Artisan Brewing Co. doubles in size

Along King’s Road in Pontcanna, Cardiff everything seems suburbanly normal. There’s a curry house, a florist, a hairdressers, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary. However, hidden away behind the normality a lone alcohol alchemist is hard at work. He’s concocting a range of unique beers in a garage which he believes to be Wales’s smallest commercial brewery.

The Artisan Brewing Co. located at 183 King's Road in Pontcanna, Cardiff

The Artisan Brewing Co. is a micro-brewery which produces 800 pints of beer a week. It is owned by Simon Doherty, a self-confessed beer-nerd. As from yesterday he has secured a deal, with the landlord of the site, to rent an area behind the garage effectively doubling the size of his operation, and maybe even tripling it for next summer.

What makes his alcoholic drinks different from most is the fact they are 100 per cent natural, free from additives and preservatives, in addition to being unfiltered and unpasteurised – that’s why he calls them barenaked beers.

“Most UK bottle conditioned beers use sugar to create the carbonation. I use a number of German techniques, so as to add nothing! As pure as beers gets: grain hop yeast and water, that is all.” Simon on how he bottles his drinks.

Here is a video of the brewing process:

Thanks to the newly acquired space he will be able to provide more barenaked beers to locals who come to his regular micro beer festivals which take place at the brewery throughout the year. The events always feature local bands and serve hot food sourced from South Wales.

This is a short clip from the latest event held 5 and 6 December, 2009:

By January he will know if he is successful in obtaining a ‘premises license’ to sell the beverages straight from the brewery itself. But for now you can wait until his next micro beer festival (details on his Facebook group) or visit the bars and cafes around Cardiff city centre that supply them: Nos Da, Bar Umm and Gwdihw.

A pressure tanker made in 1957 - purchased from ebay

Simon is originally from Melbourne, Australia but left when he was 22. While in Australia he worked for a winery and as a result managed to land a job at the prestigious Château Lynch-Bages in France. He worked in France for a while but decided he wanted to visit family in Clevedon, Bristol. He said one evening:

“I was in their backyard and saw lights flashing from across the water and asked what it was. It turned out to be Cardiff and they said it was apparently ‘good for a day trip.’”

When Simon initially came to Cardiff he had plans to go into business with a brewer based here, but it unfortunately fell through. Fortunately though he met his girlfriend who worked for NoFit State Circus and ended up joining her by managing the bar they had on site. After saving up money they decided to go travelling together and bought around-the-world tickets. On returning from this year out in 2004 he wanted to fulfil his dream of becoming an independent brewer:

“When I stepped off the plane I didn’t have a penny to my name. I was sleeping on a friend’s couch. I got a job and every spare penny saved went into this joint buying stainless steel and filling my lounge.”

Sign at the counter of the Micro Beer Festival #5

The Artisan Brewery at night

Before Simon moved his equipment from his front room into the garage-sized warehouse in King’s Road he informed me that not so long ago the space was used as a gallery. Previous to that he mentioned that it was a mechanic’s workshop: “Legend has it that there was a particular car that was made here.” But oddly enough he went on to add that:

“It apparently used to be a brewery about 90 years ago.”

Wanting to know more about this I did some research at Cardiff Central Library in the Local Studies section and looked up the address of the micro brewery from yesteryear. I found books containing details of streets in Cardiff dating back to the 1800s and started looking from the late 1890s, until I came across this page:

A page in Western Mail Cardiff Directory 1902

In this book:

Western Mail Cardiff Directory 1902

As you can see there was a brewery named Walpole Brewing Co. and further research showed it existed from 1902 to 1909 at 183 King’s Road, Pontcanna. It’s strange that the place was once a brewery over 100 years ago and now history is repeating itself. When Simon told me the benefits of the location it wasn’t surprising:

“When I moved in it was ideal as it had a sloping floor. I use water to clean everything and it helps if this moves in one direction on the floor. Not typical in most garages so this one was meant for me at this point in time.”

