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... such as coming to one of my summer festival events?
This weekend it's the Stoke Newington Literary Festival. Set up by my wife Liz in 2010, it's now become recognised as one of the coolest small festivals in the UK, thanks to a combination of it being a nice place with some lovely venues to sit and listen and talk about books, having an excellent audience, amazing volunteers, and Liz's boundless enthusiasm and extraordinary knack for programming events. Even if I had nothing to do with it you should still come if you can, for legendary novelists, celebrations of Punk's 40th birthday, a little bit of politics, some food, drink and superb comedy.
But I also happen to be doing a couple of events too.
On Saturday at 6pm I'll be welcoming four of London's best breweries to chat beer in Stoke Newington Town Hall. Is London's brewery boom showing the first signs of slowing down? Are we getting bored of Citra hops yet? Is our love affair with craft beer turning sour? Or are we set for an ever-expanding beery universe after London brewing's 2010 Big Bang? Such questions can only be answered with a beer in hand, so Redemption (who have sponsored Stokey Litfest since its inception) London Brewing Co (who are helping us run the festival bars this year) 40FT (who are possibly the closest brewery now the Stoke Newington) and Brewed by Numbers (who are currently making my favourite London beers) will each be bringing one of their beers along for you to taste while they share their thoughts. We did a similar event at Stokey Litfest three years ago. It sold out, and people are still talking about it. Tickets for London's Brewing are £5 and available here, and include four beer samples. It's the best deal you'll get on London craft beer anywhere this weekend.
The festival bars will feature loads of great beers and ciders, and not o be missed is the marquee outside the town hall, sponsored by our lead beer partner Budvar. The Czech brewery will be bringing their new krausened beer as well as the original Budvar, and the tent will feature performances by bands, poets and musicians across the weekend including the phenomenal Andy Diagram (ex-James) doing things with a trumpet that will blow your mind - here he was at the festival two years ago:
and the legendary Edward Tudor Pole out of Crystal Maze and Tenpole Tudor (suit of armour probably not included this time).
If I can tear myself away from that, I'm doing a second event on Sunday. My friend and fellow N16 author Travis Elborough has written a fine book about the role of parks in shaping, enhancing and defining our communities, and we thought pubs - the other great people's institution - had a lot in common with that, and I have a new book on pubs coming out in the summer. The affable and engaging Mark Mason's new book looks at Britain by postcode, and how they shape the way we think of an area. The three of us had a chat on stage at the festival three years ago and everyone wanted it to carry on in the beer tent afterwards, so we're all back with our new books this year to pick up where we left off. According to the official programme, we're Stokey's literary boy band. Terrifying. Tickets for Pubs, Parks and Postcodes are £4 and are available here.
Later in June, I'm ridiculously excited to be making my gigging venue at the Glastonbury Festival. At 3pm on the Friday, I'll be talking apples and tors, orchards and Celtic myth, and about how ridiculously excited I am to get to see Phillip Glass's Heroes Symphony live. If you're lucky enough to have got s ticket to Glasto this year, try to find me at the Free University of Glastonbury Stage.
A couple of days after that I'm getting on a plane to South Africa! Beer Boot camp is a one day conference with a difference - it goes on tour! I'll be chatting beer ingredients and my forthcoming book to brewers and beer enthusiasts in Jo'burg in the 2nd and Cape Town on the 9th. More information and tickets here.
And finally for now, I'll be at the Green Man Festival from 18th to 21st August. My beer and music matching at Green Man has turned into a regular gig and one of my favourite events of the year. With 100 beers and ciders in the beer tent and a wonderfully eclectic line-up across the stages, I'll be kicking off Green Man 2016 at noon on Friday by pairing the beers and performers of the festival. we had over a thousand people packed into the literary tent last year for this so if you are going to Green Man, get there early to get a seat!
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