Category: Beer Books

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A Book & A Beer – American Spy

American Spy is not the most creative book of book names. But author Lauren Wilkinson has taken the spy format and written an excellent lead character who subverts that sometimes tired and pro for a format by being well-rounded and human. Having a female lead that is both black and a mom really really works as Wilkinson creates a dangerous world for our protagonist Marie to navigate. I won’t give away the plot but it has the required twists and turns shown in a new light.

To drink with this, you could go in many different directions. Martinique for Island influenced beers. Washington DC or the Bronx for the main settings of the book. But I would recommend looking for beers brewed by women. Then take a moment to see how a spy operates differently based on gender and how the same occurs in brewing.

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For the Defense

This is a very thorough dismantling of a word through the lens of marketing, economics, history, philosophy and even social media. And I dug every moment because it did not play favorites or set- up straw men to easily knock down. This is rigorous and since I recently watched Hamilton, it made me think of the Federalist papers a bit.

Brown starts with using a (5) part definition of a craft brewery written by Dan Shelton of Shelton Brothers. Those qualifications were ingredients, methods and equipment, spirit, control and ownership structure. Which is probably too much to have to apply to each and every brewery. By the end, Brown has whittled and refined it into (4) comprised of skill/creativity, quality, autonomy and motivation. Bigger ideas but also simpler to understand in my opinion. With only motivation being somewhat opaque.

Some other cool ideas that I ran across:

Skilled craftspeople are considered less than a typical pencil pusher.

Workers should also spend time thinking and thinkers spend more time working.

Craft is a moving target

The concept of under erasure. Where a word is inaccurate in explaining or describing an idea but is also necessary so it is shown but crossed out.

If you haven’t noticed, I highly recommend buying this. Worth every penny.

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25 Dogfish

Here is what you will find inside the covers of The Dogfish Head Book: 25 Years of Off-Centered Adventures: “readers will gain an understating of the “How & Why” behind the brewery’s growth and success through heartfelt stories of Sam, Mariah and Andrew’s trials and accomplishments. Chock full of wisdom, entertainment and a whole lot of timeless lessons learned – everything from memorabilia and co-worker-told tales to the brewery’s business philosophy and “Rules of Thumb,””

This looks to be a grand addition to anyone’s beer library and a good lockdown read.

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Love

Yes, you can go back to taprooms and bars but I am still wary about that situation. I will opt for reading about an epic drinking and talking about life adventure from Roddy Doyle. Love is set in Dublin and it will provide me all the bar interiors and Guinness Pints that I will need.

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A Book & A Beer – The Great Influenza by John Barry

No, The Great Influenza is not the cheeriest of titles to be reading now as we see spikes in cases in states that opened up waaaaay too early but I have heard 1918 referenced so often, that I felt I needed to get a handle on it.

Author John Barry starts us with the young medical establishment that would be key in treating the the flu that killer approximately 100 million worldwide. The book then covers the ground until the virus burned out in 1919, but not before hitting President Woodrow Wilson.

There is a lot of fascinating history found here with the name (Spanish Flu) coming from the fact that the press in Spain was not censored and thus wrote about it more. Also, it more than likely started in Kansas, went across with WW1 soldiers to Europe and then came back in a strain that was much more deadly. There is an afterword that should have been read by leaders last year.

I do not want to recommend a certain brewery or beer lest they become associated with sickness so what I recommend that you find a nice healthy kombucha with all sorts of fruits and hops too to keep your health on an even keel.

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Historical Brewing

The Kviek yeast wheel in the top middle photo should get the science beer geeks excited but what is super cool if author Lars Marius Garshol can make it work, is conjuring up old practices and lore and explaining it to a modern generation.

Here is the elevator pitch for this new book, “Equal parts history, cultural anthropology, social science, and travelogue, Historical Brewing Techniques describes brewing and fermentation techniques that are vastly different from modern craft brewing and preserves them for posterity and exploration.”

This sounds like a fun way to get “outside” the house by book instead of plane.

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The Art of Beer

Regular readers will know that I buy pretty much any book that U.K. writer Pete Brown does, and he has one project about ready for sale and another in the pipeline.

The self-published, Craft: An Argument, will be published on June 25th in England and hopefully the same day or soon after for us in the US.

The next in line is a CAMRA published book,  The Art of Beer will be “about beer design and packaging, published by CAMRA Books in October 2020.”

Brown has marketing on his CV so this won’t be just a picture book. Expect some history and marketing insight from someone who has been around the British beer industry for some time now.

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A Book & A Beer – We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

A book about a field hockey team in Massachusetts in the ’80’s is not a selling point for me, but Quan Barry has crafted just the right tone to We Ride Upon Sticks. It is both funny and illuminating with the narrator guiding you through the turbulent season that complicates the lives of each member of the Danvers team. I burned through this book in a day because I wanted to see how this played out and how the spirit of Emilio Estevez would wreak havoc.

First, if you can find a Pink Boots hop blend beer. That would be perfect. Field hockey gear or brewing gear. It doesn’t matter who wears it as long as they know what to do with the sticks or mash paddles.

An even more obvious choice would be to get the OG Sam Adams Boston lager and practice your accent or just imagine the 80s lingo filtered through that east coast dialect.

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Book Review – Wine Girl

Every industry has a dark side. Something that happens with a falling regularity that only occasionally bubbles to the surface. It can be bribes, unequal pay, sexism but all seem to have a wellspring of people taking advantage of other people.

Wine Girl by Victoria James shows how wine and high-end restaurants has its own “grease trap” as it were that could have and should have broken the author but by the end of the book, you will be amazed at her strength and resilience in life and in wine.

I cannot imagine being verbally belittled with the nickname Wine Girl or to be not believed as a professional by men who seem to only be able to allow other men to have and hold power. But James has been physically assaulted in ways that made my blood boil and forced me to put the book down because I was so angry. If I had seen a male wine distributor at these points, I would have kicked them in the nuts and called them a little baby boy. And I cannot print what some of these privileged male wine drinkers would get from me.

In spite of the workplace toxicity she has endured, she has created joy in her life and has kept her love of wine intact and has been able to mend a past that was brutal in its own right. And by books end, she has turned to educating and empowering other women in the sommelier and buyer game to learn and help each other.

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Book Review – It’s the Beer Talking by Ian Clayton

Timing is a bit off. Reading a book about pub culture in a time of isolation. But It’s the Beer Talking has been on my list for awhile now. Author Ian Clayton is the type of person that is the exact opposite of me. Outgoing, quick to make friends and even quicker with a story.

So, at first, I was a little put off, to be honest. But once I re-dove into the book, it made sense. The beer is center here, as are the buildings and cities they are in, frankly, as the people are. But Clayton is talking about the underlying spirit that animates all of those things. What makes people care for the beer, buildings and people and by the end of the book, even a jaded introvert like me could see it.

Clayton, to me, would be one of those people who would be perfect for a podcast. You can tell that he is most at home around a table with some mates talking about “that time, when so-and-so and I….”. That gathering of friends has been captured in the book. Along with a wild cast of characters that novelists would have a hard time dreaming up.

I think you will have a wistful smile on your face as you turn to the last page.