“What the fuck am I doing?”

I caught myself deep in thought, sipping on my orange juice. It was just another in a long, although reasonably sporadic series of similar thoughts, predominantly comprising of self-doubt and anxiety. I pushed scrambled eggs around my plate, before giving up and gazing at the taps on the bar in front of me. What was I doing?

10 days into a 19 day trip across America, I was sitting alone in a sports bar in St. Louis airport with a roaring hangover, waiting to board my penultimate flight of the trip to Denver, Colorado. Over the course of my journey I’d travelled 10,000 miles over the Atlantic and across five states, stopping in seven cities. While there were frequent moments of bewilderment as to how I’d put myself in a situation so out of my comfort zone—and numerous instances of gritted teeth—there were also moments of unutterable beauty and bemusement at how my life had taken so many seemingly coincidental turns and I’d ended up “on tour.”

In February 2019, I announced that I’d be launching a new project—a foray into territory almost entirely uncharted by my inexperienced self—one combining one of my greatest interests, beer, with my identity. Two months later, in a Bermondsey railway arch, The Queer Brewing Project officially launched.

The project is an initiative based around brewing collaboration beers with breweries, raising money for LGBTQ charities, along with elevating awareness around queer issues in the process. In mid-September that same year, I flew out to the USA for nearly three weeks to brew a number of collaborations with a number of breweries, some familiar, and others completely new to me.

LOVE

Not long after I announced The Queer Brewing Project’s launch, I flew to Florida to attend Foeder For Thought, a festival of funky, wild and sour beers hosted by Green Bench Brewing and beer publication Good Beer Hunting. While I was there, I worked with Devon Kreps—the founder of Tampa’s 7venth Sun Brewery—on a collaboration that was to be brewed later that summer.

During a sweaty, bleary-eyed layover in Tampa, en route to North Carolina, I immediately made a beeline for the brewery and ordered a pint of LOVE, our grapefruit pale ale. Fresh, vibrant, with a gripping citrus bite and strong West Coast identity with its dry, piney finish, it was everything I could have wanted. And everything I needed after 12 hours of transcontinental travel.

LAGER, WOOD, AND DIM SUM

Lush, verdant woodland spread out underneath the plane’s wings as far as the eye could see, undulating over hills and knolls. And on the ground, Raleigh, North Carolina, didn’t look much different.

I was in town to brew with Brewery Bhavana, the owners of which I’d met and become friends with in Tampa six months earlier. The day was spent eating and drinking my way around the town—the most notable stop being Bhavana’s own restaurant meets taproom slash bookstore cum flower shop—with my colleague from Good Beer Hunting, beer writer Bryan Roth. I ended up at Bhavana co-founder Patrick Woodson’s parents’ house, getting wine-drunk with his extended family.

There’s a particular kind of beauty that is found in the more mundane aspects of other countries: the way a curb sits at a slightly different angle; buildings whose bricks are stacked to uniform, single-storey heights; an unexpected hue in industrial concrete, more warm yellow than the grey of home. These differences—ones you might not see for the excitement of new places—enthral and enrapture me as much as the highly-photographed tourist spots.

Patrick’s neighbourhood, Woodcrest, was no different. The rising North Carolina sun painted rolling tarmac hills in watercolour blues and yellowed pinks and burst my heart with joy as it crept through towering trees. As it fell over our evening walk with Otis, Patrick’s shaggy, bear-like Newfoundland, and Bhavana beer in hand, I felt nothing but an eagerness to return.

BREWERING WITH ENJOY

I arrived at Fifth Hammer in Long Island City, New York, to a warm greeting, and a broad slice of cold pizza, straight from the walk-in. Digging out the mash tun later in the day was hampered by a dense sandwich of burnt ends and a pint of lager at the John Brown Smokehouse—co-founder Chris Cuzme’s favourite neighbourhood spot.

Post-brew day beers in the autumnal evening with the brewery team quickly righted any aches. By the time I left the busying taproom for a wander around the city with the other co-founder Mary Izett and my friend Heather Stephenson, the rampant Kveik strain we chose for our hoppy pale was already whirring away, blasting bubbles through the blow-off bucket.

