Category: Beer Books

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Review – Final Gravity # 8

Issue # 8 is probably the strongest overall issue that Final Gravity has put out, in my opinion, and one that is both extra timely and filled with trips around the world.

Firstly, well lastly, there is a really cute origin story about Chicken Nugget the brewery cat. It leaves you happy as you put down the ‘zine. But the bookend stories do just as well.

Brett Cortelletti’s tornado tale drives home the point of beer and community in a folksy and not forced way. And the ever reliable Matthew Curtis shows how big a role that sound plays in a taproom and what can be done to make a space more enjoyable for all.

In between, there is travel to France, Peru and Argentina. With, again, the two bookends being fun and educational while the trip to Peru with Ale Sharpton being far too short.

But what put this issue above is the clearly laid out information about how to deal with ICE if they show up at a brewery. Concise and action focused without creating any additional fear. On a more fun note, Deborah Sale-Butler’s piece about Paperback Brewing ( right here in Los Angeles ) and their Bunny with a Chainsaw Hazy IPA talks about finding that just right beer and then losing it

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The Brew Deal

There are little historical niches that either get passed by in history class or get a tiny paragraph in a history book that are waiting to be discovered.

One beer related bit of knowledge is that prohibition wasn’t just the law one day and then gone the next. Nope, as Prohibition wound down, “the US government allowed the consumption and sale of “non-intoxicating” beer, which was at or below 3.2% alcohol-by-weight. Beer’s return–permitted with an eye toward job creation during the Great Depression–was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s earliest New Deal policies.”

Jason E. Taylor author and economist uses his new book, The Brew Deal to uncover how 1933 was such a pivotal year for beer and this country.

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Search for Meaning

If I had a time machine, there would be so many history books that I would take back to my younger self in lieu of the dry and dusty date after date Western Civilization textbooks.

One of them would be, The Meaning of Beer by Jonny Garrett.

It is now out in paperback for people like me who like that lower cost and are willing to wait a bit.

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Reading Day – Beer Book Review – Devil’s in the Draught Lines

The first beer history book from Dr. Christina Wade and the second one that I have read, The Devil’s in the Draught Lines, about the role of women in British brewing is …..

The sub-title of the book is 1,000 years of women in Britain’s beer history and Dr. Wade covers that time frame admirably. The book is broken into seven sections and the reader is plunged back and forth into history.

I did like that this hook had a particular focus on recent history, weaving in anecdotes from various female beer professionals from brewers to writers to publicans. The recent history strongly counterpoints the past showing both how far society has come but also how agonizingly slow and incomplete that is.

Nowhere is that more plain and startling than the last section of the book which talks about women as just drinkers of beer and the hurdles and taboos placed on it from men who seem to be so weak as to not want to allow women to order full pints! The justifications for mens actions are so pathetic if not that they are still well believed to this very day.

My fondness for the modern should not hide the fact that Dr. Wade has done a heckuva lot of research looking for mentions of ale, then beer and brewing in the past. There must have been some real eureka moments when an old parchment mentioned hops or taverns or anything beer related.

I highly recommend this book and her latest, Filthy Queens. Get both!

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Reading Day – Be You

Readers of the blog know that I am introvert. I feel most comfortable in a brewery taproom right when it opens and I am the only one there.

I recognize that I am not in the majority when it comes to folks going out for craft beer, And it is for these people thar I recommend A Place to Be, a beer ‘zine from the folks that put the Pellicle beer writing website together.

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Beer Book Review – Around the World in 80 Beers

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.

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Webster’s Third

I do get abnormally excited when I learn about a new book coming out and I realize that the author already has previous books. So when I heard about beer historian Ian Webster and that he had a new book in the works. I rushed to check the interwebs for other titles and lo and behold there were two.

Both on a topic that I know a little bit about but could do with learning more about….

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Beer Book Review – Filthy Queens

Combine history and beer and I am in and I quickly pre-ordered Filthy Queens by Dr. Christina Wade that covers the history of beer in Ireland.

My overriding history book guide is that if it is textbooky then it is not good. History, when written well, can be electric. Most school taught history though is dry as dust.

Preamble aside, Wade has put fun into this gallop through Ireland and its brewing history from 300 AD up to 1900. I mean gallop because it is under 200 pages. Part of the reason is that back just over a century ago, a fire broke out in Dublin and the flames consumed a lot of historical documents. Making a hard task even harder and necessitating comparing other countries and making leaps and guesses as to what could have happened in Ireland.

I knew that I was in good hands when an Untappd joke appears on the pages of this book. Wade doesn’t bog you down with dates and instead finds little personal moments where people and beer intersected through the years.

The only down note is that the book ends at 1900. I know I wasn’t going to get modern craft beer in Ireland but I think the boundary end could have been up to pre-WW2 where there are more sources and info that could be passed on.

Every chapter of Filthy Queens had a nugget of learning, if not more and I am sure I will be referencing this book in the future.

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‘Zine Review – Final Gravity # 7

Issue # 7 of Final Gravity arrived last month with 8 new pieces of beer writing that I greedily read in one sitting.

The three stories that garnered my most interest were regarding the Swiss Beer Cartel which sounds more ominous than what it was, a state sanctioned monopoly of beer. My first exposure to Archival Brewing which re-creates historical beers and the tale of the revolutionary dive bars which takes place way back in, well, revolutionary times in Philadelphia. This was a really solid all around issue. I heartily suggest getting it.

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Bock It

One could argue that we do not need IPA books or barrel-aged beer books since they are beer style categories already oft discussed and argued over, whereas the humble Bock Bier could use love.

When I purchased the latest Final Gravity beer ‘zine, what did I notice? A ‘zine about Bock. Looks like a quick way to learn more about a seldom seen style.