My friend Martyn Cornell, who has died suddenly aged 72, was a renowned historian of beer. His book Porter and Stout: A Complete History, which had taken him seven years to write, was published three days later.
It covers 300 years and 56 countries, and caps an impressive output of entertaining, informative and myth-debunking books. They include Beer: The Story of the Pint (2004); Amber, Gold & Black: The History of Britain’s Great Beers (2010); Strange Tales of Ale (2015); and Around the World in 80 Beers: A Global History of Brewing (2024). He won several awards from the British Guild of Beer Writers.
Born in Hampstead, Martyn grew up in Stevenage. His father, Arthur, was a bricklayer and his mother, Daphne (nee Donno), a shorthand typist. Martyn went to Alleyne’s grammar school in Stevenage, then studied politics at Sussex University, followed by a diploma in journalism at the City of London Polytechnic. In 1995 he gained an MBA from Thames Valley University.
Starting out as a reporter in Hitchin on the Stevenage Comet, he was an editor on the Informer stable of newspapers in Surrey and west London, which is where we were fellow journalists and became friends. Later Martyn was a subeditor on the Times, the Daily Telegraph and the South China Morning Post.
At the Times he rose to the challenge brilliantly when asked to write a four-line headline across a single column width for a story about Michael Foot, the then Labour party leader, leading a committee looking at nuclear disarmament. Martyn said: “I certainly wasn’t going to get ‘nuclear’ or ‘disarmament’ or ‘committee’ to fit, so after a struggle I decided on ‘Foot chairs arms body’, then thought ‘Foot heads arms body’ would at least give a laugh to the revise sub. To my astonishment, the headline was printed.”
In 2007, Martyn launched a popular, award-winning blog, Zythophile – the word, derived from Greek, means “a lover of beer”. The range of categories – nearly 60, from ageing beer to yeast – demonstrated his sweep of knowledge. There are 105 posts alone on beer styles.
Martyn’s writing packed a punch. “If I read once more that porter got its name because it was ‘popular with the porters of Covent Garden, Smithfield and Billingsgate’, I am going to slap someone with a malt shovel,” he wrote, in what turned out to be his last post. A lover of books and music, Martyn was affable, modest and humorous, and in demand at conferences and beer-judging competitions worldwide. The University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy, used his writing for course work.
Martyn is survived by his wife, Emer, from whom he separated four years ago but with whom he remained great friends, their daughter, Mara, and his younger brother, Dave.
