Category: Beer Books

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Beer Reading List – Drinking in America

Thoughtful takes on drinking and its effects on people and their culture that give backstory are much needed because it is easy to just pick your side and your facts and your statistics and say “I am right.” Which is why I hope that Drinking in America, from author Susan Cheever can deliver on its promise in “taking a long, thoughtful look at the way alcohol has changed our nation’s history. This is the often–overlooked story of how alcohol has shaped American events and the American character from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.”
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Somehow Cheever weaves together the Mayflower, slavery the McCarthy witch hunts, and the Kennedy assassination into her narrative to take stock of our love/hate relationship of alcohol.

The book is now on my to read list and I will review at a later date.

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Book Review – The Beer Bible by Jeff Alworth

I am not done reading the Beer Bible by Jeff Alworth. In fact, I am maybe only 60% done. Barring a bunch of empty pages though, I can already say that I am giving this book as much of a positive review as I possibly can.
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It can be a double-edged sword to say that the author’s voice comes through on the page. In this instance though, it sets the tone for a book that is witty, educational and fun. Beer books, especially ones centered on beer styles and signature beers for that style do not have to be dry affairs, nor do they need bunches of photos or an “edge”. History and the backstory make for intriguing reading and that is practically on every page.

Alworth has re-jiggered the styles into larger like-minded groups. Wet-Hopped beers get their own chapter where usually they are grouped alongside pale ales and IPA’s. Gratzers and Goses are bunched with others that form the lost and found Germanic styles as opposed to being lumped with all German beers. Each chapter concludes with a concise group of beers emblematic of what was just talked about. But before that you get more technical detail and the building blocks of the beers in a succinct manner.

I do want to touch on the design as well. There are a couple slight flaws that are a bit bothersome. The type is a little small for my tired computer eyes and the black and white photos lack the pop that color or a glossier paper stock would provide. But the layout itself is nice with the blocks of text being broken up well and the little changes in color or border providing a change of pace without being distracting.

My favorite parts of the book are the intermittent brewery sections that are peppered throughout the book. Getting a closer look into Dupont and its famous Saison was really cool. But each one is well chosen. They are all important but not talked about enough spots around the globe. I was tempted to just go through and read those first.

It is still a long book but one that goes by quickly and I have already used it a couple of times to refresh my memory when writing a post. It is the sleeker, faster version of the Oxford Guide to Beer.

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A Book & A Beer – A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

CaptureIn time for Halloween season, the book of the month is suitably about death, or what happens when a normal guy with a baby becomes part of Team Grim Reaper.

That is the premise of A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. This is the first book by Moore that I have read and I did appreciate the style.  Jaunty with a mordant wit.  Very of the age and descriptive of the area of San Francisco.  The character names like Minty Fresh are fun if over the top.  Overall, this book moved along well, the side characters are fun and the device at the start is clever.  The problem that I have is that the main character, Charlie Asher is continuously described as a beta male to the point where I began to really hate that pair of words.  He is a wimp and whiny and a hypochondriac and I didn’t much care for him except for the last section in the climactic finale.  That finale takes a while to arrive and then is gone too fast.  A mixed review from me.  Not enough though to make me want to read the sequel though.

To drink while reading it, I would start with He’Brew Death of a Contract Brewer a Black IPA.  First reason, there is a bit of religion woven into the book plus of course the whole word Death makes it a no brainer.  Keeping with the death theme, Death & Taxes from the fabulous Moonlight Brewing Company would be a great choice.  A lighter ABV but dark lager is a great reading session beer.  If you want a label with the scythe and reaper then Pale Death a Belgian-Style Imperial IPA from Double Mountain in Hood River.  A deeper cut would be Park from Fort Point Brewing in San Francisco.  Finding a parking space in SF is a sport and is mentioned frequently in the book so that would be my choice.