A map of the brewery’s location (click blue pointer for a photo of the site):

View Larger Map

If you ever walk down King’s Road in Pontcanna and see the curry house, the florist or the hairdressers remember that a little further on there’s a guy working solo crafting the next batch of naturally brewed beers. After January, if all goes to plan for him, you’ll be able to walk in and purchase his products from the Artisan brewery. Thanks to the new space he’ll have a healthy supply.

When Murdoch raises the paywall what side will you stand?

Paywalls, paywalls, paywalls. It seems every time I switch on the tv, radio or laptop there is someone talking about Rupert Murdoch and his pledge to start charging for online content next year. So i’m going to add to the saturation by talking about it on my blog too.

Last week I attended a lecture given by editor for ContentNext, Robert Andrews. In it he told Cardiff University postgraduates that the problem with charging for online content is akin to, “Trying to put the genie back in the bottle.” His reasoning is people have been brought up with content for free on the net so the concept of paying for it is alien. Of course he is right, it is a strange thought, but nevertheless one that is already in operation.

Robert explained that the Financial Times already has paywalls, which are making money (around £90 per 121,000 subscribers) primarily because it’s a business paper and people are willing to pay for what they see as valuable information they cannot get elsewhere. B2B magazines can also afford to put up paywalls (as this article in paidContent:UK refers to) as they too have niche information that people deem relevant enough to fork out for. So where does this leave Murdoch and his newspapers which, some would argue, doesn’t give people news what they can’t obtain for free elsewhere? The answer is no one knows.

Murdoch will soon charge for online content

But Murdoch isn’t the only one who believes in paywalls. Editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber, has predicted that most news organisations will charge for online content within a year. He believes that digital media doesn’t pose a threat to crafted professional journalism but does to the mediocre (people blogging on hearsay rather than fact).

Only time will tell if Murdoch will be successful when the paywall rises.

http://paidcontent.org/

Most news doesn’t require journalists

When Joanna Geary, Web Development Editor for The Times told Cardiff journalism students, “Most news doesn’t require journalists, because of press releases. It’s like someone with three PHDs  flipping burgers.” It made me think about churnalism and how it affects the industry.

If the world of journalism work is based on PR people writing press releases only for journalists to rehash into their own words, you know mix the sentences around a bit, where is the originality? What’s the use in studying a post-graduate diploma, to learn the skills of the trade, if we get into a job just to churn out the same rubbish that PR peddlers want us to?

Also, thanks to the internet, everyone can be a journalist if they want. Ok, their articles probably won’t get printed in The Guardian or any other newspaper, but their stories/articles/ideas will be published online for all who want to read them. The main problem these people will experience is lack of money from their work, but if they’re only doing it as a hobby will it matter to them? The benefits they will have is freedom to write what they please with no press releases to churn out again and again.

But if hacks jump on the technology bandwagon it can lead to more individual writing, alongside the necessary writing of their job. Through blogging Joanna Geary estimates she has doubled her income in just 18 months and it’s something she started outside of her employment. Nothing to be sniffed at then. She says not many journalists are tech savvy nor are they willing to accept the industry has changed, significantly. So that’s where the new breed come in.

Journalists today need to be utilising technology to get ahead. If we do this perhaps we can pioneer in the industry instead of following other people’s leads.

Ignore the audience, they’re mad

The BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones recently came to give a talk entitled: Typewriter to Twitter for Cardiff University journalism students. In the lecture he discussed how journalism has changed since he began his career in 1983, and what it looks like now  in 2009.

Rory explained how audiences back then were taken for granted by TV execs as people could only really choose between two stations – in addition to no internet, Sky or cable TV – so they were almost guaranteed a large audience. He discussed that audience members were also seen as mad with station staff not really taking any notice of them when they contacted the station. One thing that surprised me was his scepticism of any original journalism going on in the 1980s – he said staff read newspapers earlier in the day, then reported that news later in the morning.

