The politics of drinking
             September 24th, 2024

Larry Nelson and the challenge of trade journalism

This article first appeared in the Propel Info newsletter on February 3, 2023

Journalists seldom take the opportunity to reflect on their own profession, but it seems appropriate now as the brewing industry takes in the sad news of the death of Larry Nelson at the ridiculously young age of 61.

Larry was editor and, since 2012, publisher of the Brewers Guardian, an international industry magazine dating back some 150 years, along with the Brewery Manual, former journal of the Brewers Society, and more recently, a companion Cider Manual.

I worked closely with him over the last decade and knew him for much longer. He was a great professional, a journalist with high standards who had earned the trust of brewers across the world. The warm reactions to his loss reflect the respect for his understanding of the industry and the charm of his easy-going company. 

There was no mistaking that soft, rich, Canadian accent. One audibly gooey-eared radio interviewer was moved to remark at the end of their conversation that he had “a voice like chocolate”. It didn’t tempt him into podcasting.

Larry won his share of awards, but awards alone never quite capture what people actually do. I have some sympathy here with film star Sylvia Syms, who died in the same week. She thought actors shouldn’t win awards because they’re only doing their job, and you might apply that to journalists too. Except these days we have to market ourselves, of course.

Trade journalism, at which Larry excelled, makes its own specific demands. Journalists covering an industry have one foot in that industry and the other foot in the principles of their own trade – in independent, objective reporting.

Because your readers all inhabit a particular world, you have to understand that world as well as they do. Make a mistake and you’ll be caught out. Trade journalism sets a higher bar in that respect.

You have to get the facts right, and you also have to have the in-depth knowledge of the industry that puts those facts into context, and which gives facts meaning. And you do all that with a mind to what you’re doing being good for the industry. You tell the truth as best you can, because in the long term the truth benefits the whole, even though some may not like it at the time.

Part of the Brewery Manual’s brief is to list all the operating breweries in the UK. This is done by a team of researchers who telephone each brewery for an update. It’s a hugely labour-intensive task, but it has to be done that way because, unsurprisingly, businesses that arrive with a fanfare tend to skulk away quietly when they fail. 

So, the Manual’s total brewery count was always more modest than other estimates. As early as 2017, Larry was warning that numbers had peaked, while others were celebrating a seemingly endless boom. 

Now, with breweries closing at a rapid rate, we are seeing a come down from that artificial high. As Glynn Davis has remarked in these columns, over-confidence inflated a crowdfunded bubble that had to burst. They should’ve listened to Larry. Instead, they only heard the euphoric media releases, all good news and no bad. 

David Jesudason (whose forthcoming book on Desi pubs I can’t wait to read) last week threw down a challenge to fellow beer writers to tell the stories of pub businesses that are failing in the current climate, as well as celebrating successes.

That’s great if they tell the whole story, as Jesudason himself does in an accompanying interview with a Shepherd Neame lessee who is having to give up his pub. But we have this thing at the moment where, for one reason or another, a licensee moves on and the non-trade media report it as though the pub has closed for good. There are enough pubs closing for good without having to exaggerate, and we need to understand why these things are happening – the full context.

The Guardian investigative journalist Nick Davies, now retired, wrote a book called Flat Earth News in which he coined the term ‘churnalism’. Proper journalism was being replaced, he argued, by the deskilled publishing of public relations spin. 

If there was one thing that riled the mild-mannered Larry Nelson, it was when he followed up a press release to ask questions or arrange an interview, only to find the person who’d originated the story had promptly gone on holiday as soon as they’d pressed the ‘send’ button. They thought their job was finished, when it had only just begun. 

The hospitality industry as much as the brewing industry, with which it’s so closely related, needs journalists who will chase down the full story, perhaps more than ever. We need more Larrys.

Phil Mellows, February 3, 2023