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 The heroes of beer… are not where you expect them

We wanted to celebrate heroes, but in true OG fashion we didn’t want to be obvious, so there’ll be no profiles of various hops or barley strains; celebrities and the brewing world’s famous have been avoided; we wanted the idea of heroes to be understated, not thwacked out of the ground or bugled parade ground-style, we hoped for subtlety and longed for the silent hero or maybe the forgotten one, or just perhaps the odd one.

In contemporary life, the idea of a hero has become so broad that it’s hard to know what or who is one, which is perhaps the underlying concept of Pete Brown’s fascinating tale of beer as a hero. Before he became an award-winning beer writer, Pete was embedded deep in the world of advertising, working on Stella and Heineken, and here he offers an overview of how the advertising of beer has changed since his playground days.

For some, parents are the heroes of their life, but Jessica Mason takes a totally different view in her searingly honest and compulsively readable tale of a pub table and a beer; this is perhaps one of the most powerful pieces we have published. Some of it might not make for easy reading, but if you just want jolly tales about beer, sorry.

Do you know who Jack Payne was? We didn’t and if you don’t know either then go onto to read Katrien Bruyland’s excellent story of how a British soldier at the end of the Great War stayed on in Belgium and had a hand in developing one of the country’s most enduring beers, as well as introducing a new style.

Original Gravity’s founder and publisher Daniel Neilson travels often to Ghana – here he meet Clement Djameh and tastes his sorghum beers that burst with flavour and exemplify their maker’s brewing expertise. Elsewhere, we have a tale of a Prague pub and what constitutes a lost beer, while English-style IPAs and bocks are celebrated, beer meets love and all get on swimmingly. We hope you enjoy the issue.

Adrian Tierney-Jones, Editor