Usually, every month or so, I’ll write a short update for our supporters over on our Patreon page. With this week marking our third year in business, however, I’ve decided to share it with all of our readers.

Three years feels significant. It feels like feet under the table. It feels like we’re an established, authentic publication that people actually give a shit about. There’s a deep sense of pride that comes with this, but also a sense of responsibility; that because we now have a sizeable, regular readership, we owe it to them to deliver great features and podcast episodes, of consistently good quality, in a timely manner, every week.

That sense of responsibility we feel doesn’t just apply to our readers though, but also to our contributors. That’s why to mark our third anniversary we have increased our rates for writers, illustrators and photographers. These rates are now live on our pitching, rate and style guide, which you can read by clicking here.

There are a few other changes to the guide too, including a few updates to our T’s & C’s, and a few additions to our house style based on what we’ve learned during our first three years as a publisher. Most significantly, we’re also now open to pitches that focus on original, investigative reporting. As a publication, we definitely feel like we’ve grown in confidence, and now is the time to use that to our advantage, and occasionally publish stories of a more challenging nature.

While we intend to keep producing the joyful content we’ve built our reputation on, we also recognise the worlds of beer, wine and cider are not a joyful experience for everyone. Our hope is that by encouraging folks to investigate and report on these more challenging narratives—such as in David Jesudason’s recent piece looking at the issues disabled folks face when trying to enjoy a good pub, or brewery taproom—we will help open up the cultures of our favourite drinks to an even greater number of people.

Now for the serious bit. For the past year we’ve been comfortably breaking even, but at our new rates we will once again be running at a loss. While we have a few months of content already banked into our schedule, unless we grow our income over the next few months, we will not be around to celebrate our fourth birthday next May.

Ok, excuse the melodrama. But I believe in our reader-supported model, it’s got us this far after all! And the best news is we’ve just had back-to-back record-breaking months for site traffic, with over 15,000 individuals visiting during April alone. A number that far surpasses the kind of traffic we’ve seen over the same period during our previous two years.

If you love our content and have the ability to support us with a monthly, or yearly donation, we’d love you to sign up to our Patreon page. Think of it exactly like a subscription to a magazine, only with the added bonus being that your subscription lets you ensure that people who can’t afford it can still access our features, free of charge.

We’d also like to extend this request to the businesses who enjoy our publication through our Pellicle Pro support tiers. We believe that good beer, cider and wine needs good quality, editorially independent publications like ourselves to help keep audiences engaged with, and interested in what they’re drinking. A pro-level supporter makes a huge difference to our incomes, and so if you feel our content is worth supporting, please consider joining the 32 businesses listed on our About page, who already do so.

Before we wrap this up, a word of thanks. First to all of our Patreon supporters, past and present, who’ve allowed us to keep making a magazine we love. To Kate Bailey at Hand & Heart, who sponsors our podcast, and to Jen Ferguson and Glenn Williams at Hop Burns & Black who’ve been sponsoring us for three whole years! Please go and buy something from them, because they’re brilliant.

Most importantly of all, a huge thanks from me personally to our associate editors Katie Mather and Lily Waite, who over the past year have renewed our focus and sense of direction. To demonstrate our thanks Jonny and I will be making them shareholders in the business because that feels like the right way to reward them for their efforts, and properly include them as part of the team.

Lastly, thanks to Jonny for putting up with me and my J. Jonah Jameson BS. Three years! That’s really something, isn’t it? Especially for a little publication we started because we had a few beers and thought “why the hell not!”

Here’s to the next one, and hopefully the one after that, and to all of the features and podcast episodes we publish along the way.