These are the words, images, and beers that inspired the GBH Collective this week. Drinking alone just got better, because now you're drinking with all of us.
READ.// “[Being lost] delivers a psychic double whammy: Not only are you stricken with fear, you also lose your ability to reason. You suffer what neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux calls a ‘hostile takeover of consciousness by emotion.’” If you’ve ever been truly lost—or have come close—this Wired piece will resonate. My major takeaway? When you’re lost, just stay still.
LOOK.// Photographer, writer, and researcher John M. Mulhouse just published a book of his ghost town photographs—“Abandoned New Mexico: Ghost Towns, Endangered Architecture, and Hidden History”—but you can get a taste of their crumbling, sun-bleached beauty on his blog, City of Dust.
DRINK.// Oskar Blues Brewery’s Slow Chill Munich Helles
Two of the finest words in the English language are “Lager series,” and I’ve been digging on the latest from Oskar Blues: Slow Chill Munich Helles, a crackery, not-too-bitter little number that’s a nice deviation from the Pilsners in my fridge this spring.
READ.// “But a bog is a product of climate and topography; it wants to be wet, just as a lake or a river does. Only through a tremendous, often uneconomical, investment of human energy could a bog be turned into a field of potatoes or a grazing meadow. Fuel, however, was another matter.” Environmental issues, the politics of occupation, and mutilated corpses: this immersive Harper’s article by William Atkins about bogs and the Irish peat industry is rife with unexpected details and strange anecdotes.
LOOK.// I found out about Daniel Boyle’s gorgeous salt- and ash-glazed stoneware from the Twitter account of the London gallery Contemporary Ceramics, though he also has his own Instagram account worth following. Complex textures and vibrant colors from a craft potter in Wales.
DRINK.// Budweiser Budvar’s Budvar 33
Foreigners love Budějovický Budvar, aka "the original Budweiser,” but in truth the South Bohemian brewery’s standard Lagers are less bitter and a bit thinner than the favorite beers of its home country. Budvar 33 is the brewery’s take on a more Czech-tasting pivo, with about 50% more IBUs (up to the eponymous 33) and a fuller mouthfeel. Formerly draft-only, it’s newly available throughout the Czech Republic in cans and bottles.
READ.// “The virus has given us a picture, at once frightening and beautiful, of a world without tourism. We see now what happens to our public goods when tourists aren’t clustering to exploit them. Shorelines enjoy a respite from the erosion caused by cruise ships the size of canyons. Walkers stuck at home cannot litter mountainsides. Intricate culinary cultures are no longer menaced by triangles of defrosted pizza.” As a former travel writer and copywriter, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the ongoing pandemic will mean for the future of tourism. As this nuanced piece in the Guardian spells out, there are upsides (hollowed-out tourist havens like Venice and Barcelona being reclaimed for local use) as well as downsides (less incentive to pursue eco-tourism; wildlife at risk in popular safari destinations). On the one hand, I deeply miss being able to hop on a plane and head to a new city-break destination on a whim. On the other, this jolt towards sustainability is long overdue.
LOOK.// Speaking of travel and pools and luxury, after reading this article in the New York Times about the rich building their own pools during the pandemic, I became obsessed with the image accompanying it. I ended up diving into midcentury photographer Slim Aarons’ catalogue full of pools and famous people and the retreats of the ultra-wealthy. It’s all beautiful, and it’s all pretty disturbing.
DRINK.// Jonny Garrett’s Best Bitter
I’m lucky that fellow GBHer Jonny Garrett lives just a 12-minute walk away from my flat. On Monday, I went over to sit on his stoop and sample his homebrewed Best Bitter—a clone of the recipe that Five Points Brewery uses for its immaculate rendition of the style—for his latest Craft Beer Channel episode. Jonny had even purchased his own handpump on eBay, and trying the beer (in my own pint glass brought from home) was the closest I’d come to enjoying cask ale in a pub in months. I quickly demolished three pints—thanks/sorry, Jonny.
Curated by The GBH Collective
