Martyn Cornell has made an intriguing survey of beer in his latest book, Around the World in 80 Beers.
As to be expected from a Cornell book, this has a lot of research and gently debunks many historical beer myths. Always something that I appreciate. It also does truly live up to the name of a Global History. In fact, it rarely touches upon modernity focusing instead on beers that have stood a real test of time.
The beers chosen are all bangers, a greatest hits of beers. Gose, chicha, milk stout, pilsner and rauchbier all make appearances. Guinness gets two nods for Extra Stout and Foreign Extra Stout. What excited me more were the beers that I had never heard of before like Koyt, Jopielski, Buuhle-taaug Zu. All with wonderful back stories.
And since each beer takes up just three pages or so, it is easy to dip in and dip out when you have a few more minutes of reading time.
The only down note that I would give is that, in the case of older breweries, there is a lot of the begat and begat and begat going on. I do not really need to know the people who owned the brewery before the listed beer was made or the brewery owners after. At times, it became less the 80 beers and more the 80 breweries.
In the end, this is quite a fun journey and the best praise I can give is that I wished to have the beers with me to taste as I read.