Welcome to The Pellicle Mixtape, a brand-new feature, which we’ll be running on the last Friday of every month, or thereabouts.

In this feature, 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.

In this, the fourth in the series, it’s my pleasure to feature friend of the magazine, one third of Mashtun and Meow, and all-round top person, Laura Rangeley of Abbeydale Brewery.

Volume 4 — Abbeydale Brewery Office & Communications Manager Laura Rangeley

I can’t recall the first time I met Laura, or her husband Jim, but it was most likely at one of the many beer festivals we have all attended over the past years. However, I do remember the time I discovered their love of music, or at least I learned what they do and do not like to listen to—very quickly—during a car journey from Thornbridge’s Peakender festival to Sheffield in 2018.

After a lovely few days of walking and drinking in the peaks with my former Beavertown colleague Chris, we were kindly offered a lift back to Sheffield from Laura and Jim, and we accepted. Unfortunately, for them, one of my traits when hungover, which they wouldn’t have known, is that I regress into a child-like state whereby everything becomes hilarious to me. Basically, under ideal circumstances, my default hungover state is one of care-free fun and laughter. It’s pretty great, but very annoying for everyone else.

In this situation, not only was I allowed to ride shotgun next to Jim, who was driving, but I was given permission to, or maybe I just decided that I was going to DJ for the journey. Not knowing at the time that their tastes were mainly on the heavier end of the musical spectrum, I managed to ruin their Spotify algorithms with a playlist of KT Tunstall, Taylor Swift, and for reasons unbeknownst to even myself, Fame Academy runner-up Lemar.

Now, years later, Laura has the opportunity to give us a far more accurate representation of her taste in music and hopefully fix that Spotify algorithm in the process. Over to you, Laura!

I'm a woman of many hats, both literally (my collection of brewery bobble hats is ever-growing, I was delighted to find a Fierce Beer one in my Christmas stocking!) and metaphorically.

My day job is office & communications manager at Abbeydale Brewery in Sheffield, a short-ish title that encompasses all sorts. Basically, if it’s not making beer or selling beer it’s pretty likely it’ll be me that does it!

No two days are the same and that’s just the way I like it. As well as this, I’m a somewhat lapsed but still keen food and drink writer at Mashtun & Meow, along with my husband Jim (also lead brewer of Abbeydale's Funk Dungeon barrel ageing and souring project), which is inspired by our cat Tosin (a long story). I’m also a panellist on beer podcast the Sheffield Hopcast, committee member of Seven Hills Women's Institute, and a fledging runner—I count joining my local running club Steel City Striders as my biggest achievement of 2019.

I chose my mixtape to reflect the whirlwind I throw myself into on a daily basis and my search for moments of calm within it. I guess the keyword to describe it is eclectic —they're all songs that I love, but I have the feeling there won't be a single person out there that won't want to skip at least one of these! (If you do listen to and enjoy this in its entirety, please get in touch, I think we'll be best friends). I’m very much a shuffle fiend and rarely listen to a full album from start to finish, but despite this, I have attempted to put my mix into some sort of semblance of order that makes sense to me at least!

What have you been drinking recently?

I'm a bit of a hussy when it comes to choosing my drinks. I flit from one beverage to another and can never pick a favourite. Beer is obviously an enormous part of my life—I grew up with a real ale loving dad and was taught to respect the pub from an early age. I came to love those spaces of community and cosiness well before I was old enough to join in with a beer of my own.

I’m very much a beer-of-the-moment kinda gal and wouldn’t say I have a go-to style as such—over the Christmas period I’ve seen a lot of Titanic Plum Porter on bars around Sheffield which was my very first “favourite beer” and something I still have a definite soft spot for.

I'm also a huge gin fan, an enthusiastic whisky tourist, an avid tea collector (my most local merchant Birdhouse Tea Co. are well worth looking up) and a newbie to wine.

The best place I've been recently that fulfilled my desire to dabble with as much as I possibly can was Alameda Island on our holiday to California in the autumn. We had an incredible day taking in Rock Wall Winery and sampling a flight of local wines, St. George Spirits (makers of one of my favourite gins, yet I'd failed to realise they were based in California, so it was a nice surprise to stumble across them!), Almanac Beer Co and The Rake bar next door (which also has its own floor maltings, Admiral Maltings), all in the setting of an abandoned military base.

Escaping the baking sunshine and being greeted by a pint (well, 16oz) of Waves West Coast IPA in Almanac is one of those moments that I can conjure back up in all of my senses just by thinking about it; a huge hit of piney, resinous Simcoe hops, finally understanding what “dank” really tastes like. And in the background, aromas of wood from Almanac’s extensive barrel store mingled with the smells of taco truck outside and the gentle whisper of the Pacific Ocean. Blissful.

Alameda Admiral MALT MAKES BEER GREAT.jpg

Where/What have you been eating recently?

Jim's an absolutely fantastic cook, so I've been spoiled over Christmas with us having a little more time at home. Homemade pastrami has become a tradition at our house and is something Jim rustles up for most special occasions. We had a three bird roast for Christmas dinner itself—partridge, duck and chicken. Jim fancied trying out his butchery skills and deboning the birds to create a rolled joint, which had the added bonus of removing the duck fat to render for roast potatoes and leave behind crispy skin—aka quackling—which we ate as a canape with lacto-fermented cherries.

Away from the home, one of our favourite food events to attend is Bread Cheese Wine. It’s co-hosted by local wine and spirits shop, Starmore Boss, bakery Seven Hills, and Porter Brook Deli, all excellent independent producers based the Sharrow area of Sheffield. As the name suggests, the evenings are focused around matching wines to different baked goods and cheeses. We try to go to a few of these a year and they’re always superb. Wild garlic wrapped Cornish Yarg with warm rosemary focaccia and a Syrah/Gamay blend—yes please!

What have you been reading recently?

I love reading and read for pleasure whenever I can. I've just started The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker—a feminist retelling of the story of Homer's Iliad. From a food and drink perspective, part of my role at Abbeydale Brewery is heading up our sensory panel, so books such as Randy Mosher's Tasting Beer are never far from my grasp for reference purposes.

I'm also often found browsing through cookbooks (despite being a terrible cook myself—I don't have the patience) and other reference materials for inspiration. I never want to stop learning about flavour. Another favourite of mine is the Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit, which comprises over 1000 suggestions of paired ingredients (who knew that blueberries and mushrooms were the best of friends!?) I'd hugely recommend it to anyone wanting to be a little more creative with foodie combinations, and it’s come in useful for the odd beer recipe too.

Cover photo by Nicci Peet.