Tag: book review

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Beer Book Review – A Pub for All Seasons by Adrian Tierney-Jones

Since we are talking pubs, let’s get into the latest book from beer writer Adrian Tierney-Jones, A Pub for All Seasons.

I would say that the sub-title of this book is misleading. It is not a book of rankings or whether Fall is better than Winter. Winter obviously wins. But more a trio of interlocking themes. Memoir meets existential thoughts and the people who run and frequent the pubs.

And for some readers, that second thread of musings on life is the one that I found hardest to latch onto. Yes, you can wax poetic about the first sun of summer but I want to know more about why a pilsner on a pub patio works so well or give me a tip as to beers that you might not know work really well on a rainy day in April. There is some of that in the book but it is a little more inner when I was hoping for a little more travel guide.

Which leads to my next nitpick. I really would have loved to see a map or three in this book. I was trying to follow the winding train tracks but kept having to press pause on the book to do so.

Those two improvements aside, I did really enjoy the book and how the publicans and brewers are piloting their ways through ownership in this day and age. The beers described made me thirsty throughout the book and it was overall a relaxing read through all four seasons.

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Book & ‘Zine Review Day – Final Gravity # 06

Just after wrapping up judging some beer writing, more on that later this month, I received Issue # 06 of Final Gravity, the October edition.

An in that judgmental state of mind, I dove in and was pleasantly surprised overall. There were a few that seemed more like good starts but could use more detail. Which is better than the other way around.

My standouts were both female tilted with Ruvani de Silva, a writer I like the more I read, had a smart piece on perimenopause and Cat Wiest had me wanting more stories about her fishing days and brewing days.

Behind that, as honorable mentions, were ‘zine co-founder Melinda Guerra’s piece on the beers she has picked as malty eulogies for friends which was pitched just right for spooky season. And Lucy Corne’s evocative writing on Charlie’s Garage in South Africa which made me want to try the beers and hang with the locals even though I am an introvert.

Head to the link above to get your copy.

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Book Review – Dusty Booze by Aaron Goldfarb

As, maybe?, promised. Here is my review of Aaron Goldfarb’s Dusty Booze.

By the time you reach the end of Dusty Booze, you will not at all be surprised that there are people who collect famous distillery water.  Not a rare spirit, no, but vintage waters.

This fascinating look into one corner of the collectors niche has two things going for it.  One is the through spine about a collection of liquor from an old Howard Hughes office that had sat untouched for years.  Second is the inclusion of a how to or what to collect if you wanted to start “dusty hunting”.

Now I should go back and explain what that term means.  It is the art of finding old and therefore probably dusty bottles of vintage spirits.  And some of these are old.  From different eras of distillery ownership to grains grown using older agricultural methods to the type of heat source used.

It is about connecting a liquid time capsule of the time that the bottle was filled and the years preceding that it was aging.

This book is filled with characters.  But the one drawback of the book was that most of them were of the same ilk.  A person with a collectors mentality, who had time and money to be able to spend thousands of dollars to buy, for example, eight thousand miniature liquor bottles and then pick out the five hundred that interested them and selling the rest.  Each individual dusty hunter seemed, well not at all individualistic.  

But on other hand the diversity in the spirits was wide.  Cognac, gin and even creme de menthe were covered.  And the world was covered too.  Scotland to Japan to Germany and the U.S. all played a part in this craze.

Goldfarb is funny and personal and sarcastic throughout the book and that side-eye style works really well to puncture the fact that this is a book about booze.

And that Howard Hughes office.  Well, it was in the same building as the long gone Hollywood Brewery.

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Book Review – Yooper Ale Trail

Time to head East for the U.P. to find some beer on the Yooper Ale Trail.

This handy guide by Jon Stott and Mikel Classen covers the Upper Peninsula in Michigan and the first thing that I thought was smart was how each of the eight trails had no more than four stops listed and many were less than. (There was one with five but one brewery on it had not opened at time of writing). It makes for achievable adventures.

The second smart thing was that for many breweries, the author visited twice and could show the evolution of the brewery from new brewers to new beers. It is something that I haven’t seen employed in guidebooks before and I liked it.

Other fun facts are that blueberry beers are pretty much a required beer menu item. The style can change, though most were wheat beer based. If that berry is your favorite, I would say head up because blueberry ain’t seen much outside muffin pastry beers.

