Welcome to The Pellicle Mixtape, a regular feature where I (Pellicle co-founder Jonathan Hamilton) ask people from across the food and drink industry to create a playlist set to a theme of their choosing.

The hope is to gain a small insight into that person (or in this case, people) and their place of work through not only their song choices but also the thought process and level of obsessiveness they put into their mixtape. I’ll also be asking them what they’ve been enjoying eating and drinking recently, and finding out what else has been exciting them in the world of food and drink.

In this, the twelfth of the series, we head across the Atlantic once again, this time to San Diago on California’s West Coast, to hear from Andrew Schwartz, who has the incredible title of “Commissioner of Flavor” at Modern Times Beer and Mallorie King who is the West Coast Account Manager for Hop Head Farms.

One of the things I love the most about the beer industry—and the larger industry of food and drink—is the connections made between people. I’ve met so many amazing people through this industry, who have opened their arms and welcomed me into their breweries and sometimes, their homes.

I first met Andrew in 2016 on a 3 week trip from San Diego to San Francisco—my first time on the West Coast. I can’t remember who put me in touch with Andrew, but he very kindly showed me and my partner at the time around the Modern Times brewery in San Diego. The following year Andrew was to travel to London for the first Beavertown Extravaganza festival and we planned to brew something together. I guess when you work in a brewery right next to San Diego Airport you get used to the short commute because by the time Andrew and Luke—his colleague from Modern Times—arrived at Beavertown from Heathrow airport we had already completed the double brew.

Thankfully, collaborations are mainly arranged ahead of time, and it was a straightforward brew. Besides, one of the main reason for collaborating is that you get to hang out with nice people and drink some beers. So, we took Andrew, Luke and tag-along Ryan Witter-Merithew of Casita Cerveceria to the Pembury Tavern in Hackney to drink pints and play bar billiards, or as Andrew kept calling it “British table billiards.” Ryan took them all out for a bottle of Buckfast from the corner shop afterwards before crashing on their hotel room floor.

Months passed and as things go in the beer world out paths continued to cross at various international festivals including MBCC in Copenhagen where Andrew sported a fantastic stetson. In the autumn—or fall if you will—of 2018, I eventually made it back to California for the Firestone Walker Terroir Project and decided it would be nice to visit Andrew in San Diego.

He kindly let me stay at his place and we got to enjoy some of the best Mexican food and Mezcal I’ve ever had, as well as all sorts of fantastically chilled-out San Diegan activities like listening to records and drawing pictures at their house. On one memorable occasion, Andrew asked me what I wanted to do that evening. My options were: rock climbing, or Tijuana. And so, with my passport in hand, we crossed the border to Mexico for an evening of cocktails and dinner with Andrew, his housemates, and friends.

It is with great sadness that I’ve only met Mal once before. It was at the Cloudwater Friends & Family & Beer festival in February before the world as we know it seemingly collapsed in on itself. (Pellicle co-founder) Matt and I had arrived separately to Manchester from London and Edinburgh respectively and decided that of all the fringe events we should attend before the festival on Friday we should go to the Jester King and Best of British Cask event at The Crown and Kettle, just a short walk from the hotel.

Little did we know that, despite all of the other incredible events in town occuring that night, all of the people we loved and cared about would descend one-by-one to this ancient pub with it’s crumbling ceiling. It had been months since I had seen some of my friends from London including Pellicle contributors Claire Bullen and Lily Waite and even longer since I’d caught up with my friends from California which included the gang from not only Modern Times, but Highland Park and Green Cheek who had also accommodated me on the same West Coast trip. It was there where I was introduced to Mallorie for the first time, and was surprised that despite having loads of mutual friends we had never met.

Mallorie comes from an agricultural background and her relationship with the beer industry comes from a raw materials perspective. Her interest in the food industry from this perspective led her work with The Food Craft Institute in Oakland, a year in Slovenia working with hop farms developing research projects, a stint at Temescal Brewing where she had her first experience in the cellar at a brewery, followed by a year at Admiral Maltings. She currently works with Hop Head Farms, who are based in Michigan.

We all had a lot of fun hanging out that night, with one memory in particular bringing together so many elements of what I love about working on this publication. Standing around as a crowd of brewers from California swapped pints of different cask bitter—this was only a few weeks before the reality of Covid hit the UK and sharing one pint glass seemed as normal as it had ever done between friends—comparing the nuances of the beers, remarking how hoppy Hawkshead Bitter was, and how much darker and maltier Harvey’s Sussex Best was. To top it off, cider enthusiasts Dick and Cath appeared out of nowhere with a bottle of Ross on Wye to share amongst the group, for no other reason other than the sheer joy of sharing their passion for the drink. Thinking back on it now, it was an evening that I’ll cherish for a long time.

It might sound corny but seeing as this is a feature about music I’ll stick with this tangental thought. There is something so wonderful about the generosity of would-be-strangers in this industry that really goes beyond any other I know, but the kindness that has been bestowed upon me over my career from people from the States, especially California is truly wonderful. There is a song from the album of the same name by a now-defunct band called Tubelord. It’s called Our First American Friends and every time I listen to it, it reminds me of my friends from across the water who have invited me into their breweries and homes and made me feel welcome.

I hope we can all share a pint of bitter again soon.

Now, over to the coolest couple in the brewing scene, Andrew and Mal.

Volume 12 — Andrew Schwartz of Modern Times Beer & Mal King of Hop Head Farms

We travel for work quite a bit so quarantine has been like an extended staycation. Both of us are still working (read: blessed) but staying in one place has given us time and space to dig into the kind of creative undertakings that only seem to spring from mundane days.

