Berghaus and a beer

The Berghaus and a beer project is a cultural investigation that aims to document the hidden, everyday narratives of Manchester’s Berghaus enthusiasts. The project stemmed from the researchers noticing the co-opting of the brand in certain subcultures and geographies, communities and networks familiar to the authors, which enabled participant recruitment through purposeful sampling. The adoption of the Berghaus brand across time and place remains unresearched, and this study aims to undertake an in-depth study, contributing to understandings of menswear in relation to place and culture. This was achieved through a mixed-methods approach of portraiture and object-based interviews. The focus of each interview is a Berghaus garment selected by the interviewee, based on their lived experience. These garments serve as a catalyst to the interview and a medium through which to explore and communicate the relationship between garment, place and cultural belonging. In this photo essay, the authors share some of the portraits and their initial findings from the pilot study.