The World Beer Guide was first published in 1995 under the title of The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Beer (there were a lot of “ultimates” doing the rounds at the time). It was a splendid book, big and glossy, packed with smart photographs of beers and breweries. Wrapped around the pictures was Roger Protz’s authoritative text.... View Article
Beer 101 classes are nothing new. Geared toward novice craft beer drinkers and even non-fans, such classes are held in pubs, breweries, bottle shops and tap houses across the country. Realbeer.com even featured an online version several years ago. Some are one-time events; others are regular events that cover different aspects of craft beer each... View Article
Ostensibly, this book reads more like a desktop page-a-day calendar that suggests a different beer to help get you through each day. But there is rhyme to author Jeff Evans’s reason, as well as some wordy heft.
In spite of its very technical production and perceived alchemic mystery, beer should be lightly thought-provoking and imminently enjoyable. But it is hard for the scientifically inclined to not be intrigued by the goings-on in both the complexity of brewing and a simple glass of beer. In that vein, beer books often come across as... View Article
Who hasn’t sat with a perfect pint in a glorious pub and mused over how wonderful it would be to make a living drinking beer? Roger Protz, who is one of the United Kingdom’s—and the world’s—leading beer writers, has done just that for 30 years. And, in A Life on the Hop, he gives all... View Article
“Don’t even consider starting this book without a beer in your hand.” Why would you not want to read a book that starts like that? And buy it you will, if you enjoy beer. As the American beer world takes a quantum leap forward, with craft beer sales soaring, new beer styles pouring out of... View Article
Two days after Arthur Guinness died in 1803, the Dublin Evening Post published a short mention of his death, noting he was “long known and respected in the city of Dublin; the worthy and good will regret him because his life has been useful, benevolent and virtuous.” It hardly read like the obituary of an... View Article
In 1909 German immigrant Kosmos Spoetzl was hired by a small brewery in Shiner, TX to be head brewer. Five years later, Spoetzl bought the brewery and renamed it Spoetzl Brewing. The brewery survived Prohibition, lack of capital and the bad beer years of the late 1970s and early 1980s to become Texas’s only surviving... View Article
The sustained ascent of craft brewing and continued popularity of home brewing, even after a 20-year honeymoon, has spawned cadres of proficient brewers, both professional and amateur. One byproduct of the movement is a veritable library of books, from rudimentary to sophisticated, from expansive to esoteric. Among the most useful are those that offer something... View Article