A couple of decades later and things are quite different. No audiences are taken for granted anymore as there are too many channels and media platforms all fighting for their share. The way we consume news is different too. A lot of people read news via the internet, which they can currently do for free, and they have 24 hour access. In present times there is so much choice that competition pressure has raised the quality of the main broadcasters – but with the rise of citizen journalists it has led to questioning of their output too.

So the world of journalism has changed a great deal with one glaring difference between now and the 1980s being the audience is no longer taken for granted. In fact audiences now actively take part in stories by providing User Generated Content or blogging, tweeting about events when they occur  TV execs can no longer see as them as mad but perhaps more of a competition.

Photographs and audio speak louder than words

I recently attended a lecture by Dr Daniel Meadows where he gave a history of unique documentary work he undertook in the early ’70s. In a brief summery he drove a double-decker bus around Britain from 1973 to 1974 taking pictures of people in their home towns. The photos helped him get into the media industry and have since taken on a life of their own. But I don’t want to discuss his work in detail as you can do that by visiting his site linked above.

His lecture got me thinking about how imagery resonates with people more than words ever can. You look at photos and immediately you are thinking about the story behind them – the bigger picture. What Dr Meadows is doing now is going through the photographs he took back in the ’70s and adding them with narrative audio to create something more powerful than images alone. You can visit his Photobus website to see the videos.

The other day i stumbled across a series of photos taken by an award-winning photographer named Maciej Dakowicz. They have been put together on YouTube with not a narrative but a soundtrack to accompany them. Although the pictures are moving, funny, sad and shocking by themselves with the music added they become startlingly poignant. Try viewing the video below without the audio and one with and you’ll see what I mean.

The added music makes the imagery thought-provoking and almost serious. You could play something like The Steptoe and Son theme tune over the top and the photos would take on a new comical meaning. Try if for yourself by playing the video above without the audio, and the one below with sound, at roughly the same time – also scroll the screen up so only the first video is visible.

It makes a huge difference doesn’t it? The photos now seem completely different. They are less poignant and more light-hearted, even the sad imagery. Music and imagery combined is a powerful story telling tool (even without a narrative), especially if one compliments the other.

Joe blogs

Adam Tinworth, blogging editor for Reed Business Information (RBI), says going to an interview for a journalist position without a blog is akin to a musician meeting a label’s boss without any demos. Although I haven’t been to any such interviews yet, I can see his point.

With increasingly more people searching  for information online blogging has become a huge part of what people read. In 2007  RBI was making more money online than in print, and that trend is on a continuing rise. Not having a blog could be detrimental to your career. Problem is more and more people are setting up them up so how do you stand out from the masses?

Adam advises you find a niche and be the dominant voice in that field. If you write about something that you’re  passionate and enthusiastic about it will come across well in your blog and you’ll start to get a readership. He also says that you shouldn’t be opinionated.

Instead of offering opinions on a subject Adam suggests you offer conversation and debate to engage with your readers. People don’t necessarily want to listen to your opinions unless you’re very knowledgeable in a subject. That’s why blogs that carry opinion – known as ‘expert blogs’ – are, according to Adam, perfect for, “Pissed old hacks” because they have years of expertise in their respective fields.

I agree with what he says about people not wanting to be talked at. We enjoy conversation that’s why there are so many reader comments on articles online because we love debate, especially if  something is disliked – check the amount of comments on this infamous Daily Mail article.

Writing for blogs is more complicated than I first imagined but if your writing offers debate rather than dictation you’ll be a one step ahead of Joe Blogs.

What is happening right now?

Last Thursday I attended a lecture by Dr Claire Wardle regarding social media and how it’s shaping the journalism industry. She has been Principal Investigator for a number of funded research projects – one in which she examined the use of User Generated Content (UGC) across BBC news outlets.

Claire gave us a well-informed and ultra fast-paced lecture, not sure if she’s sponsored by Relentless but perhaps she should be. The lecture largely consisted of new social networking tools which are helping journalists find out a lot more about what’s happening in the world than ever before.

