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With England on a new trajectory of breweries, it is probably a good time to do some recollecting of the old times as well. Don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past, and all that. I am a sucker for beer books, toss in history and I am swooning. This one is going on my Christmas list this year.
“an elegy for the loss of so many of our classic homes of beer.” is all I need to see on the book jacket.
You can find it on Amazon UK, HERE.
If you have the hops book (which I do) and the malt book (which I don’t) then you might want to complete the set with Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers, by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski, “which will help brewers who have long been flummoxed by the liquid’s complex chemistry.”
Yup, this book from the Brewers Publications’ Brewing Elements series is “solely devoted to the use and treatment of water throughout the brewing process. From an overview on sources, quality and geography, the book shows brewers how to read water reports, understand flavor contributions, and adjust the chemistry of brewing water. A discussion of adapting water to styles of beer, residual alkalinity, malt acidity, mash pH, brewery process water and wastewater treatment is included.”
It’s gonna get technical but if you have an interest in diving deeper into beer then this book will give you some key information because….
“If you don’t get the water right, neither will you succeed with the beer,” said Charlie Bamforth, professor of malting and brewing sciences at the University of California in a review on the book.
So I typed this: Only a few days left to help out bringing another beer related Kickstarter to fruition! And the next day, before I had a chance to finish the post, the Kickstarter fully funded! I would like to say it was the BSP Bounce but I think many people wanted to see what new recipes Lucy Saunders has up her sleeve.
So now, if you haven’t already gotten a book via the crowdfunding, you can find it later via bookstores (live or virtual).
My Kindle started up and I dug into the Sierra Nevada story on the flight up to Portland from Burbank. And I was, to be honest, only intermittently enlightened. Even though I really wanted to like it more.
Starting with the story of Ken Grossman’s childhood and how he found his way to Chico, good back story as it was, moved a little slow and highlighted aspects of his work habits and expertise that get repeated later. And then when we got to the start of Sierra Nevada the details started to diminish. And as we got closer to current time, it became almost a press release touting the workplace at Sierra Nevada and their ecological efforts.
And that is why I can only marginally recommend Beyond the Pale. It is very important that all beer fans and writers see what it took for Grossman to make what we take for granted today. It was nip and tuck at many crucial junctures. The sheer amount of hours that Grossman put into the brewery building is tiring and amazing at the same time. We could easily be living in a world without the iconic green label of the famous pale ale. But that focus on the brewery getting off the ground trials comes at the expense of the beers. How did Kellerweis come about? Why was the stout overshadowed by the Pale ale? Why is Torpedo getting bigger and not the pale? As it stands, I got a peek into what makes a Sierra Nevada beer special but not the nitty gritty.
The section on the split between Grossman and his initial partner was also quite informative. Recapping that part of Sierra Nevada’s history must have been hard to do but it was handled adroitly without being mean spirited or too soft. And most importantly, it gave me the full (from Grossman’s perspective) story of what transpired.
But at other points in the narrative, I wanted to say, now talk about this or go in more depth about that. And instead it would head to another chapter on building the new facility or buying more equipment. More photographs may have enlivened those stretches of text (and perhaps the book-book has that as opposed to the Kindle version). I would also have shortened the childhood section and fleshed out who the other brewers have been at the brewery and what they brought to the table and how that has changed the beers brewed and the flagship ales. As it stands, you have a hybrid book that is part childhood memoir, part story of building a brewery and part brochure. None of which is bad, but the subject matter is so fascinating to me that I wanted more.
Now I have to read the story of Lagunitas in book form and compare with that and the Brooklyn Brewing and Dogfish Head stories.
If you think a wine book has no room on a beer blog then you will be happier with the other book review today. For those who want to see what I learned about the history of one our alcoholic brethren, then continue on.
Paul Lukacs takes us from the start of wine up to some recent history in “Inventing Wine”. And the first and most often reiterated point is that wine has been bad longer than it has been good. He goes through a laundry list of words to describe non-modern wine. Tart, spoiled, oxidized, thin, shrill and swill are just a few.
Another takeaway is that only since the mid 19th century did wine become associated with restaurants. And since then it has been out of vogue even there for stretches of time. Which leads me to hope that one day, future restaurants will have impressive lists of wine, spirits and beer simultaneously.
The other fascinating trend is the rise of as Lukacs calls them, “flamboyant” wines. Big fruity wines that took the wine world by storm and threaten to make lighter varietals obsolete. Seems like an obvious comparison to hyper IPAs. One prominent wine critic echoes statements that I have made about “big” beers. “I have a powerful aversion to wines that gush and scream”, Terry Thiese says.
This book does get a little repetitive at times and does quickly jet over recent history but will bring to many beer fans minds parallels to our industry.
Including this quote about preserving a history of wine making that wasn’t good, “…everyone enjoys fairy tales-if it did not also stifle inventiveness and suppress improvement…”
A book about the moral, philosophical and health reasons for a person, government or religion to eschew alcohol should be a slam dunk fascinating topic for someone like me. I love to read and I blog about craft beer which has been critically impacted by a major U.S. prohibition. So, when I was offered a copy of The Wet and the Dry to review, I leapt at the chance.
The writing credentials of the author Lawrence Osborne seemed to indicate a “sober” look at this issue. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal Magazine, the New Yorker. All usually publish articles of interest. The book jacket summary was promising and alcoholic prohibitions could yield so many insights. Hell, a memoir of a descent into alcoholism would be interesting. Or the role of alcohol in the Muslim world if alcoholism has been covered enough in your mind.
