wonderful insight into the small world of Irish brewing and the people who have slowly turned the country into an exciting, modern brewing nation. I start by asking how Breandán came across the brewery, before delving into what it’s like to research such a difficult, emotional story.

This is Breandán Kearney. Listen in.

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get a behind-the-scenes look at some of our favorite articles. I’m Ashley Rodriguez, and I produce Good Beer Hunting's podcast.

2019 was a big year for us at GBH. We published more stories than ever before, our writers took home dozens of awards, and we broke our own record for the number of visits to our site. It was truly a banner year.

One of the reasons for that is Claire Bullen, our editor-in-chief. Perhaps we didn’t give this occasion enough fanfare—I know I certainly would have participated in a ticker-tape parade to celebrate, but this is our time to do so.

Claire took over the role of editor in June, but has been on the editorial team since mid-2018. Claire is responsible for two of our 10 most popular stories of the year; she published a book in March; and shone like the beer beacon she is at this year’s North American Guild of Beer Writers Awards and British Guild of Beer Writers Awards, winning nods including Best Book, Best Technical Writing, and Best Travel Writing. It’s an understatement to say that we’re lucky to have her on the team.

One of the pleasures of my job is seeing Claire at work. Articles come in from our writers, and I get to watch Claire work with folks to produce some of the best beer writing on the internet. Every editor has a different approach to how they coach and guide writers, making small edits and suggestions as to how to really punch up an article. I saw this at work especially in a recent House Culture article we published by Helena Fitzgerald. Helena is a freelance writer who shared a beautiful story about stepping back from drinking while maintaining her love of bars, and it was lovely to see the touch points in the piece—the moments I knew Claire helped shape. I get to know Helena in this piece, but I also see Claire in there as well.

It’s funny writing this (and now saying it out loud), because I know Claire has to edit it—and I can imagine her brain working through this introduction that’s about her. It’s kind of a mind trip, but Claire makes us all better. I benefit so much from having her as editorial teammate, and I hope you see the flashes of her on our website like I do. They’re quiet and subtle, but when you find them, they shine brilliantly.

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get a behind-the-scenes look at some of our favorite articles. I’m Ashley Rodriguez, and I produce Good Beer Hunting's podcast.

Hey! Did you hear we hired someone new?

We’re all excited to welcome Kate Bernot to the Good Beer Hunting team. She’s taking over as the lead at Sightlines, our news channel (don’t worry, Bryan Roth is still around, working on new projects and definitely making charts).

Kate brings years of experience to the team, which she put to good use pretty much from the moment she started. On day one of Kate’s new job with GBH, it was announced that Ballast Point Brewing Company would be sold to Kings & Convicts Brewing Company, a brewery in Highwood, Illinois. I live in Chicago and I had to Google where that was—and collectively, so did the rest of Beer Twitter, essentially shutting down the Kings & Convicts website when the news broke. Kate had to write her very first article for us about one of the biggest news stories in beer EVER.

As you probably know if you keep up with our site, Kate crushed it, reporting through all the noise that the news stirred up, and finding out some key facts that made clear how this sale was possible. Talk about on-the-job training—within hours of reporting for duty, Kate published one of the most comprehensive breakdowns of the Ballast Point sale out there. And today, we’re gonna learn more about how that story unfolded.

Likewise, we’re gonna learn more about Kate herself—for all the messages and emails flying around during that Ballast Point article, this is the first time I get some time to chat with her. Along with her stellar work for previous beer publications and her penchant for asking simple and straightforward questions, we quickly learned we at the office were making one fundamental mistake.