After I published my history of beer in America, the three questions readers asked me (over and over and over) were: “What’s your favorite beer?” “Why didn’t you spend more time on craft beer?” and “Are you going to write a history of craft beer?” Thanks to Tom Acitelli, I can scratch number three off... View Article
Ask those who started brewing their own beer at home back in the early ’90s who their go-to source of technical information was, and it’s likely they’ll point to Dave Miller. It was Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide that went on to become one of the most influential books on homebrewing ever published.
Unlike Michael Jackson’s legendary World Guide to Beer, which painted a portrait of beer at its lowest ebb, Tim Webb and Stephen Beaumont’s new World Atlas of Beer tours the vibrant global craft beer culture as it is today. Whereas the Guide called attention to the vanishing classic beer styles, the Atlas gathers together the... View Article
The global craft brewing movement is now in its third decade, and it’s time for the founders of successful craft breweries to be working on their memoirs. While there have been many books about the history of American craft breweries, Chris Bauweraerts’ My Chouffe Story is the first autobiography of a Belgian craft brewer to... View Article
For the longest time, the Southeastern US was considered an afterthought as a beer destination. With ABV caps in some states and a relatively limited brewing history to draw from, the regions brewing culture was laggard compared to some other parts of the country. That the American Southeast is now home to one of the... View Article
The first copies of How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon Vivant’s Companion, appeared under the Dick & Fitzgerald imprint in 1862 for the price of $1.50. In it, Jerry P. Thomas, the former principal bartender at New York’s Metropolitan Hotel, describes a handful of beer cocktails including an “Ale Sangaree,” made with simple syrup... View Article
Prague is a paradise for lager lovers. It can also be a daunting Old World city with hard-to-pronounce pub names and with even harder-to-pronounce winding narrow streets. Thankfully, Max Bahnson, a language teacher and beer enthusiast, has put together a 117-page guide that makes sense out of words that, even after just one pilsner, have... View Article
Gary Monterosso throws around a lot of terms for the same subject of his latest book. He discusses “microbrews,” “these ‘new’ beers,” “craft beer” and “boutique beer,” and he ultimately settles on “Artisan Beer,” a phrase rarely found in the vocabulary of today’s beverage world, for the title of his new guide. But the term... View Article
Admirers of British beer know that Burton on Trent is one of England’s great brewing towns. Its breweries—Ind Coope, Bass, Worthington’s, Allsopp—developed India Pale Ale, Britain’s leading export beer in the 19th century. Burton breweries also developed Burton Ale, an ancestor of today’s barley wines.
