Some of you may know me. Few that do have missed the fact that I like all things ale. I say that specifically as I really have not taken to lagers, those johnny-come-latelies of the zymurgical - based on a yeast isolated only in the late 1830's which ferments at 50 F. It might as well be Koolaid in both its history and taste.

I have 27 beer books by the bedside table. This in now way makes me beer obsessed - others are all over that. Most of them relate to my suspended brewing life - recipe and style books. A few are more technical like the ever fascinating text The Biotechnology of Malting and Brewing by J.S. Hough. I have just picked up a dandy, hardcover copy of Michael Jackson's 1976 The English Pub.