Welcome to The Pellicle Mixtape, a monthly feature where I (Pellicle co-founder Jonathan Hamilton) will be asking 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 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.

After the response to last month’s Pellicle Mixtape with Stacey from Rock Leopard Brewing Co. I was inspired to reach out to a few more people in the industry and this week we are thrilled to have have the excellent Helen Anne Smith, founder of Burum Collective and bartender (plus occasional chef) at Brewdog Cardiff.

One of the greatest joys I get out this job is interacting with lovely, like-minded people from across the country and further afield. We may have initially bonded over a shared passion for food and drink but more likely than not end up bonding over a multitude of other things outside of that world. It’s a cliché but the people are what make this industry, and now, more than ever we need to stick together and support each other.

Support can come in many forms. From financially supporting a company by choosing to spend your hard-earned money with them over another (read: large multinational) or it can be emotional support, knowing that your brothers and sisters in the industry have your back and are going through similar issues of their own.

This may be starting to read like I’ve started a sentence and have forgotten where I was going with it but stay with me, as I do have a point. When I’m not sat at my laptop working on this magazine, my day job is brewing beer in Leith, Edinburgh at a new brewery called Newbarns. We were due to start producing in April just as the country went into lockdown and without the necessary utilities work completed at the brewery things were looking pretty bleak for our company.

Support came in many forms then, and we managed to brew some batches at breweries we had either worked at or were friendly with in order to raise some money to buy a canning line. We pre-sold the beer in advance and watching the names pop up on our computer screens as orders came in from family members, school friends, and industry peers was honestly one of the most heartwarming moments I’ve experienced in my life. Buried within those orders was a coffee shop in Cardiff.

This was strange to us as we had never heard of this place, none of us had recently been to Wales, and it’s not often a coffee shop in Cardiff buys beer from a new brewery in Leith. That coffee shop was Hard Lines, run by Helen’s wife Sophie. They kindly sent us some coffee which started a dialogue between us and them that ultimately led to bit of an obsession with Cardiff for me.

Through that small gesture I learned of what appeared to be a thriving food and drink scene down there which was similar to our own in Leith. But there was something different about it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps it was just that the scene was smaller but it seemed so closely knit and filled with people who were beyond-passionate for their jobs and wanted to share this joy with everyone around them.

I felt like I had discovered a whole community of like-minded people in a different part of the country. At the centre of that community was Helen Ann Smith.

This summer Helen started Burum Collective which in her words is “a virtual networking space and community blog for anyone working in the beer, wine and cider industries.”

Burum—coming from the Welsh word for yeast—shares much of same philosophy that we do here at Pellicle, but they are creating their own niche and doing things their way. Through blog posts from people working on the front line in hospitality, to discussing important issues such as race, gender, and sexuality Burum Collective have forged their own path and created not only a great platform, but they’ve created a community.

As someone who grew up in the Northern Irish countryside, in my teens I felt both physically distant from everyone around me but I also didn’t share much in common with my peers at school. I was lucky to discover message boards and the communities of people I met really opened my eyes to new music, art and culture.

Now, half a lifetime later, with Burum Collective I’m able to have that same connection with others across the internet and feel a part of a community (also as someone who only recently this year came to acknowledge my own bi/pansexuality Burum also is a safe and accepting place for all).

People like Helen are a rare breed, but Cardiff seems to be filled with people like this. Working a full-time job in the food and drinks industry, and then finding time to not only study towards becoming a Certified Cicerone, but to set up something like Burum is not easy. The reason people like us do this—like sit in bed on a Sunday morning and write really long introductions—is simple: we fucking love what we do, and we want to share that with everyone who is willing to listen.

Basically, what I am saying is that this industry needs platforms like Burum Collective, and it needs people like Helen (and her excellent fringe).

There is a lot of talk right now about supporting local businesses. But what constitutes as local when you feel like a part of a much larger network, or scene of people? When a lockdown of Scottish pubs was announced last week, our industry friends in the rest of the UK—including our pals in Wales—were the first to try an organise ways to support their comrades in the north. It was a wonderful thing to behold.

The internet, for all of its downsides, is a magnificent tool for feeling a part of a community. It can often feel isolating being into a niche hobby in a small town or city, but through platforms like Burum Collective, mailing lists such as the fantastic J’adore le Plonk by wine writer and Helen’s best friend Rachel Hendry, and of course social media, it’s possible to feel more connected to each other and part of a much larger conversation, without ever having met.

As a result of this horrendous pandemic affecting everyone globally we haven’t been able to physically travel as much as normal this year, and so I’ve not actually met Helen in person. However, I did have a very vivid dream a few months back where I ended up on in Cardiff for one night and had a very nice time with people I don’t really know from the internet. I hope that one day we can all hang out and drink tasty beverages together.

That’s my piece. Support small business, look out for your hospitality brothers and sisters, sign up to Burum Collective on Patreon, and be nice to each other.