 

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A Book & A Beer – The Maintenance of Headway

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The Maintenance of Headway is slight book is the London bus driver equivalent of The Office (take your pick of British or US versions).  Droll, quiet and quietly funny on each and every page.  Anybody who has worked with weirdos and the rules from above will be bookmarking pages to talk about.  Our narrator takes us through some sorta eventful days in the life of a bus driver in London.  The ending is a quiet (again with that word) shocker but really in tune with what has happened before.  A gem of a book.

So this is set in London, so for us Angeleno’s when we talk British, that means MacLeod’s from Van Nuys and since the theme of the Underground is “Mind the Gap”, I would start with The Session Gap. An Ordinary Bitter at 3.5% that would not be out of place in the hand of one of the gents from the book.

And since tea is a big part of the book, my second pick would be from Noble Ale Works.  Earl Grey Dinghy.  Now I know that is a seasonal but Evan Price has been doing some cool British inspired beers so maybe check out The Londoner, a fun English Porter.

Or, you could just randomly choose a British beer (preferably from a shoppe that has a good turnover, because foreign beer suffers getting here).  I would look for something from Meantime like their London Lager.

 

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Review – Portland Beer Stories by Steven Shomler

I really wanted to like this book.  I really did.

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But Steven Shomler’s Portland Beer Stories is undone by four major flaws.  One is the writing.  It is just not good.  Clunky and repetitive word choices being the main culprit here.  I am not saying that my writing is Proustian by any stretch of the imagination but this book comes off like a school book report at times.  It may be earnest but it sure does not flow or evoke a sense of place.

Secondly, if you are looking for behind the scenes, well, you will be disappointed.  There are Parade style mini-backgrounds on the brewers but literally nothing on the brewer’s style, why they brew or their thought process.  John Harris is in the book but you could have learned all that is in the book with a random Google search. Each and every person profiled is given the exact same arc.  Where they grew up, where they went to college, list of jobs and then it stops.  The only brewing insight was on Ale Apothecary, which is in Bend, which if geography holds, is not near Portland

That is my third issue.  Why is a cidery in upper Washington state included in the book?  Why is Ninkasi of Eugene in here. Same with Pelican of Pacific City. Shomler laments about having to leave out stories when he could put all the outside of Portland breweries into a separate book.

Lastly, there are interludes written by Portland area beer writers which are truly saccharine cheerleader pieces. And that is coming from me, a staunch defender of beer writers rights to cheerlead if they so wish and if their brewing scene needs it.

The strength of this book and what it probably should have been focused on are the people on the edges of the beer business. The stories about the cider rep who is as happy at the end of a fest as she is the beginning or the story of the Oregon Brew Crew’s first African American female club president are an invigorating breath of fresh air but again they fail to delve any deeper than the surface.

Pass on Portland Beer Stories.  Read the better Portland beer blogs instead.

 

 

 

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History of Beer via Comics

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The trio of writer Jonathan Hennessey and illustrator Aaron McConnell with the able assistance of professional brewer Mike Smith have fashioned a new way of looking at the history of beer. The world of comics.

The Comic Book History of Beer goes ALL the way back to the very beginning and using a style that only the comic/graphic novel medium can truly heighten, you get a historical tour with fun facts that isn’t dry and dusty and rooted in biology and chemistry. Instead of “wording” about yeast, you get graphics instead.

Looks to be a fun read.

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A Book & A Beer – Tarkin

I did feel a little self-conscious checking out a Star Wars universe book at my local library. But with the first trailer for the Force Awakens out and the Comic-Con appearance of the stars young and old, I felt a little nostalgic for the original trilogy which is the only set of movies to my mind. (No matter how much you edit the abominations of Phantom, Attack and Revenge or re-order their viewing order.)

But after a long book on Alan Turing that nearly drained me, I needed something light and easy and Tarkin by James Luceno was just that. The book charts the rise of Peter Cushing’s DeathStar Grand Moff from his upbringing on the Outer Rim planet of Eriadu to commanding the construction of the destroyer of worlds.

