Hello and happy Friday!
The World Cup is here (more on this later). Let us know who you're rooting for and we'll toast to them!
In this week's issue:
The strangest flea market you've never heard of
Pride month is here, and the beer scene is showing out to support
How a London lad fit the entire world into his fridge
[ 01 // THE FLIGHT ]
Our faves from this week
🏳️🌈 Triple Bottom Brewing teams with Philly Pride 365 and artist Kah Yangni to kick off Pride Month with a special pale ale.
🎩 The Prohibition is not back (thankfully), but beer is! Drumlins Beer Co. is the first brewery in Palmyra, NY since the infamous alcohol ban.
🎙️ Hip-hop heads unite in at Gigantic Brewing Portland for a beer fest celebrating a thriving hip-hop renaissance in the city of roses.
🧬 Mad scientist Laura Burns is editing yeast genomes to coax tropical-fruit aromas out of IPAs. Cool, now remove the hangovers!
👺 Oddities Flea Market will be hosted at Foolproof Brewing in Bridgeport and brings 50+ vendors of taxidermy, occult goods, and dark art into a craft brewery.
[ 02 // THE PINT ]
48 Nations, One Fridge
As of yesterday, the World Cup has officially kicked off! Pop quiz: can you name all 48 nations competing this year? No? How about naming one brewery from each of the 48 competing nations? Still no? Don’t worry, Gus Hully has you covered.
Gus has never set foot in Iraq. But somewhere in his London flat currently sits a non-alcoholic pineapple malt drink from Iraq that cost him £30 from a random guy in Poland. It was the last bottle he needed.
Gus just pulled off the most gloriously unhinged World Cup move we've seen: one beer from every single one of the 48 nations playing this summer. Total cost: about £250 / $335. (Which for the record is less than group stage tickets.)
The fun part about Gus’s collection is that he only drinks a beer once that nation gets knocked out. One elimination, one toast, to their participation and their failure (his words, not ours). And when the final whistle blows on July 19 only one will remain unopened: the World Cup champion’s.
The collection is cool, sure. But how he built it is the actual story. Panama’s beer came from a lucky find on a Florida vacation. Qatar required trading rare English beers to a guy in Finland. Saudi Arabia's Moussy got swapped for a Panamanian beer with another collector. Iran came through the Iranian community in Finchley. Some of his friends even brought bottles home from Curaçao, Jordan, and Algeria while traveling.
Half of his fridge came from overseas, passed along by strangers, traders, shopkeepers, and friends-of-friends who heard about some guy's ridiculous quest and said “yeah ok, I'm in”.
On paper this looks like the beer checklist stuff we usually roast: top-10 listicles and gotta-catch-'em-all beer nerdery. But it’s far from that. There are no ratings here, no tasting notes, no app. Every bottle has a story, which makes Gus's fridge less a collection and more a group project with the entire world.
That's the beauty of beer and soccer (or football, don’t roast us for our Americanisms): they're the two things that every culture on Earth makes time for. The World Cup gets the whole world in one place, and beer is what brings everyone together once they get there.
And right now the same thing is happening in reverse over here on our side of the pond. While the world arrived at Gus’s flat one bottle at a time, the whole world is walking into American taprooms as we speak. KC Bier in Kansas City is rolling out the welcome mat near the hotels housing England and Argentina fans. Montclair Brewery in Jersey, co-founded by a former goalkeeper from Ivory Coast, has special releases down the road from the stadium hosting the final.
We may not all be as adventurous or as dedicated as Gus. But wherever you’re enjoying the Cup this year, make sure you do it with a good beer and a better story.