Now, enough of me, and over to Helen for some music.

The Pellicle Mixtape Volume 16 — Helen Anne Smith of Burum Collective and Brewdog Cardiff

If you were to catch a glimpse of the Brewdog Cardiff kitchen, where once in a blue moon, I get to work with my colleague Sam, you would find a little kitchen team of two, getting absolutely slammed with checks but still laughing and dancing. Sam has a very infectious positive energy anyway but when we’re in the kitchen, away from the bustle of the bar, we get to listen to any music we want to. We get to be our queerest selves, all whilst slinging chicken wings and smelling like burgers. My playlist is simply an ode to those shifts.

It was important to me for the mix to include queer music made by queer people. A lot of disco/pop songs that have gone on to become “queer anthems” are not always by queer people; often they are community allies, earning them the title of “queer icon”. Previously being openly queer and a music artist has not been an option. Take George Michael for example, he was working in the music industry for almost 18 years before he came out. Thankfully however in 2020, queer people have varying forms of representation within music.

Music made by queer people covers a huge range of genres. Even though people like to assume we are all the same, we are all entirely different, with our own music tastes and interests. I am a pop princxss who lives to dance and have a gay old time, which is why this mix is the music equivalent of a post-shift pint of Campari Spritz.

What have you been drinking recently?

I am currently studying for Certified Cicerone, so I am drinking pretty much everything. I have been trying to make my way through Belgium, Germany, the US, and the UK for the past few months taking great joy in Flanders reds, bitters, and barley wines.

When I am not drinking for study or tasting beer for work, I also drink a wide variety of wine and cider. I am in the incredibly privileged position of having a wife who is a bottle shop owner and a housemate who is a passionate wine professional which means our drinks cupboard is always brilliant.

Most notably, just before the reintroduction of lockdown restrictions, I was lucky enough to get across to Ross-on-Wye Cider where I drank their keg conditioned “Thorn, Flakey & Friends.” I think it might be my all-time favourite perry and I think about it regularly.

I have been taking part in the Virtual Manchester Cider Club every month, which means every month I get a glorious box of different ciders by a wonderfully diverse range of makers such as Little Pomona, Wilding, Chapel Sider, Brennan’s etc.

In terms of wine, my biggest shout outs are going to “OMG” a Weingut Meierer Riesling Pét Nat and the orange “Giandòn” by Il Farneto which were both from Good News Drinks and absolute smashers.

Where/What have you been eating recently?

I cannot pretend that I wasn’t dreading this question when I first got Jonny’s email. As someone who works in hospitality and is currently eating their third bowl of crunchy nut cereal in the past 24 hours, I am not always the best at looking after myself when it comes to food (sorry Mum). Not only that but Cardiff is now in local lockdown, so aside from the money being tight, I do not feel comfortable with eating anywhere other than my home and at work [as someone who eats hash browns and fish fingers or Quorn Southern Fried Nuggets twice a week from the freezer I can relate—Ed].

Having said all of this, my best friend had a special anniversary last week where she made us a 2-course meal of mango ceviche and lomo saltado. She was born and spent the early years of her life in Southern and Central America, so I was honoured that she shared this gorgeous meal of marinated steak, tomatoes, onions, chips and rice with us. Rachel has always had the ability to turn something that some people might find sad into something beautiful and this was no exception. Looking after each other is probably the best thing we can do during the pandemic, and in our house that comes in the form of cooking for each other.

What have you been reading recently?

As I am currently studying, I’m only reading books about beer... I have however had a hard time with most of the beer books on the Cicerone recommended reading list. I am not a traditional learner; I am not naturally academic, and I sometimes struggle to absorb information. Here are the books I am currently reading and that are helping me:

Beer: Taste the Evolution in 50 Styles — Natalya Watson
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat — Samin Nosrat
The Brewmaster’s Table — Garrett Oliver
Rise of Yeast —Nicholas P. Money
The Flavour Thesaurus — Niki Segnit
Malt — John Mallett

Unfortunately, between studying, running Burum Collective and working my bar job, I do not have the time or mental capacity to read for pleasure (my method of relaxation involves me sat on the sofa with my brilliant wife re-watching Top Chef or Drag Race). I do however read as much food and drink media as I can, here is my current shortlist of writers whose work I am always excited to read: Toni Boyce, Apoorva Sripathi, Lily Waite, Katie Mather and Adam Wells.

Every month I get to proof and read the incredible work of the Burum Collective volunteer writing team, Rachel Hendry, Ben Thompson, and our newest addition Benjamin Marks—who last month very kindly donated a piece of work to us.

I am incredibly lucky to have Burum Collective and to get to post these fantastic pieces of work. I only hope that we can continue to improve, support, open pitch submissions and that the voluntary side of our writing team can just become: the writing team.

Header photo by Bethan Miller.