Tom Acitelli
Reviewed by Maureen Ogle
Published May 2013, Volume 34, Number 2
After I published my history of beer in America, the three questions readers asked me (over and over and over) were: “What’s your favorite beer?” “Why didn’t you spend more time on craft beer?” and “Are you going to write a history of craft beer?”
Thanks to Tom Acitelli, I can scratch number three off that list. He’s done the job and with verve, common sense and the requisite butt-in-the-chair hard work. (That last cannot be underestimated. Here’s an insider secret about books: Each one represents thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hours of work on the part of the author.)
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Tim Webb and Stephen Beaumont
Reviewed by Daniel Bradford
Published March 2013, Volume 34, Number 1
Unlike Michael Jackson’s legendary World Guide to Beer, which painted a portrait of beer at its lowest ebb, Tim Webb and Stephen Beaumont’s new World Atlas of Beer tours the vibrant global craft beer culture as it is today. Whereas the Guide called attention to the vanishing classic beer styles, the Atlas gathers together the raucous world of the emerging and expanding beer culture revolution.
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Chris Bauweraerts
Reviewed by Martin Wooster
Published March 2013, Volume 34, Number 1
The global craft brewing movement is now in its third decade, and it’s time for the founders of successful craft breweries to be working on their memoirs. While there have been many books about the history of American craft breweries, Chris Bauweraerts’ My Chouffe Story is the first autobiography of a Belgian craft brewer to appear in English. (A book-length interview of Pierre Celis appeared several years ago.)
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Erik Lars Myers
Reviewed by Keith Klemp
Published November 2012, Volume 33, Number 5
For the longest time, the Southeastern US was considered an afterthought as a beer destination. With ABV caps in some states and a relatively limited brewing history to draw from, the regions brewing culture was laggard compared to some other parts of the country. That the American Southeast is now home to one of the more vibrant, thriving, and forward-thinking brewing scenes is simply amazing. Leading the charge is North Carolina, especially the city of Asheville, which has become widely recognized as one of America’s best beer cities. Erik Lars Myers new book, North Carolina Craft Beer and Breweries, is the first comprehensive microbrewery and brewpub travelogue and guide of North Carolina, from the Outer Banks to The Great Smokies, and every craft pit stop along the way.
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Howard and Ashley Stelzer
Reviewed by Ben Keene
Published November 2012, Volume 33, Number 5
The first copies of How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon Vivant’s Companion, appeared under the Dick & Fitzgerald imprint in 1862 for the price of $1.50. In it, Jerry P. Thomas, the former principal bartender at New York’s Metropolitan Hotel, describes a handful of beer cocktails including an “Ale Sangaree,” made with simple syrup and grated nutmeg, and the more complex “Porter Cup,” created by adding brandy, sugar, ginger syrup, grated nutmeg, cucumber rind, and “a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda” to equal portions of porter and table ale. Countless cocktail books and bartending guides have been published since Mr. Thomas’ “complete cyclopaedia of plain and fancy drinks” turned up in the nineteenth century, although most fail to venture beyond the simple Shandy or the tame Snakebite when it comes to using beer.
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Maximiliano Bahnson
Reviewed by Rick Lyke
Published September 2012, Volume 33, Number 4
Prague is a paradise for lager lovers. It can also be a daunting Old World city with hard-to-pronounce pub names and with even harder-to-pronounce winding narrow streets. Thankfully, Max Bahnson, a language teacher and beer enthusiast, has put together a 117-page guide that makes sense out of words that, even after just one pilsner, have way too many consonants in a row.
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