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.// “Soon after Super Mario became famous, someone told me that I had reached the status of Walt Disney. I remember pointing out that, at the time, Mickey Mouse was more than fifty years old, while Mario had only been around for two or three years. So there was a lot to catch up on.” Super Mario’s dad, Shigeru Miyamoto, grants a rare interview to the New Yorker to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. and the impending opening of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios in Japan.
LOOK.// After a decade of waiting, one of the most anticipated video games of all time finally arrived … and boy is it a mess. Cyberpunk 2077, a gritty sci-fi RPG from the makers of “The Witcher” (perhaps you saw it on Netflix), arrived with everything from game-breaking crashes to objects that decide to just float magically in the air. Here’s a collection of some of the funniest glitches in the game.
DRINK.// Phase Three Brewing’s Pixel Density
Everyone is making a Citra-hopped NEIPA these days, but no one locally is doing it like Phase Three. Sure, this beer swaps the style’s typically vibrant orange color for something closer to chicken broth, but the trade-off is the softest texture and the most citrusy flavor of any beer I’ve had from a brewery not named Tree House. The fact that it’s always available and I don’t have to chase it down makes it that much sweeter.
READ.// “It seems possible that after nearly a year of solitude and collective self-banishment, and of crushing restrictions on travel and adventure, the chantey might be providing a brief glimpse into a different, more exciting way of life, a world of sea air and pirates and grog, of many people singing in unison, of being free to boldly take off for what Melville called the ‘true places,’ the uncorrupted vistas that can’t be located on any map.” I definitely didn’t have “sea shanties getting big on TikTok” on my 2021 bingo card, but amidst the darkness and dread of this present moment, I—like so many others—have found surprising joy and comfort in “The Wellerman” and other traditional songs. This New Yorker piece by Amanda Petrusich breaks down this wholesome trend.
LOOK.// One of the best reprieves I’ve found from the prevailing gloom is going on long, almost-daily walks—but even as I find comfort in the fresh air, I wish I were closer to some wilder tracts of nature. In the meantime, I get my dose of forest bathing from Tree.fm, which allows users to visit and listen to recordings of different forests all over the world.
DRINK.// Tenuta Foresto La Comedie Barbera Frizzante 2018
Just before New Year’s, Jen at Hop Burns & Black—the South London bottle shop with which I wrote my cookbook, The Beer Lover’s Table—gifted me this bottle of joyously sparkling red wine from northern Italy’s Piedmont region. Made from the Barbera grape (long considered inferior to the local king, Nebbiolo), this wine is more than just fun fizz: Its pops of acidity, its crunchy cranberry character, make it feel positively electric. After weeks of dreariness and palate fatigue, this wine woke me right back up.
READ.// “I got in a couple good writing days, and I didn’t set fire to anything. The black cloud has largely dissipated, though it gathers and roils here and there from time to time. I can handle that.” Chris LaTray is a wonderful poet and writer based in Missoula, Montana. His newsletter, An Irritable Métis, has been one of my favorite things to read during this last agonizing year—LaTray names all the unnamable emotions that bewilder me, then puts them on the page in a way that is true and beautiful and sometimes hopeful. I always feel better after reading it.
LOOK.// @boschbot is an automated Twitter account that tweets bits of Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych oil painting, “The Garden Of Earthly Delights,” every few hours. The small details are incredible: three naked men astride horses, carrying a fish; flying lizards chasing a pearl-encrusted spider; a large gray cat with a unicorn’s horn. Scrolling through Twitter feels so surreal these days, we may as well add some capital-S Surrealism to our TLs.
DRINK.// The Referend’s The New Life
The New Life is a blend of Tonewood Brewing’s Pale Ale with The Referend’s spontaneously fermented Pale Wheat Ale, dry-hopped after blending and refermented in the can with local honey. It was a collaboration designed to save Tonewood Pale Ale kegs from getting dumped when bars shut down during the early days of the pandemic. Cool project, tasty results.
Curated by The GBH Collective
