| Do you think there is benefit in using stuff like
  | SQLAlchemy or should I write just SQL files/queries?

If you're just in it for the learning, then maybe drop SQLAlchemy to get your hands dirty and learn; otherwise just use SQLAlchemy. If you're getting into really complex queries and optimizations you're going to have to resort to SQL anyways, even with SQLAlchemy. An ORM just allows you to abstract away most of the mundane SQL tasks.