I'll drink to that. By Jan Needle
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| What a place to brew beer! |
Happy is the man, someone once said, who
can make a living out of his hobby. I think people who know me well might want
to emend that to “Why can’t he take things more seriously? He turns everything
into a cause for smiling, lucrative or not. He’s a disgrace.”
Which is a pretty tortuous introduction to
a series of not-very-well-connected thoughts about the process of bringing a
book into the world. Or bringing it into the world again, to be fair, because
it’s a rejig/refocusing of the first novel I ever wrote. And as I blogged about
it last month, I’ll take a completely different tack to help you not to doze
off.
The book is called Wild Wood, and Julia
Jones’s imprint, Golden Duck, is publishing it. And I’ve been enjoying myself
immensely in the process, possibly because Julia and my son Matti Gardner have
been doing most of the work. I only wrote the thing, and for the pain of that I
refer you to my first paragraph.
Now one of the early chapters is called No
Trouble Brewing, and features the hero’s mother, Daisy Ferret, at her annual
‘brewday.’ She turns the family home into a wild and steaming riot of liquor
(which is what brewers call water), malt and hops. When this year’s brew is
finished, she opens up a few bottles of killer barley wine matured from the year before. Miraculously,
without having been warned or informed, the thirsty denizens of the Wood turn
up on the front doorstep with tongues hanging out. Just passing by, naturally…what
a coincidence! The few bottles become a few dozen.
Being a beer man from way back (a lad I
used to work with as a junior reporter became one of the founders of CAMRA), I
love this scene, and have always wanted to taste Ma’s mythic brew. And
suddenly, a week ago, I had a brainwave.
Not far from me in the Pennines, deep in
the bowels of an ancient woollen mill, is a small but thriving brewery. I’ve
tasted some of their brews, which are wonderful, so I rang them up. Told them
about Wild Wood – and told them of my cunning plan. I visited. We talked. Tony
Harratt, his wife Mary, and their brewer Richard Thomas, a man so young I thought at
first he must be on work experience.
A brewer! With his own hair and teeth! OMG,
where did my life go wrong?
So now the process is up and running. We
talked through their brews (without tasting – it was morning, and I’m a
consummate professional!) and are going to chose a recipe, which will be
printed in Wild Wood. You liked the book? Now taste the beer! Even better, now
BREW the stuff! I can feel the ghost of Daisy smiling over my shoulder. Ferret Fame at last!
My more worldly associates asked me the
usual modern questions. WTF, basically. How much is it costing? Who gets what
out of it? My answer is the same as Greenfield Brewery’s – who knows. Seems
unlikely to make anybody’s fortune, but if it spreads a little pleasure,
that’ll be fine by us. As Grusha said in the Caucasian Chalk Circle, ‘bei mir
ist dass recht.’ (It was Brecht’s birthday last Saturday, incidentally. But he
didn’t bother much with drink.)
So there you have it. Another way of
getting pleasure out of work. I wish it was a concept I could bottle.
The brewery, incidentally, sells in local
pubs and clubs, and runs guided tours with beer and meat and potato pie thrown
in. And two thirds of the organization went to school
with my kids. Let’s keep it local, eh?
Comments
P.S. I do, however, share your tendency to avoid taking too many things seriously, and I like the sound of that first novel. My own first has won me a couple of awards but nowadays clearly needs a lift. I shall trawl the vicinity for recipes.
That makes you think you're Ghengis Khan
Or Superman.
And when your spouse runs through the house -
Well, waddaya know
Brigitte Bardot!
I bought a self published book of poems by a man called Jake Trussell, 'the Texan poet' in a Portsmouth folk club when i was sixteen, and drinking (God help me!) Brickwoods bitter. That was the only poem I remember, and I can't forget it, however much I drink!