I love a good craft beer book. Especially one that takes me someplace that I haven’t been. And that is what the guide book, North Carolina Craft Beer and Breweries does.
Author, Erik Lars Myers has done an admirable survey of the blazing hot North Carolina scene and added a human dimension to the people behind it. I never tire of hearing about people who left behind a job for a passionate career in beer. But what I found most interesting was the section before the brewery profiles, when he covered the history of brewing in the state. And I would have enjoyed more information on the “Pop the Cap” organization and how they help to create an open environment for craft breweries to develop. That back story is what invests a reader in the breweries and in possibly taking the next step and heading to North Carolina.
I think more beer books would be better served to skip over the “How beer is made” chapter (which is also in the book) and use that space to discuss regional food pairings (which is in the book a smidge). But I would have love to seen that expanded past BBQ.
I liked the section on breweries that are still fermenting, so to speak, but that would be a great launching point to a website for the book that could update those listings as the beers start flowing from new taps.
Lastly, I would have added more heft to the bottle shop section. They are an important cog in the beer ecosystem and deserve to get more face time as it were.
Overall, with those nitpicky issues aside, the meat of this book are the profiles and those are well written and graphically attractive with good information which is what you need when you have a book in your hand and you are planning a beer vacation. This book is going up on the bookshelf waiting for me to win the lottery so that I can travel the beer world and hit ALL of the places in this book.
(Full Disclosure: This was a press copy but as I mention every year, whether free or paid for, EVERYTHING that I review gets reviewed with the same standard.)
You can get the book HERE.