Featured Review – Spencer Premium Pilsner

Now my third (of four) American Trappist ale from  Spencer Brewery. This time around is…

…which I could tell as the aromas from this pilsner reached my nose that it was going to be steps above just good. Big Germanic Noble hops and grain mix flooded in.  Super crisp. Big wet mouthfeel to it.  Contrary but it works Mineral notes take over from there with no sweetness at all.

Book Review – The Microbrewery Handbook

I received a press copy of the Microbrewery Handbook amidst a flurry of library books so I set it aside for a quieter time since this is not a book that you can gloss over quickly.

Author D.C. Reeves has achieved the rare feat of writing a book that is full of actual, helpful information. And most of the book does not talk about beer at all.

Want to write a business plan? Tips inside. Social media strategy? Tips inside. How to engage with the community? You guessed it. Tips inside. But the section that most impressed me was how to keep employees engaged and how to hire them. I have worked now for a few different companies and managers and I can say that if I had one that followed what Reeves instructs, I would probably never leave that job.

Any brewery that is in the starting gate should read this book. Or if your brewery is at an inflection point, it should be read. I do not normally read or like “business” books but this one was an eye-opener.

Book Review – Lager by Mark Dredge

I have already posted about my excitement for this new book about Lager from Mark Dredge and I finally got my package from Powell’s in the mail and dug into it quickly.

And there is a lot to like about the book. Dredge starts with a bang, in Germany with the Reinheitsgebot. But that tone of beer fan then cuts to lager history and that playfulness goes with it to an extent. It is clear there are some aspects of lager that really excite him, like the dive bars of Vietnam where gas tanks hold the beer and other areas where it seems he had to include to complete the story but leaves quickly like China.

This split personality structure stopped me from enjoying the book especially in the latter half which becomes a chapter by chapter tour of various countries and their part in the lager legacy.

I would have liked to have seen a more novella approach. Part 1 being German lagers and the foursome of brewers who started it. Part 2 being the American side of the story. Part 3 Asian influence and then Part 4 could slide into talk of the future. Then Dredge could have really dove in and the anecdotes would have packed more punch.

Overall, there are a lot of golden nuggets of lager knowledge to be found within the pages but the book’s momentum stalls out too many times.

Book Review -The Lager Queen of Minnesota

The Lager Queen of Minnesota is has shout-outs to several SoCal beer people in the acknowledgment section in the back  and it is clear from this book by J. Ryan Stradal that he listened and took notes.  There are so many books out there where the minutia of other workplaces have been discussed from detectives to doctors and back again.  But this is the first book that talks about hops and malts and cleaning and beer culture inside the novel form.

The book takes three strands of women sisters Helen and Edith and Edith’s granddaughter Diana and covers their journeys to the present in a brewhouse through the lens of ambition, pie and the upper MidWest.  It is cool to see that all three characters are driven in different ways and strong in different ways and human in different ways and that men are mere side players in this interwoven story.

The tone is refreshingly nice and honest at the same time and doesn’t hammer points across but instead just glides from focusing on Helen to Edith and to Diana.  Each chapter name is a dollar amount that plays a part in that chapter and it is money that is a central focus of this book as much as the beer. 

The beer and brewing portions might seem a bit caricature but when you think about, beer people do resemble the people in this book and I loved the beer recipes that the Grandma’s make toward the latter stages.  It was clear that the author was having fun with it.

The Lager Queen might be too Midwest nice for some people but this book earns and sticks its landing at the end.  You will want to have a cold Blotz light when you finish.

A Book & A Beer -Adjustment Day

I almost put Adjustment Day down multiple times. Pretty much every time that Palahniuk mentioned Fight Club as a meta reference. The central revolutionary thesis is fine and probably plays well to a certain crowd who want to burn Trump down or split away from the 1/2 of the country they don’t agree with.

But I thought the idea that a country needs to cull itself of excess testosterone (i.e. males) to keep the country moving to be a much more interesting tack than the whole “adjustment day”.

I also wasn’t really super keen on any of the characters. I am fine with no central lead or an anti-hero but there was no character that I could really follow all the way through the through-line, as it were. Especially through all the spasms of violence that occur.

So, I can’t recommend this one but I can recommend some beers that would pair with it, if you are intrigued by the book or a Palahniuk completist.

Ninkasi BrewingDay of the Red
Eugene gets name checked in as one of the centers of revolution so go with this horror themed beer from Ninkasi.

New Realm BrewingHoplandia

Part of the book is set in Atlanta, and considering that and the name of New Realm, I had to pick this bitter beer.

Closer to home, the also aptly named Liberation Brewing in Bixby Knolls has an Autonomy Amber that would be a good choice as well.

Book Review – Drink Beer, Think Beer by John Holl

I have listened to podcasts with and read magazines edited by John Holl and have found him to be straightforward with loads of beer knowledge. I have also disagreements with some of his points.

And all of that is on display in the new book, Drink Beer, Think Beer. From the mis-use of Quality Control instead of the more accurate consistency control, to the repeated cry of bad beer from “craft” (wait, he doesn’t like that term or “independent”) breweries, I feel like setting the book down, only to find a great argument on the next page.

This gives the book a debate club sort of feel. There is no doubt that Holl has had a great many beers and a lengthy beer education but whenever I am about to be persuaded to his side, he undercuts by siding with big macrobreweries or proclaiming that the word balanced in a review forgets the effects of yeast or water.

Seriously, in that case, all beer reviews forget water literally ALL the time and yeast a vast percentage too.

