{"id":352339,"date":"2026-07-06T07:59:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/lessons-from-martyn-the-session-150\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T07:59:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:59:05","slug":"lessons-from-martyn-the-session-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=352339","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from Martyn – The Session #150"},"content":{"rendered":"


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My bet (hope) is that you, dear reader will see the title of this post and assume that I am about to wax lyrical about Martyn Cornell\u2019s exquisite research and knowledge, and how we should all receive a stern talking to regarding Porter and Stout from the master himself. Not so fast. There are lessons to be learned from Martyn\u2019s final work, Porter and Stout \u2013 A Complete History<\/a>, but I\u2019m not going to focus so much on the content of the book, rather I\u2019m speaking of the wider instruction that the tome should offer us all.<\/p>\n

When I read about Session #150<\/a> from Boak and Bailey<\/a>, my first reaction was to purchase the book. I have to admit that the cost of the book made me baulk slightly. To be fair, Jessica and Ray had flagged this already, so I wasn\u2019t surprised, but it did cause me to hesitate. If I\u2019m absolutely honest I\u2019m not especially interested in the history of stouts and porters \u2013 at least not much beyond a small outline that I can draw upon to correct the next person in a bar that I overhear say, \u201cWell, there is an absolute definitive difference between stouts and porters<\/em> \u2026 \u201d \u2013 so $75 for the paperback wasn\u2019t all that tempting. In addition, multiple people have described the book as being, \u201ca tough read\u201d and, \u201cmostly a reference book\u201d. Those comments were not meant to be criticisms by the people that wrote them, and I did not take them that way, but at the same time they hardly added to my enthusiasm to part with such a decent chunk of change for a book that I might not pay that<\/em> much attention to. I strongly suspect that lots of people in the beer world feel similarly to me. That isn\u2019t to say that we don\u2019t revere Martyn and his work, we absolutely do<\/em>, but rather that we might not as<\/em> invested as he was in this particular topic. Who could be?<\/p>\n

So, why am I bothering to participate in the Session this month at all? The answer is staggeringly simple. It is essential to humanity that we DO have people that ARE invested in such relatively niche topics!<\/em> Because of Martyn\u2019s work now there is a definitive record of this small part of beer history. Like me, you may not be especially drawn to the subject matter here, but there will be a few people that are, and just because of that Martyn has provided an utterly invaluable service. In addition of course, when the time comes that I need a morsel of information on this topic, Martyn\u2019s book is where I will turn.<\/p>\n

My understanding is that it took Martyn around seven years to research the book, building on his previous work on the same. As fate would have it Martyn\u2019s death coincided with the book\u2019s release, with just a few days separating the two events. It\u2019s such a shame that Martyn wasn\u2019t able to go on to defend his positions in what would have been an undoubtedly cantankerous manner (as was often his style, and as such he was a man after my own heart!), and to debate some of the discussion that the content of the book stirred up. But no matter that unhappy coincidence, his work is there, for all to see, for all to consume, and stands as a permanent, historical record. That matters. It really matters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lately, I have been trying to make inroads into some more formal beer writing (without much success). As such I have been reflecting on my own writing on this blog. I\u2019ve always viewed my musings here as being essentially \u2018for myself\u2019 and most simply cathartic. Maybe there would be the added bonus of one or two people in the history of the internet finding something that I wrote to be important, or interesting, or mildly inspiring, to the point where they might go on and do something better than I could, but that was precipitated by me. Obviously I\u2019m not comparing my contributions to the beer writing world to Martyn\u2019s, but what I am<\/em> saying is that all of us should keep at it because we are all contributing in some<\/em> way. You just never know when your contribution might strike a chord with a niche audience. This book reminds us of the importance of that, even if I (or you) aren\u2019t especially drawn to a 500 page research paper on the history of these dark beers.<\/p>\n

So, we should all be grateful for books like Martyn\u2019s whether we read them cover to cover or not, and we should all keep contributing in our own way. One day, somebody, somewhere will be glad that we did. In that regard Martyn\u2019s final work might be his most important.<\/p>\n

A minor footnote. I previously wrote about Martyn\u2019s passing here<\/a>, and the session beer reference from many moons ago always brings a smile to my face. Thanks for that Martyn, and thanks for all that you did.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My bet (hope) is that you, dear reader will see the title of this post and assume that I am about to wax lyrical about Martyn Cornell\u2019s exquisite research and knowledge, and how we should all receive a stern talking to regarding Porter and Stout from the master himself. Not so fast. There are lessons […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173405,154518,173406,173408,117212,173407],"tags":[5200,104567,173409,14050,34847],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-352339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beer-books","category-beer-culture","category-beer-philosophy","category-martyn-cornell","category-the-session","category-the-sessions","tag-lessons","tag-martyn","tag-martyn-cornell","tag-session","tag-the-session"],"yoast_head":"\nLessons from Martyn - The Session #150 - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=352339\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lessons from Martyn - The Session #150 - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My bet (hope) is that you, dear reader will see the title of this post and assume that I am about to wax lyrical about Martyn Cornell\u2019s exquisite research and knowledge, and how we should all receive a stern talking to regarding Porter and Stout from the master himself. 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