Urban Underground

It's taken a while, perhaps even best part of 50 years, but I've got to the point of realising I am not normal. It seems the world is a mass of homogeneity and I mostly don't fit into any of it. But then, what is normal? Normal, when referring to the characteristics of the human condition, is very probably an amalgam of the average of us all. In reality we are all very different.

This is the back-story to our new beer, Urban Underground. I feel I'm almost in my own little underground world on occasions. Part of an alternative to the mainstream and a happier place for me to be. This beer is something of an outward expression of that feeling of misfit, and an empathy with anyone else who feels the same.

One cannot help one's height. As adults we have grown to a certain vertical dimension and stopped. We then start to shrink as we head inevitably to old age¹. I suppose some people like to wear high heels when they feel challenged vertically,  although that isn't one of my particular kinks. The colour of our skin, our numerical age, and our genetic sex are rooted in our conception. More variable characteristics such as where we may feel we sit in a gender spectrum, sexuality, social status, how young we actual feel or where generally we fit in any sort of spectrum of personality² add together to make each and every one of us completely individual.

Moreover, we are really quite plastic in the way our personalities develop. I know that I have changed in many ways over the years. Part of that is due to me bucking the preconceived ideas of what is normal and deciding to reject the straight jacket of societal pressure. The life journey I am on only really hit overdrive when I cast away the rigours of academia. If you'll pardon further powered travel metaphors, that journey only became turbo-charged when I ceased PAYE status. School eh? How many people just don't get along with school and later in life find out what they are really all about?³

We want Hardknott to be all-inclusive. We try hard to avoid alienating anyone based on age, race, sex or sexuality, background or any other defining feature. More than that we hope to positively appeal to anyone who doesn't fit normal, mainly because I'm needy for new friends.

We've tried hard to make this beer more accessible and therefore more inclusive. We've put just as many hops in as we do in Azimuth or Intergalactic Space Hopper, but less has gone in copper and much more have gone in post fermentation. This has reduced bitterness whilst maximising aroma making a very drinkable beer.

This is a big, fruity, laid-back IPA, with notes of orange, mango and a hint of pepper. At 5.9% it is certainly not run-of-the-mill, certainly not part of the average mainstream and hopefully will be in the niche sweet-spot helping you to find your true self.

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¹Indeed, fear of my own mortality, although perhaps tangental to my points here, is non-the-less something that concerns me. I'm unsure quite how far I've worked through my own mid-life crisis, but it is most certainly there. It is a fact that life is a terminal disease, it is therefore important to live it to the full and with gay, straight, bi or any other type of abandon, depending on how you feel.

²I'm hoping I've avoided any specific technical psychological term here. It is quite possible this whole post skates on thin ice in order for me to get across my point. Mental health is a subject that deserves sensitivity. For me, I've never been formally diagnosed with any issues, but there have been dark times. I suspect a huge number of people feel the same. There are many diagnosable personality "disorders" - but then when does someone who is a bit different actually have a personality "disorder". I have on many occasions considered if I might exhibit some characteristics that indicate I may be both dyslexic and on the autistic spectrum. I've come to the conclusion that I am just me, and that I work and feel a certain way and the world should just live with the way I am.

³And I could rant on about how I feel the education systems fails many who do not fit the standard academia model. There is way too much emphasis on league tables in my view. Totally insufficient focus on skills and knowledge that might actually be useful to students in a vocational setting. A general lack of understand that some people just don't get on well if all they are forced to to do is sit at a desk all day. Some people don't work well with words and numbers, would rather spend time doing something much more practical and might even thrive if they were allowed that stimulation.