On the days we still feel the itch to visit someplace (any place) less familiar than our couch, we get our kicks by turning on the tv (thank you, Criterion Channel), opening a cookbook, or by taking a long run, bike ride, or hike to formerly ignored corners of San Diego.

This mixtape is a mish-mash of nostalgia for past trips, delirium for those to come and, in the meantime, the safe excursions of our quarantined minds.

What have you been drinking recently?

We’ve become tea lushes thanks to a UK trip in February. Andrew drinks chai and Mal goes for Earl Grey. We still appreciate a classic bag but have also been enjoying the loose leaf teas from Rishi—a Wisconsin-based company that sources directly from growers around the world. We’re always in search of new flavours so the expansiveness of tisanes and teas —we have a pu-erh cake that tastes like fish sauce—has been a fun new world to explore.

Due to temporary taproom closures, some of our favourite breweries have stepped up their mail-order and distro games in a big way. We’ve had Highland Park, Cellarmaker, Sante Adairius, and Bierstadt (thanks to a good friend in Colorado) all delivered to our doorstep. Bottlecraft, our local bottle shop, is also bringing in some hard-to-find and out-of-state favourites (thank you, Gene!).

Our hits of quarantine so far are saisons (all of them), Cellarmaker’s The Glow pale ale, and the recent influx of Crystal-hopped lagers: Modern Times’ Oracolo, Green Cheek’s Sense of Purpose, and Enegren & Bierstadt’s American Reinheitsgebot collab.

The to-go cocktails now allowed in California are also a treat and one that’s best enjoyed on foot (not entirely allowed).

Where/What have you been eating recently?

When we’re not on the road, we mostly eat at home so quarantine cooking hasn’t been much of a stretch for us. If anything, it’s been welcome time to dig into all the dog-eared cookbook pages we’ve been collecting.

With the San Diego highways uncommonly empty, we’re making weekly trips up to Chino Farm—a hidden gem despite the Chino family’s role in helping popularize the slow food movement amongst California chefs. As a rule, we buy whatever greens, herbs, and roots we don’t recognize that are at the farmstand that week. All of Ottolenghi’s cookbooks have been a great guide for figuring out what to do with these unfamiliars.

Our weekly standards are sourdough, pizza, and dal so we’ve been referencing Pizza Camp & Priya Krishna’s Indian(-ish) often enough to keep them permanently opened up on the dining room table. We’re so committed to our dal and chhonk regime that we just pre-ordered 2020 harvest [heritage varietals] Pragati turmeric and Sannam chillies from Diaspora Co.—another grower direct company based in Oakland, CA, that sources from Southern India. Look into them! Like many farmers across the world, their livelihoods have been deeply impacted by the pandemic.

Starting from day one, Andrew seemed to consider shelter-in-place an invitation to see how much pizza he can make and we can consume. As we write this, there’s another (the seventh? eighth?) focaccia in the oven. He’s experimented with just about every style—grandma, Sicilian, Chicago-style Bar/Tavern, Detroit, Roman, New York—with the exception of Neopolitan (not gonna happen).

We’ve both settled on a love for his original New York-ish style pie but he still changes up the hydration, flour type, toppings, and whether we cook it inside or in the outdoor oven each week. (Shout out: Andrew created a Pizza Zine the first week of quarantine with directions for how to make your own Schwartz-inspired pie at home!)

We too have started a vegetable garden but haven’t benefited from it yet besides the occasional scallion. In a couple of months, we hope to make backyard pizza pies entirely with ingredients from the garden.

What have you been reading recently?

They say uncertainty makes us crave comfort. The leftover dal and Two-Hearted cans in our refrigerator suggest that’s true but Mal’s been travelling back through the bibliographies of favourite authors as well.

Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem—a series of essays written at a time when everything in California felt on the brink of falling apart—is always a trip. A trip across California and trip through time, all funnelled through Didion’s self-imposed role as an empathetic documentarian of a generation that gave up on itself before it began.

Mal has also revisited The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel more years than not since first being introduced. Hempel’s prose is direct but ambiguous in a way that somehow unfolds differently with each reading. Her latest collection of short stories, Sing to It is as aching as ever.

In terms of quicker reads, Mal loved/hated this NYT feature on Val Kilmer so much that she bought author Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s first novel, Fleishman Is in Trouble, and felt back at home in the Balkans reading a years-old Good Beer Hunting story written by Claire Bullen [Two shoutouts in one mix, whoah—ed] about the young yet self-aware Croatian beer scene.

Andrew’s spent much more time drawing and being our at-home pizzaiolo (really, order your Pizza Zine today!) than reading but he’s built up a respectable zine collection that’s now getting some attention. Vulcanos Reach: Fumarole Imbroglio—a comic about a volcano designer written, illustrated, and screen printed by Rodger Binyone—is particularly strange and mesmerizing in plot and appearance.

Andrew recently loaned Simon Hanselmann’s fourth installment of his Megg & Mogg series called Bad Gateway from a friend. What was an already offensive (but funny) comic has taken an even more belligerent turn with this new release and recent Instagram-only COVID-related content. Worth a gander, though Andrew advises starting with earlier editions first.

Andrew’s also a longtime fan of Sci-Fi and recently escaped into The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks as well as Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a spooky but fun look into the life of intelligent space spiders. Also, an excellent time to revisit Cormac McCarthy for some starkly beautiful writing.

Mostly, we’ve been trying to spend more time outside appreciating the sounds and textures of the natural world.

Header photo by Pamela Enriquez.