Hello, we’re Pellicle
We’re your favourite drinks magazine and podcast, all about beer, cider, wine, pubs and more. Reader supported, proudly free to read.
We’re your favourite drinks magazine and podcast, all about beer, cider, wine, pubs and more. Reader supported, proudly free to read.
At Pellicle our primary objective is to produce joyful, uplifting stories that celebrate the drinks, food and places we love. We want to put our readers at the front and centre of every story, opening up the all-too-often closed culture that the food and drink industry can present. Most importantly, however—we want to make our audience thirsty, and hungry.
We are primarily (but not exclusively) a UK-based consumer drinks publication, with our main focus on beer, wine and cider. The vast majority of stories we aim to publish will focus on these topics. We try to consider these subjects in the same way a food writer might consider a chef or restaurant. We’re interested in the ingredients, the method, the process, the people, the agriculture, the sense of place, the finished product and the story that binds these elements together. The stories we seek should have a sharp focus on their particular subject matter, and avoid wider cultural generalisations. For example: a story about an individual producer doing something exceptional tends to be more interesting to us than one about a group of producers in a certain region.
Sticking to our guns is really important. Pellicle is a very small publication run by a team of just four people, mostly in their spare time. Presently, we have the time and budget to produce one, sometimes two stories a week at most. With our editorial schedule being limited in this way it’s crucial that pitches reflect the topics we are interested in. Pitching outside of the guidelines stated on this page will limit the chances of your story being commissioned.
With our founders backgrounds both being in the beer industry, around three-quarters of the stories we are publishing at the moment are about beer. Our core readership wants to read beer stories and we want to provide them with the content they’re after. Our reasoning for expanding into wine and cider—and to a slightly lesser extent, food—is to attempt to bring these cultures together. Our ambition is as much to introduce beer lovers to great wine and cider as it is wine enthusiasts and cider fans to the world of beer. Stories that bring these cultures together are of particular interest to us.
As we grow, we expect our wine, cider and food coverage will increase due to our audience not only (hopefully) growing, but our core readership becoming more interested in what’s happening around their favourite subject, not just within it.
We are primarily interested in the following types of story:
Narrative-style profiles of exceptional producers, places and products
These are our bread and butter. We’re looking to showcase the diverse talent we know exists in the drinks community—finding those hidden gems who are making something incredible everyone deserves to enjoy. This could be a particular person, or group of people such as a brewer, brewery, winemaker, winery, cidermaker or cidery. It could be about a particularly exceptional product such as a certain vintage of incredible wine or cider, or a delicious beer with a story that deserves to be told. It could be about a certain pub, bar or restaurant you love. Deliciousness is key, too; if our mouth isn’t watering by the end of your pitch it’s unlikely we’ll consider commissioning it.
Example: Where the Wild Things Are — The Joy of Harvey’s Sussex Best
First-person experiences or travelogues that showcase a deep sense of person and/or place
We see stories like this as a way of showcasing the wider world of food and drink through a more intimate, first-person perspective. We’re not looking for stories about going on holiday and talking about what you did and where you went. We want to see respectful, careful observations about experiences that should immediately make our reader want to experience it for themselves. Travel-stories alone are not interesting to us; excellent drink and food must be at their core.
Example: Angels in the Sky — Getting Philosophical with Biodynamic Wine Pioneers Rudolf and Rita Trossen
Original investigative reporting on challenging topics within the beer, wine, and cider industries
As we have grown into our roles here at Pellicle, we now feel confident in commissioning stories that tackle major issues within the beer, wine, and cider industries. From issues of race, discrimination, or harassment, to reports on activities within a specific industry that we feel our readers should be made aware of, we are interested in hiring folks to get to the meat of these stories. Pitches of this kind must take into account that we are a consumer publication, not trade, and angles must be made clear so we understand why our readers would be interested in your story. We are not interested in news features (eg: beer launches, events, etc.)
Example: Disability, Pubs and Taprooms — The Invisible Barriers Preventing Diversity in British Beer Culture
Thought provoking Q&A’s with people who have perspective both inside and outside of the industry
These do not need to be with so-called “industry leaders”—everyone has a perspective to offer and we like to occasionally use the Q&A format to deliver a lot of information and opinion in an easily digestible format. Finding individuals with a particularly unique perspective is beneficial here, and they don’t need to be with people from within the food and drink industry specifically, so long are the topics discussed are food and drink focussed.
Example: A Diamond in the Rough — Meeting Cider Legend Roger Wilkins
Pitches outside these guidelines are welcome, but are far less-likely to be commissioned. However, we’re always open to discussing ideas you think are particularly compelling. How you craft your pitch is up to you, but including the following information will likely make us more interested:
Why your primary source/subject is so compelling and why you’re excited to write about it/them. Talk about it as if we’ve never heard of it/them before, as even though we might have, our/your readers might not.