LAGER BIER

How do you take in New York with just a single, unexpected spare day? Surely by foot—any other way seems futile, given the vast expanse of the city. I looked to satisfy my biggest drivers, hunger and thirst, and set off across the Williamsburg Bridge, absorbed by the views over the city as I crested the bridge’s curve. In the Lower East Side I sought out Ivan Ramen, where I ate pillowy Bao and a rich bowl of noodle soup. I found dessert at Big Gay Ice Cream, which was disappointingly bland and heterosexual, despite a few perfunctory rainbows.

I walked to the Tenement Museum, where I whiled away a few hours learning—somewhat appropriately—about the life of a 19th-century lager brewer. I found, and then enthusiastically guzzled, my first can of Allagash White across the street, and then set out to meander across Manhattan, ducking through the rush hour traffic. Later, I snuck out early from Fifth Hammer’s event at famous beer spot Blind Tiger to drink a pint at the bar of the Stonewall Inn. It was quiet, which was perfect—I sat at the bar and drank in the history and importance, before standing outside for a while, lost in thought.

DON’T PANIC, YADIER

This whole trip could be carved into two or three-day chunks: short, sharp bursts of intensity, and fast friendships forged in a matter of days. Way back, when Queer Brewing began, the head brewer of the Big Rip Brewing Company in Kansas City, Missouri, got in touch. Through a brief correspondence, Kansas City became an absolute must on a long list of potential destinations.

Though the idea of the craft beer community can either seem cliche or implausible, depending whom you ask, sitting on the veranda of the home Bri shares with her partner Rebecca, talking amongst the chirping of invisible cicadas, it felt impossibly true.

Later, drifting off to sleep with their two pups graciously sharing with me the vintage couch, I marvelled: here, two people had opened their home and welcomed in a stranger, and bought them barbecue, for no reason other than a shared goal and a common love for beer.

In fact, generosity of spirit was the thread that ran with me across America. In St. Louis, after a tiresome journey across the whole of Missouri, Steve and Libby Crider welcomed me into their home and brewery. Over two days we visited local breweries, ate Taco Bell (I’m still full of regret) brewed a rustic wild ale that we transferred into freshly dumped Californian Pinot Noir barrels, drank White Claw, and found a new favourite baseball player. I’m now, not by coincidence, a St. Louis Cardinals fan.

FAMILY DINNER

It felt fitting that my trip would end in the city to which I’d taken my first solo US trip. I’d flown out for the Great American Beer Festival exactly one year before and swiftly fell in love with the beer culture and community of Denver, Colorado. The evening before my brew day with a brewery to whom I’d long admired, New Belgium, at their Denver pilot brewery, this feeling of community came flooding back—Chris and Cheryl Black, owners of the iconic Falling Rock Tap House, invited me to “family dinner,” an annual steak dinner at their house in northern Denver for friends in town for GABF.

The following day, I watched the sun burn away early morning mist as I made my way north for a day in Fort Collins, drifting in and out of sleep as I watched the Rocky Mountains rail past in the distance. Later, I got lost in the jaw-dropping Foeder Forest and explored the birthplace of American sour beer culture.

To finish such a trip in a city like Denver, especially during the busiest week for beer of the whole year, felt triumphant. I’d brewed with breweries big and small, young and old, raising money for vital LGBTQ charities, and, hopefully, starting at least a few meaningful conversations—all the while visiting some of my favourite spots in the world and discovering new gems. The festival itself was a great opportunity to spread the message of Queer Brewing, as well as to catch up with so many friends.

DANG!

As the city readily empties after the festivities end, I finally see a quieter side to the Mile-High City. Still busy, with a still eager thirst for beer, but the pace has slowed to a cheery amble. My last collaboration, this time with new pals Our Mutual Friend Brewing Company, serves as the perfect farewell: as the sun sets over the brewery’s patio and as I enjoy one last beer before turning in, I’m left with a feeling of having seen so much of a country and its beer culture, but also of having barely scratched the surface. What else to do but return, then?