Pete Brown's Beer Blog - Beery Books for Christmas
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Obviously you've already bought mine (or dropped strong hints to have it bought for you) but it's been a bumper year for beer books. Here are my three favourites of 2016.
The World Atlas of Beer (second edition)
Tim Webb and Stephen Beaumont, Mitchell Beazley, RRP £25
Michael Jackson's first World Guide to Beer (and its vinous forerunner, Hugh Johnson's World Atlas of Wine) set a template for coffee table drinks books that has slowly mutated over the years, and spawned off-shoots in the 'how many beers to drink before you die' mould that seem to be hitting the shelves daily. I question the need for books like this, partly because there are so bloody many of them and they're all essentially the same, and partly because if you want beer reviews, the internet is a much more up-to-date and accessible way of getting them. But these books work because people love having them all in one place and ticking them off - or some people do, at any rate.
What's surprising when you go back to Jackson's first book now is that there isn't a single page of bottle shots and tasting notes, just longer, highly readable articles about different countries, regions and styles.
In this second edition of their guide - the first of which established Beaumont and Webb as the natural heirs to Jackson in the format he created - the authors managed to convince the publishers to get rid of the pages of bottle shot and tasting notes that have crept in over the years, and use the space instead to actually write about beer rather than simply cataloguing it. That makes this book a blast of fresh air in a format that's become stuffy.
The world of good beer has expanded greatly since Jackson first mapped it out, and that's why a book like this today needs two authors, one on either side of the Atlantic, if it is to be as authoritative as it needs to be. Both Webb and Beaumont have been writing about beer for decades - they have about sixty years experience between them. They still travel regularly to both the obvious beer countries - the US, Belgium, Germany, UK - and those that are rapidly emerging as new craft beer stars, such as Brazil, Spain, Japan.
At times the book's scope is stretched a little too thin - some of the minor countries get a page with a nice photo and just enough room to list three or four up-and-coming craft brewers - but in the countries you really want to read about, no one does it better than these two. They combine their knowledge with a very dry wit, and don't suffer fools gladly. The tone is calm scholarship rather than breathless enthusiasm, and they're unafraid to be critical. But on every page you feel like you're in the company of experts who love their subject.
(Like big, epic beer tomes? You should also check out the gargantuan Belgian Beer Book by Erik Verdonck and Luc de Raedemaeker, Lanoo, RRP £45.)
Beer in So Many Words
Adrian Tierney-Jones (editor), Safe Haven Books in association with The Homewood Press, RRP £14.99
It's not just beer writers who write about beer, and not all beer writing is good. To pull together an anthology of the best writing about beer (as opposed to 'beer writing') requires an extensive knowledge of the subject as well as being well-read much more broadly.
The contents page of the book is a delight to read in itself. As a community, beer geeks and writers need to be reminded fairly regularly that beer doesn't belong just to us, that it's a popular drink that is appreciated by a wide range of people. And here, names like Boak and Bailey, Roger Protz, Jeff Evans, Melissa Cole and, well, me, rub shoulders with Dylan Thomas, Ian Rankin, Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene and Charles Dickens.
This is a book to lose yourself in, to wander back and forth through, to put down briefly and take a sip of something dark and rich while you ponder. It's themed in sections: The Taste of Beer, Beer in Pubs, Beer People, Brewing, Beer Journeys, Beer and Food and The Meaning of Beer. It reminds you of what made you fall in love with beer (and reading, and writing) and is highly likely to give you fresh perspectives and insights on a subject you thought you knew all about.
(Like anthologies of writing about beer? You should also check out
CAMRA's Beer Anthology: a Pub Crawl through British Culture, edited by Roger Protz, CAMRA, RRP £9.99)
Food and Beer
Daniel Burns and Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso, Phaidon, RRP £29.95
Of all the avalanche of beer books being published right now, the most dramatic trend is in books about beer and food. Within the last couple of years, I've acquired a whole bookshelf full on this subject alone.
I'm a keen cook, and am always looking for inspiration. I use some of these books often, but am often frustrated that most of them seem to consist mainly of big hunks of red meat, of burgers, wings and pulled pork, of melted cheese and stout-braised ribs and sticky puddings with rich glazes. I'm sure it's all very nice, but I'm already bored of the kind of food because it seems to be the only thing you ever get served in craft-centric pubs and bars. When I get home, I want to eat more healthily. At the same time, I want to push my cooking skills, taking time out of writing to do something absorbing and satisfying, learning new techniques and skills.
'Food and Beer' may not be the most exciting title of a book about food and beer (I've already got three different books called Beer and Food, and one other Food and Beer) but this is the topic getting a higher end, classier treatment than it's ever had so far, and it's no accident that 'food' comes first in the title. Chef Daniel Burns has cooked at Noma and the Fat Duck, and gypsy brewer Jeppe Jarnit-Bergso founded Evil Twin brewing and also worked as beer director at Noma, routinely billed as the best restaurant in the world.
What I like about this book is that there's stuff that is insanely ambitious for an amateur like me, with those kinds of recipe that are actually five separate recipes nested within one big dish that require two days of work. But there are also relatively simple things to test yourself out with - anyone can make a heritage tomato sandwich with cider-infused mayonnaise.
Having put this book through its paces in my kitchen, it has one major flaw. A friend of mine works as a recipe tester for various celebrity chefs, taking their ideas and cooking them in her well-appointed but strictly domestic kitchen, and working out the timings, quantities and temperatures that actually work in a kitchen a little less awesome than Noma's. Like several other beer and food books I've acquired this year, this book really, desperately, needed her input. Some of the quantities in recipes are utterly nonsensical (Welsh Rarebit that contains ten times the volume of double cream to that of cheese? Really?) and whatever oven they worked out the cooking times on bears no relationship whatsoever to how mine works.
But with that fairy significant caveat aside, this is a book that combines two elements I've always wanted from a beer and food book: one, it seriously elevates beer as both an accompaniment and an ingredient. There's nothing wrong with beer being allied with hearty pub and bar fare, but it's good to see it in haute cuisine, showing its adaptability and scope. And secondly, it inspires me to be a better cook, and makes me believe I can stretch and do some of the more challenging dishes. (Although it might be a while before I attempt the pork brith and smoked egg whites on chrysanthemum base paired with smoked wheat beer.)
(Like reading about how beer and food go together? Also check out Mark Dredge's Cooking With Beer, Dog & Bone, RRP £16.99)
Disclosure: I'm good friends with the authors of the first book and the editor of the second one. One big reason we're good friends is that we admire each other's work. I genuinely love these books, and have tried not to let friendship bias me in my opinion of them.
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