Also, because outdoor activities are the main tourist draw, the beers skew to the lower ABV since folks are hiking and biking and paddling and can’t be downing Quad IPAs.

On the new book cover, the book lists two authors but the book doesn’t really differentiate who wrote what which is fine in fiction but here, I would like to get a bead on who wrote what. I think that Stott wrote the majority and I like his folksy writing style but I can’t know for sure.

Another dent is the fact that after reading the really informative brewery summaries, there is a whole appendix listing contact info, beer lists and whether they had food or not. Format wise, that could have been folded into the main book fairly easily instead. There was also an appendix of beer styles and I would have preferred more about favorite Michigan beer styles.

I would say though, I usually hate the capsule brewing process chapter and I inwardly groaned when I saw it in the book, but it was much better here. It was more like having a friend explaining brewing than a manual.

Overall, a guide should help beer fans find new breweries and Stott and/or Classen do that really well. This book will help.

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A Book & A Beer – Dr. No by Percival Everett

The book for April is not by Ian Fleming, it is by Percival Everett, and it is a clever modern day re-imagining of the old take over the world plot.

Dr. No introduces us to three main characters, Wala Kitu, Eigen Vector and villain John Sill) plus a very important dog named Trigo. And it is a rollicking read about nothing. More specifically, finding nothing and the power of nothing.

Now I am no philosopher nor do I like math but Everett makes both really interesting and thought provoking. And his dive into the character of Wala is fascinating because you don’t get a lead who is on the spectrum get to be both broad but also deep.

The elevator pitch for this book would be Bond meets Dr. Strangelove with a hearty dose of metaphysics. And I highly recommend it.

This would be the perfect time to break out the N/A beers since they are both beer and not beer at the same time. I would suggest finding the weirdest beer you could like a glitter N/A beer.

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Bonus Book Review – Drunk

Drunk – How we sipped, danced, and stumbled our way to civilization by Edward Slingerland is of interest because of one simple thesis, we use alcohol as an intoxicant as a way to recover fun in our lives or as the author states in a much more sociological way, alcohol gives us the 3 C’s – communal, culture and creative.

Otherwise genetics or evolution would have made alcohol as needed as an appendix is now.

The other fun bit of knowledge is based on “dosing”.  Other drugs or highs achieved from say, running, achieve sone of the same ends as alcohol but but either are way more addictive, drugs or are too unwieldy in time like running.  Alcohol is quicker, more effective and though it is addictive, no getting around that, it is not as rapidly destructive as harder drugs.

Past that, this book tends to cover the same ground over much.  Especially when dispelling other ideas regarding why alcohol is still ingrained in humans.  I am much better writing in summary than in minute detail so when a writer tells me the same thing over and over, I quickly suss it out.

But the writing style of Slingerland’s is jovial and not bogged down in terminology so the read is still fun.

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Back in Print

Beer Paper LA has made a triumphant print return and I have a beer book review tucked inside…

Read up without adding more glare to your eyes! Lots of other good reads so grab a copy!

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Beer Book Review – The Brewery in the Bohemian Forest

This was a fun ride of a book. I certainly wish that it were longer but as a fan of novellas, this story was complete. It ends sad and there is a never solved mystery of a recipe never seen and in between is Czech beer history a plenty to make you want to visit both Prague and Pilsen.

Basically an old defunct brewery is brought back to life and starts producing excellently reviewed beer but too soon it falls apart with the brewmaster retiring and the owner dying.

I heartily recommend this book. You will probably read it in one sitting.

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Book Review – Pilsner by Tom Acitelli

Pilsner by Tom Acitelli roams all over the world. Fitting since the style has too.

This book is formatted with bite size chapters that are super easy to blitz through which is both good and bad. The good is that you are quickly propelled through history. The bad is that each chapter seems to be missing an opportunity to deep dive into a historical character or a moment in time.

I wanted more of the Anheuser-Busch saga and the marketing. I wanted more of Freddy Heineken. I wanted more because the history of pilsner is everywhere in modern history especially here in the US.

I guess that I wanted a book three times the size because Acitelli is a really good writer and I wanted the book to keep going but it arrived at the finish line too soon.

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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.