Tools such as news aggregators, for example Netvibes which enables people to have news brought to them, social network aggregators like Addict-o-matic and new applications to enhance Twitter such as Twitter Grader where you can find where you rank in the Twittersphere, TweepML to find lists of people you may be interested in following and Twitscoop a useful way of using the micro blogging service to see the current trending topics and automatic refreshing of your live feed. These applications help you keep on top of what is happening in the world in real-time.

The sites are becoming vital for journalists to use. Not only because it helps them keep abreast of local and international news but also it makes their lives easier in terms of research (aggregators/Twitter) and contacting sources (social networking sites).

As we are continually being told the face of the industry is changing, and rapidly. The era we’re entering may be as important as the advent of the Gutenberg’s press and these new tools are essential to learn if we want succeed in this ever-changing landscape.

As Twitter encourages people to let the world know what they are doing right now journalists need to pay attention to the news this can create.

Twitter not the breaker of bad news

I first heard about the oil company Trafigura and its suspected dumping of toxic oil on the Ivory Coast, that this Guardian article relates to, when I read a tweet on October 13 at 1:34am from @Glinner (Graham Linehan, writer of The IT Crowd): “What a shame it would be if #trafigura started trending after their lawyers went to so much trouble to silence the press.”

Indeed #trafigura became the top trending topic later that day. It seemed the whole of Twitter was awash with tweets from thousands of people spreading the news that the oil company’s lawyers, Carter-Ruck,were trying to gag the media with a super-injunction to stop people knowing about its client’s alleged crime.

This super-injunction, which not only prevented the media from talking about what the Minton Report had said (where the story broke from, see a summary of the report here from WikiLeaks ) it prevented them from publishing who imposed it. This ban included social networking sites.

As you might have guessed I’m pro Twitter and love the fact that this medium can be anarchic and help break and distribute stories such as this. But it turns out that, although helping a great deal in spreading the news to many people, Twitter did not bring the story to light in the first place.

Print beat the internet

Later that week on Friday I watched Have I Got News For You on BBC 1 and Ian Hislop (editor of Private Eye) spoke for a couple of minutes about how Private Eye wrote about the issue first, despite the super-injunction. An article by Ian Hislop states: “[We were] the first publication to print the full text of the now infamous parliamentary questions… a full two weeks before the Twittersphere caught up with the story.”

Perhaps Private Eye should get a Twitter account?

Do journalists need an internet manifesto?

Not agreeing with all that is stated in this Internet Manifesto created by German journalists I do find point nine The Internet is the new venue for political discourse interesting. It demonstrates how the internet is a powerful tool in maintaining democracy as it: “Thrives on participation and freedom of information.”

The internet provides a platform for debate on the media’s output as it enables the people, formally known as the audience, to engage in discussion on anything and everything. As the Internet Manifesto explains it encourages active discussion which simply wasn’t possible not so long ago. The public are now able to express their opinions on what is written by using, ever-increasing, online mediums to voice their opinions.

In Alison Gow’s blog she talks about internet manifestos and how putting them on the web isn’t the answer because: “Too many of the people who need convincing aren’t looking there that often.”

Alison acknowledges the vital importance of the world wide web and how every journalist needs to be involved in its development. She understands that although the print media claim to be internet savvy, this isn’t always the case – especially with regards to the execs: “The focus is [still] on the money-making print product.”

So the problem lays with staff, as Alison states: “Higher up the editorial food chain” that aren’t internet literate. They refuse to learn the new ways of journalism, not grasping the fact that the industry has changed forever.

In essence she is saying just because you understand how it once worked there’s no point having your head in the sand hoping that the industry will  go back to the way it was. Until a time-travelling DeLorean gets invented, that’s not going to happen.

People should embrace change and help foster democracy online. A manifesto won’t implement this, but it serves as a reference for those that should be paying attention.