Details of the secondary sources you’ll speak to in order to further contextualise the significance of your primary subject.
In the context of drink (or food) we like to see tasting notes. Explain to us why it’s so delicious, make our mouths water. If you can do that in your pitch, we’ll have the confidence you can do it in your finished draft.
Include examples of published work where possible. Good working knowledge of food and drink is essential, previous professional writing experience is not required but if you’ve not been published before and have some self-published work like a blog you can share with us that will be beneficial.
A final note on imagery before you send your pitch: At Pellicle we consider images in the same way as the rest of our editorial. We’re aware it’s our responsibility to source this, not yours, but if you consider this in your pitch it will be a big help to us. We avoid using smartphone photography wherever possible and commission professional photographers and illustrators for the majority of our pieces. If you are able to provide these things yourself, please send examples—we will pay you extra for them! Or if you’re able to put us in touch with a photographer or illustrator you think would fit the piece, we will pay them too.
If you are a photographer or illustrator looking to pitch us, feel free to send us your portfolio but please be aware we are not looking to take on new visual contributors at present.
Please send pitches to our editor in chief Matthew Curtis: matthew@pelliclemag.com.
Lastly, please note that a single, well worked pitch will have more chance of getting commissioned than if you were to send several at the same time. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
Features: A base rate of £0.24/word up to a length of 1500 words. The fee will be agreed and fixed at the time of commissioning.
Long Reads: A flat rate of £500.
Photography: £225 per feature, with an expectation of between 30-40 stills for us to work with.
Illustration: £225 per feature for a header and two spot illustrations. (Additional spots are paid at £25 each.)
When a pitch is agreed, a word count and subsequent rate will be agreed by the commissioning editor on submission of the brief. Pellicle’s house style is intended to be snappy and engaging, and as such we take word counts very seriously. Drafts in excess of the agreed upon word count may be rejected by the editor on submission.
All invoices are paid in UK pounds sterling (£). International invoices are processed using a service called Wise, which will pay you in your native currency based on the current exchange rate.
While we believe our rates are fair and competitive (based on the UK market) it is our ambition to increase these as we grow. The majority of our income is through pay-monthly donations via Patreon. You can sign up here if you would like to contribute towards supporting our network of writers, photographers and illustrators.
We reserve the right to reject drafts we don’t feel meet our readers standards. If a draft is completed, but then subsequently rejected (for example if it does not stick closely enough to the initial brief, or does not meet our editorial standards) contributors will be paid 50% of the initially agreed rate.
All invoices, and related queries should be sent to matthew@pelliclemag.com
Our editorial team are each paid a small monthly retainer.
Drafts should be submitted as a Google Doc with access enabled for editing. Photography should be submitted in jpeg format at 3000x2000 pixels (or vice versa). We generally look for about 20-30 images per submission, with a majority being in landscape format, and a handful in portrait.
Copy should be broken into shorter, snappier paragraphs wherever possible. The majority of our readers (75%) view the site on their phones, and while our site is optimised for mobile, breaking up the body text in this way makes reading it less fatiguing.
Drafts should be submitted in British English, not American. Please use modern English such as while/among and not whilst/amongst etc.
Sources should be referred to by their full names in the first instance of them being quoted and their first names thereafter. We strongly feel this makes our stories more personable and less “newsy.”
Quotes should be separated from body text wherever possible, unless that quote provides specific context to the paragraph it sits within. Longer quotes should be broken in the middle for flow, and sources should be named first, with the verb describing their action second, eg:
“I really like beer,” Matthew says. “Especially cask ale pulled through a tight sparkler.”
Longer sentences with tangents should be broken up with either em-dashes (—) or parentheses although please be wary of overuse. There should be no spaces either side of the em-dash. (For Mac users that’s shift+alt+_ and for Windows users hold alt and type 0151.)
We use one-word denominations like cidermaker/winemaker instead of cider maker and wine maker. When you can use one or two words in this way, always try to use one.
We use a denotation of three asterisks (***) in place of subheadings, please use these to break up chapters/sections within your feature.
In Q&A’s sources should be identified by their full names in the first instance and then by their initials for all successive quotes. These must be in bold type to make them stand out from the body text.
Pétillant naturel should be abbreviated as pét-nat (we get asked that a lot.)
We now tend to avoid the term ‘craft beer’ unless it is specifically referring to it as a cultural movement and a specific piece requires that context. When describing a beer or brewery, just calling it that will do.
Please stick to your assigned word count as closely as possible unless previously agreed with your editor. We’re seeking to publish snappy copy that flows, and brevity is a key factor in achieving this.
Consistency is key! Stick as closely to the style as per our published articles as you can, and avoid repetition wherever possible. No matter how interesting a point your making is, you only need to make it once.
Our editorial process is pretty rigorous, but if you stick to these guidelines that will make it easier for writer and editor alike.
You can use semicolons if you like. We’re not monsters.
