Category: Beer Books

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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.

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A Book & A Beer – The Dutch House

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett was a birthday present that might wife received. And a fancy gift it was, what with an autograph and all.

I would’ve categorize this in the “gentle tale” section. There is an evil stepmother, a divorce, gentrification, death and of course a grand old house but none of it is angsty or melodramatic. So many books would fall into the Holden Caufield trap of making things bitter and annoying. But our guides through this tale, siblings Danny and Maeve are working through life no matter what life throws at them. They are 3D and evolving characters that you would want to spend time with.

By the end of this quick and enjoyable read, you are rooting for them to win. And when a quick resolution arrives at the end, even a secondary player seems fully fledged.

If we in Los Angeles had access to Yuengling, that would be perfect for this book. If you happen to have some Other Half cans I need the fridge, that would work to, since part of the action is in NYC. Closer to SoCal, you could look for a beer from Pomona’s Sanctum which the Dutch House was to the brother and sister.

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Book Review – Uncultivated by Andy Brennan

Been on a bit of a kick of books by food people with pretty uncompromising views and Uncultivated is the tip of that particular spear.

Author Brennan walks his path and when it comes to apples and cider, it is a specific path. He grudgingly accepts that others have their way but as you read his book about his journey from NYC to a Cidery named after Aaron Burr, well you have to just go with it. Part philosophy, part natural agriculture, and all learning, this book really takes you into the mind and that explains why Brennan does what he does and why he does it in his own way.

I can sense that many readers of this book are either of this group or not but I would recommend setting aside what you know and add this information to your brain. I did not like Brennan early in this book, but as I turned the pages, I found a lot of practical information. And by the end, I really wanted to taste his cider.

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Don’t Do It

How to books for brewers have moved from beer styles to brewery build-outs and another is available with a bold title, “How NOT to start a F@ck!ng Brewery: Ten Business Lessons From The Front Lines of The Craft Beer Industry” Kelly Meyer has distilled his experience with The New Braunfels Brewing into this book and I am sure it will have some geographic specific and industry specific golden nuggets to mine.

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A Book & A Beer – Tightrope

When I went to buy this book, I hesitated. Did I want to read about despair? Tightrope – Americans Reaching for Hope has it from page 1.

But the setting, just east of where I went to college in McMinnville proved the final push and I am glad that I read it. Many books would try to prove a thesis and slightly or majorly bend the facts to fit their particular world view. This is especially true when politics is a major player. But the major player here is that the wife-husband write team of WuDunn and Kristof live in the area so the bent is towards the people who live there and how they have fared in this sub-section of America. That means that they love the people but not their actions.

They also find stories from across the US that touch on education, the opioid crisis, domestic violence and how it can be helped. It is not pleasant to read. To me it is a less funny version of John Oliver and Last Week Tonight. Taking apart the issues and laying them bare. It is hard to read and know that the life of your parents was filled with more hope than my generation (X) or future generations. But this book is filled with success too. And ideas. Ideas that mean less focus on the 1% and spending money on treatment, on schools, on medical coverage.

Because the area is filled with farms and vineyards, I have two suggestions for you. Find a farmhouse ale. Something rustic and earthy. Or you could find a beer from our state capital, Sacramento and then write a letter to your congressperson about what you learned from Tightrope and what you, as a voter, would like done.

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A Book & A Beer – The Department of Sensitive Crimes

My mom reads Alexander McCall Smith, so I knew going in that The Department of Sensitive Crimes is not going to be hard-nosed noir or sensitive but boy, this book makes Jessica Fletcher seem like Dirty Harry.

Set in Scandanavia we are set into a police group that has little to do and what little they do is so gentle and caring that even if you have a jaundiced view of police as I do, makes you think these people are way soft on crime. There are two crimes in this book as well as a depressed dog. An inter-office love affair that never happens and a guy who likes fishing. There is more violence and intrigue in a normal cubicle farm.

To pair with this pallid book, I would zip in the opposite direction. Try to find a local gruit. There is almost always one on tap somewhere. Yeah, not easy to find but it would tie you back to Europe and would have the spice needed to make this bland book more palatable. Or you could set up some Kveik yeasted IPA’s which are in larger supply and let the soft hop bitterness match that of this Department.