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Darth Vader and the Emperor are along for this novel too. Tarkin comes off as a supreme tactician who knows moves way before they happen, with Vader and the Force they seem unstoppable until they come across a rogue who can match them step for step with help from the inside of what will soon be the Empire.

It gets a bit repetitive with T&V making correct chess moves to match the rebel as they hop from planet to star system via lightspeed. Then it happens again and again. The flashbacks on Tarkin’s childhood are good as is how he rose in prominence in the power structure due to the fall of others but in the end this is all just backstory. Something that the actor probably didn’t have unless Lucas had an outline like it in his head. It serves as something that could be brought out in a bit of dialogue and actorly looks on set. But you can’t write every minor and sub-minor character their own backstory in a screenplay so if you are the completist type, this will scratch the itch for more on how Tarkin ended up on the original DeathStar.

Obviously, the beers to go with this are easy to pick. For SoCal locals Galaxy Defender from Monkish Brewing a Belgian-style blonde with grapefruit peels & Galaxy hops would be an excellent choice as would be the Citizens of the Galaxy IPL from Cismontane. No matter where you are in the country, there is probably a Galaxy hopped beer that will do the trick.

Or you could go to the dark side with the Black IPA Hop Vader from Beachwood Brewing or Wookey Jack from Firestone Walker.

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from other writers – Part 1 – Roses are Red


Poetry is not my gig. I have never gotten into it. For me, it is juvenile “Once was a Man from Nantucket” on side and twee hippy shit on the other. (Let the poetry hate mail commence!)

So when Sarah Bennett wrote about Sam Wagner’s book of poetry, The Poetry of Beer, I thought, in a nutshell, M’eh.
But then I read that Wagner got a grant to write about craft beer and esoteric poetry styles which must have been a convincing grant proposal. To further pique my interest one of the pieces is a rant about IPA’s.

So now I am on the fence about buying it. Which is saying something considering how much I don’t like sonnets and their ilk. Check out Wagner’s website HERE.

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a Book and a Beer – The Water Knife

Now that I am back in the groove of reading, I thought it was time to get back to pairing books with beer on a semi-regular basis.

The book is “The Water Knife” by Paolo Bacigalupi. (Maybe next month, I will do “Go Set A Watchmen”, or not)
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I read the previous Bacigalupi book, “The Wind-Up Girl” and thought it was a fun summer/potential movie script.  And his latest follows along the same road, pretty stock characters doing pretty stock things though the ending does toss a curve ball that attempts to “dirty” up the pretty finale.  What is frustrating to me is that the setting and backdrop could be used for so much more.  Drought and who controls the levers of the water supply is a rich vein to mine.  The movie Chinatown worked the edges hard without digging too deep into it and the Water Knife and it’s lead character, Angel could have really been fleshed out and into something deeper.  On a side note, Angel as a name doesn’t work for men or women anymore.  Way too laden with imagery.  If it was a modern day mystery or thriller, I probably would have read it and put it aside without a thought. But this book practically asks for more.

The easy beer to pair with it would be 2020 IPA from Golden Road.  This hop bomb was made in conjunction with the LA River 2020 project so you have a nice water tie in and since Calie’s are the “big bad” of the story it works.

A deeper cut could be Tenaya Creek and their Monsoon IPA.  It combines the Vegas that is a major part of the story with a heavenly torrent of water that would have really, really been welcomed in this bleak future.

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Portland Beer Stories

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Steven Shomler first told the stories of the people inside Portland’s food carts and now he has moved on to another group of creators.  The brewers of Portland with his Portland Beer Stories which drops into bookstores in September.

I’m not a big fan of printed interviews.  Finding a balance where the interviewer can espouse their feelings and put the subject into wider context without getting too chummy or to by the book is hard.  I feel it works better in radio or podcast form where the inflection and tone can bring a person to life.  But I do hope that this book contains some informative and lively talks.  More discussion than one-sided.

To be reviewed later this year….