Regular readers will know that I hate the regurgitation of beers ingredients in books and though Holl shifts the focus a bit, it still comes off as quick primer material.  Same with glassware.  Which may be fine for non-beer geeks but I don’t think this book is pitched to the non-believers.

And though I do like his opinionated nature and he backs up those opinions with reasons why he likes/dislikes something, I found the book frustrating as a whole and not adding as much as could have been to beer discussion. There also seemed to be slight digs aimed at beer fans, beer bloggers and brewers that could have been left out.  It left me thinking he was ticked off or on the fence leaning toward pessimism.

Personally, I would have liked perhaps more of a book about the problems and issues that breweries face before they open, after they open and in the future. I think his insights after visiting so many breweries would really shed light on the industry and be a new and vital topic.

Drink Beer, Think Beer seems to be an uneasy melding of the traditional and overdone, beer primer mixed with industry issues and the two just don’t work together in this book.

Book Review – IPA by Roger Protz


IPA by British writer Roger Protz is a bit of split personality. The first 1/2 is loaded with interesting tidbits of brewing and more specifically hop facts such as:
only the female hop is used in brewing. You learn about the history in Britain and I was digging it. And I was looking forward to him bringing us up to (or fairly close to) modern IPA times.

But then the book turns into a survey of IPA’s from different sections of the world. And while it is instructive to be presented with other nations take on the popular style, the pace just slows down as you go from beer review to beer review and I kept wishing that Protz had stuck in the timeline and not moved out to the beer listing.

It should be said that the listing does have its merits in finding breweries that might be of interest. I certainly flagged a few on my Kindle app but that seems like a different book to me.

Overall, this book rates OK. Only because the second half was not what I wanted.

Book Review – Miracle Brew by Pete Brown


I Kindle’d up this book with a bit of wariness. The weakest part of most beer books is the discussion of ingredients and how-to brew but Pete Brown has done a well-executed deep dive into historical fact and straight up fun facts in his book, Miracle Brew.

Here’s a couple of the fun facts:
“…in French, wine is masculine and beer is feminine.”
“So there’s a cloud of booze at the centre of the galaxy, just hanging in space…”

There are anecdotes about Michael Jackson, yeast banks and old time hop picking summer “vacations” in Kent that really flesh out the main sections of Malt, Water, Hops and Yeast. You learn about each of the ingredients but not in a stuffy way. It feels like a good museum exhibit where you go from one painting to the next with a guide explaining each one.

I was a bit flummoxed by the ending though which had to alternative takes on the Reinheitsgebot. That and a shooting whilst visiting Munich really put a pall on the book that was not there before. Primarily that is due to me and the shooting and bombing that seem to be nearly everyday here in America. But it seemed out of place. A late tie it up with a bow kind of diminishes that downer but not really.

But overall, this book really delivers. Not more so than in the old adage that Brown relays, “We don’t make beer; we simply gather the ingredients in the right place. The yeast makes the beer.” Brown has certainly gathered the ingredients in Miracle Brew.

Beer Book Review – The Complete Beer Course by Joshua Bernstein


Is it weird that I really like the design of the book jacket for the Complete Beer Course by Joshua Bernstein but that I think the inside design doesn’t really reach that level?

Nitpicky for sure but a coffee table book kind of demands a design that a simple novel or non-fiction book doesn’t require. The information provided within is absolutely fine. Bernstein personalizes the proceedings throughout making him a relatable guide through the book. But the flow of the book just keeps getting slowed with little boxes of fun facts throughout that combined with the graphics and photos make going from one paragraph to another a little more of a hunt than it needs to be.

I also did not like the chapter heading collage for each “lesson”. It was if someone slapped down a few representative labels and called it a day. I also would have liked more style coverage to replace the beer and food pairing section especially considering the fact that Bernstein was merely a conduit for that part of the book.

That being said, this is a really nice gift to give someone who is entering into the world of craft beer or someone who has started but could round out their education. The words work.

Book Review – The Underground Culinary Tour


Behind the scenes is a fascinating place to be. With the rise of so many cooking shows and Diners, Dives and some other D word, one has to dig deeper to read about what is going on in the business of restaurants.

But Damian Mogavero has done that with his book, The Underground Culinary Tour. He goes into the numbers. The statistics generated each time a server punches in a code and taps a colored square on a POS (Point of Sale) device in a restaurant.

And what that data can tell the owners and managers of a restaurant is amazing. Even the celebrity chef names dropped don’t hold a candle to the insights.

Restaurants are a thin margin business so any percentage point of savings or increased business can be a difference maker. Mogavero details how the data can be used to make ordering more efficient, to better utilize the wait staff and cooks, to have ingredients and beer on hand when it is needed. Most importantly, it tells you what dishes are selling and which are not.

Interspersed amongst the success stories is a gut wrenching (in a good way) culinary tour that could double as itinerary for the food hearty traveler to New York.

The book travels from new York to New Orleans and Las Vegas to Downtown Disney in Anaheim with tales of how the numbers helped restaurants of all different varieties.

My favorite section was the details of the most common scams that waiters and waitresses could pull to put a little extra coin in their pocket. Next time you order ice tea or coffee, check out your bill. How to track the sales by day and adjust accordingly seems really easy when explained but I had never thought of it before.

From the craft beer perspective, I found it heartening that Mogavero has identified, I think correctly, that restaurants today will need at least a decent craft beer list not handed down by a distributor but customized for the neighborhood and the customers.

Anyone with a passing interest in foodie business will lap this book up.

Thanks to Blogging for Books and NetGalley for bringing this book to my attention.