Lessons from Martyn – The Session #150
My bet (hope) is that you, dear reader will see the title of this post and assume that I am about to wax lyrical about Martyn Cornell’s exquisite research and knowledge, and how we should all receive a stern talking to regarding Porter and Stout from the master himself. Not so fast. There are lessons to be learned from Martyn’s final work, Porter and Stout – A Complete History, but I’m not going to focus so much on the content of the book, rather I’m speaking of the wider instruction that the tome should offer us all.
When I read about Session #150 from Boak and Bailey, my first reaction was to purchase the book. I have to admit that the cost of the book made me baulk slightly. To be fair, Jessica and Ray had flagged this already, so I wasn’t surprised, but it did cause me to hesitate. If I’m absolutely honest I’m not especially interested in the history of stouts and porters – at least not much beyond a small outline that I can draw upon to correct the next person in a bar that I overhear say, “Well, there is an absolute definitive difference between stouts and porters … ” – so $75 for the paperback wasn’t all that tempting. In addition, multiple people have described the book as being, “a tough read” and, “mostly a reference book”. Those comments were not meant to be criticisms by the people that wrote them, and I did not take them that way, but at the same time they hardly added to my enthusiasm to part with such a decent chunk of change for a book that I might not pay that much attention to. I strongly suspect that lots of people in the beer world feel similarly to me. That isn’t to say that we don’t revere Martyn and his work, we absolutely do, but rather that we might not as invested as he was in this particular topic. Who could be?
So, why am I bothering to participate in the Session this month at all? The answer is staggeringly simple. It is essential to humanity that we DO have people that ARE invested in such relatively niche topics! Because of Martyn’s work now there is a definitive record of this small part of beer history. Like me, you may not be especially drawn to the subject matter here, but there will be a few people that are, and just because of that Martyn has provided an utterly invaluable service. In addition of course, when the time comes that I need a morsel of information on this topic, Martyn’s book is where I will turn.
My understanding is that it took Martyn around seven years to research the book, building on his previous work on the same. As fate would have it Martyn’s death coincided with the book’s release, with just a few days separating the two events. It’s such a shame that Martyn wasn’t able to go on to defend his positions in what would have been an undoubtedly cantankerous manner (as was often his style, and as such he was a man after my own heart!), and to debate some of the discussion that the content of the book stirred up. But no matter that unhappy coincidence, his work is there, for all to see, for all to consume, and stands as a permanent, historical record. That matters. It really matters.
Lately, I have been trying to make inroads into some more formal beer writing (without much success). As such I have been reflecting on my own writing on this blog. I’ve always viewed my musings here as being essentially ‘for myself’ and most simply cathartic. Maybe there would be the added bonus of one or two people in the history of the internet finding something that I wrote to be important, or interesting, or mildly inspiring, to the point where they might go on and do something better than I could, but that was precipitated by me. Obviously I’m not comparing my contributions to the beer writing world to Martyn’s, but what I am saying is that all of us should keep at it because we are all contributing in some way. You just never know when your contribution might strike a chord with a niche audience. This book reminds us of the importance of that, even if I (or you) aren’t especially drawn to a 500 page research paper on the history of these dark beers.
So, we should all be grateful for books like Martyn’s whether we read them cover to cover or not, and we should all keep contributing in our own way. One day, somebody, somewhere will be glad that we did. In that regard Martyn’s final work might be his most important.
A minor footnote. I previously wrote about Martyn’s passing here, and the session beer reference from many moons ago always brings a smile to my face. Thanks for that Martyn, and thanks for all that you did.
