The Journal of Culture and Brewing

Sept./Oct. 2005

One Beer Lover's Library by Alan McLeod.

I have been thinking more about the beer lover and books since I posed the task to myself of writing a review of Lew Bryson's new book Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Breweries. I compare beer to other areas of food and drink and I find that there is not much written about it compared to, say, wine or cooking food from Thailand. Yet, as we know, beer is a larger part of the social activity of the community. So what is going on?

The first thing that is going on is that there is some beer writing if my small library is anything to go by. The sorts of book I have can be categorized as follows:

There is onle one technical text in the author's library - which may point out a weakness you might wish to consider. It is The Biotechnology of Malting and Brewing by J.S. Hough first published in 1985. For any beer lover, this text or any other such general and accessible book on the process of making beer should be considered indespensible. While is it not required to enjoy beer, it is vital to the understanding of its enjoyment. Through descrtibing the elements of ingredients and production, Hough's book explains why each taste is what it is without being bogged down in the facts of specific beer review.

In the category of the history and sociology of beer, I would include two books published in 2003, Peter Brown's Man Walks into a Pub and Martyn Cornell's Beer: The Story of the Pint. Each covers largely the same ground of the English experience of beer consumption but the first reviews it from the point of view of marketing to the public while the second focuses more on the economic factors affecting brewers. A third book, Peter Haydon's Beer and Britanna: an Inebriated History of Britain from 2001 (earlier published in 1994 as The English Pub A History) also traces the history of beer from the middle ages to the present but focuses on the effect of taxation on how beer was experienced by the public. In a sense these are histories but they are not comprehensive as they each reference the larger breweries and some smaller ones but they do not attempt to trace the existence of each brewing entities. They can be considered general histories. They can be distinguished in a way from a book like Michael Jackson's 1976 book, The English Pub which traces elements within the structure of that English icon, the public house, to trace certain patterns and show the origin of continuing architectural aspects. The playing of the game of darts, for example, is shown to have its roots in archery ranges which were once attached to a number pubs. This kind of specific history is fairly rare. It can also be distinguished from general histories such as 2001's Brewed in Canada by Allen Winn Sneath or Gregg Smith's Beer in America: The Early Years - 1587 to 1840 from 1998. These two books generally canvas the whole of the topic of brewing in a nation, a fairly daunting task and one which inevitably lacks some of the degree of focus found in the books of Brown, Cornell or Haydon mentioned above. Collectively, however, a group of books like this provides the reader with an interest in beer with a range of approaches to the topic. There is much overlap between them but the unique perspective of the author contextualizes his or her book in a greater whole of knowledge. This may sound obvious but with a topic so little written about as beer, it may be as important to seek new views as it is correct information.

Style guides are a rich resource of very specific information on a particular sort of beer such as stouts or altbiers. The best examples of these writings are the Classic Beer Style Series published by Brewers Publications of Denver Colorado. They are written for the adventurous and experienced home brewer and as such constitute a next level from the general homebrewing guide. In addition, however, these texts usually contain something of the history of a specific style, information on the commercial examples one may find and also the particular elements which make the style what it is. Examples in the author's library include:

I only have a few books that fall into the "Beers of the World" category. These are often coffee table books or books given at holidays by non-beer drinkers to beer drinkers. To be fair they also serve as a good introduction for people wanting to move more into the intermediate level of beer understanding. Two are by Michael Jackson: his large formeat hardcover from 1997 The World Guide to Beer and his Great Beer Guide a paperback from 2000. In addition, I own a somewhat curious translation of a French book called Beers of the World from 1994, also in large format hardcover, which appears to not have a named author. These books do provide a great overview of the different regions of beer as produced across the globe and also often highlight specific popular examples of each of the beers reviewed. Jackson's Great Beer Guide rearranges the information in an alphabetical format starting with Aass Bock from Norway to Zirndorfer Landbier Hell from Germany. I expect 300 Beers to Try Before You Die, published this year by Roger Protz, is of this same sort. They do serves an interesting accompaniment to a new style or new beer as long as it is included as one of the select few you really ought to try. Unfortunately, like those records which also come out promising The Best of... this artist or that, the beer you might like to try is likely not included. So they serve an initial entry points to trying and learning the range of beers but after that, they tend to languish until the next holiday when the next new beer book of this sort is unwrapped from under the Christmas tree.

[NB: Work In Progress]