Unfortunately, this writing is totally hampered by the narrator’s near constant alcoholic haze. Osborne is a pompous ass throughout the book. He jumps into pools drunk. He casually dismisses people, especially the ones that dare ask for the article he was supposed to write. He spends scads of money on hotel opulence all while opining in a quasi-literary voice. He is that drunk guy at the end of the bar who loves the sound of his own voice that everyone edges away from in pity and loathing.
Instead of illuminating the role of alcohol in cultures (most notably the Middle East), he flaunts his knowledge. There is no passing of information from author to reader. I stopped reading the book 40 pages in and read two other books. I read another 40 pages and came to the decision that this had to be a novel and I was following the exploits of an anti-hero.
The main reason why this “character” is so foul in my eyes is that there is no appreciation of the arak or champagne or the “11 Mai Tais” he drinks. It is the American consumption for consumptions sake credo. He may as well mainline Everclear if the only point is to achieve his nirvana of drunkenness.
Why even travel to lands that most readers will never visit if all you can do is sit in a hotel bar swirling your G&T. All the while lamenting the fact that the bar carries spirits you can find anywhere. I learned more about Dubai when Tom Cruise pulled the Spiderman act in Mission Impossible.
I have read many glowing reviews of this book which praise the witty wordplay. To me it was a series of unremarkable tossed off one liners that probably sound better if you are three sheets to the wind. After reading The Wet and the Dry all I could think about was finding a book(s) that would actually convey a thought and not some incoherent babblings accented by a trip to the dictionary of pretty words.
Tom Acitell’s book The Audacity of Hops, takes on the uneviable task of tying together all the strands of craft beer history into a cogent and linear whole. And it succeeds. This history starts in the wastelands of beer and re-acquaints us with Jack McAulliffe and New Albion Brewery. It shows us the humble beginnings of the Great American Beer Festival and the Brewer’s Association and makes quick dips into how some of our favorite breweries got started like Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head and Brooklyn Brewery.
The journey goes from 1972 up to pretty recent happenings as well . The key takeaway for me was how hard it was to get this ball rolling. Bank loans were non-existent and no Kickstarter either. Blogging and the internet was in its infancy so word just could not be spread like it is today. Suppliers of ingredients and equipment were not there to buy from whereas now there is an infrastructure. And most importantly, the market for these beers was uneducated and dulled by years of watered down beers backed by ad campaigns.
Some locales and breweries get short shrift but that may have been simply to keep the book at a reasonable length because even giving cursory mention to more would have ballooned the size.
I am hoping that Acitelli will re-embark on another chapter in 5 or 10 years to really dig into what happened between 2006 and 2013 because I want to read his perspective on how all these brewers and beer geeks are faring.
I talk a lot about beer books. If you put me on an island with a library and a brewery, I would be happy, happy! And this book would fascinate me. I have already read one tome about the sorry saga of the Busch family and this one from a former L.A. Times writer William Knoedelseder sounds like a quick and juicy read.
“The engrossing, often scandalous saga of one of the wealthiest, longest-lasting, and most colorful dynasties in the history of American commerce—a cautionary tale about prosperity, profligacy, hubris, and the blessings and dark consequences of success.
Stretching across three centuries, from the start of the Civil War through two World Wars and Prohibition to today, Bitter Brew tells the astonishing story of how five generations of men—fathers, sons, and brothers—took a small, bankrupt brewery on the banks of the Mississippi and built it into an international colossus. It is the story of America’s past and present—a tale of promise and fulfillment for immigrants like Adolphus Busch, determined to strike it rich; and of a modern generation who squandered that dream. It is a story of breathtaking wealth, political power, and public acclaim—and of heartbreak, scandal, tragedy, and death. In chronicling the rise and fall of the Busch family and its business, the veteran journalist William Knoedelseder tells a broader story of American progress and decline over the last 150 years.”
Tomorrow over on FoodGPS, I will cover some beer books that you should be reading.
But if you would like to catch-up on some past beer book reviews than follow the links to:
For the Love of Hops / Hop in the Saddle / Gueze & Kriek / The Allagash Cookbook (OK, this one is not a review)
If you are a hophead and cannot get enough bitter IPA’s and DIPA’s and the ever expanding hoppy styles then this book will truly make your head spin. The backstory on what goes on to bring the hops to life and let alone get them into your beer is simply amazing and Stan Hieronymus does a skillful job of marrying the anecdotes with the science while also letting the stories room to breathe as well.
I will be the first to admit that many parts of this book went over my head. I am not a science guy nor am I a brewing guy so there were parts that I had to read and re-read a few times. This was no fault of Hieronymus. It just took me awhile to get it. I can’t spell ethyl-4-methylpentanoate let alone remember that it’s odor compound is fruity.
But I thoroughly enjoyed the opening of each chapter where Hieronymus either takes us to a hop yard to talk to a farmer or back in history to Wye College in England. And even better is the section on many of the known hop varieties.
It is a helpful cheat sheet to use the next time you have an IPA. All you have to do is figure out which hops are in the beer that you have and then check out the data on each one. Geeky to the extreme, I know. There are some really cool color photographs as well. I could have used more. And I would have liked more diagrams in the section of hop backs and torpedos but those are minor quibbles to a book that somehow manages to be all things to all people. Even homebrewers will get a charge from the recipe section.
Now that I have read this one, I have put the Yeast and Water books on my list for Christmas to complete my set! You can buy the book via Amazon HERE.