Give the Gift of Words

If ever there was a year for catching up on your reading 2020 (and the winter/spring of 2021) is it. I have been taking my own advice, and finding it healing to immerse myself in a story well-told or a work of nonfiction that describes a world not defined by plague and political strife. Books are a cheap form of diversion, offering hours of entertainment and edification for the price of a few pints. And, as a bonus, buying one is like an in-kind donation to help the career of a working writer. As an extra-special bonus, you can help another local business by buying from your neighborhood bookseller. Below, I link to Portland’s Powell’s where possible, literally the best bookstore in the world—and one teetering because of the twin assaults of Covid and Amazon.

A lot of the classics still offer rich reads, and in a shameless plug, I’m going to mention two of mine before moving to a list of great releases this year. Winner of the IACP and NAGBW awards, The Beer Bible (Workman) is one of the most comprehensive and approachable guides to everything beery. A second edition will be out in a year, but it will be substantially reworked, and I had to cut some of the original material. If you love brown ales, witbier, or mild ales, or want to bookmark the state of hoppy ale evolution BH (before hazies), it’s a great resource. Perhaps even more valuable, particularly for pro and homebrewers, is another NAGBW winner, The Secrets of Master Brewers (Storey), in which brewers of the world’s classic styles offer their philosophy, process, and recipes for world-standard beers. How do you make an Italian pilsner, a French bière de garde, or an Irish stout? Listen to the brewers who make them describe their process. It’s technical enough for brewers but general enough for non-brewers and fans.

New Books for 2020

The one must-have book for every mildly serious beer fan is what I called “the most important book on brewing written in the past twenty years”: Lars Garshol’s Historical Brewing Techniques; the Lost Art of Farmhouse Brewing (Brewers Publications). It’s an extraordinary exploration of farmhouse brewing in Scandinavia, the Baltics, and Russia, one that reveals a world of brewing preserved intact from hundreds of years ago. It’s an incredibly engaging read, feeling more like travel writing and ethnography than bland resource, but more importantly, offers a template for how brewing was accomplished in a pre-industrial world. It’s incredible.

Next we have a series of self-published books that offer a glimpse into the richness possible in a world not mediated by publishers. A prime example is Andreas Krennmair’s Vienna Lager, a book-length treatment of a single style. Andreas goes into the history of this beer and its original formulation, offering a glimpse into the rise of pale lager, the conversion of Austria into lager-land, and a full retelling of Anton Dreher’s life story. You want to brew an 1841 Wiener lager? This is your book.

I recently reviewed Eoghan Walsh’s Brussels Beer City, writing that “Eoghan has fitted history with a lens that reveals a city’s distinctiveness, exposing its personality along with its chronology.” Go read the full review if you missed it and by all means buy the book.

A book I have begun but not completed couldn’t be more timely: Beer and Racism: How Beer Became White, Why It Matters, and the Movements to Change It by Nathaniel Chapman and David L. Brunsma. It’s a somewhat dense academic treatment and at least at the start not always perfectly clear, but obviously, the writers have identified a serious issue with which an entire industry is grappling. It may not be the definitive or final word, but it’s a great resource and starting point.

Finally we have Pete Brown, the hardest working writer in beer, who has managed to write and publish two pandemic beers: Craft, An Argument, and, with the help of his wife Liz Vater, Beer By Design (CAMRA) on the art and branding of beer. And although the former is a great book and treatise (and NAGBW winner), it’s the second that most attracts me. Pete’s an old ad man from way back, and Liz has worked in the design industry. We once considered this the grubby, commercial (and, sigh, necessary) side of beer. More and more, we’re realizing these elements are a part of the craft, the personality, and the story each brewery tells. I am looking forward to hearing their take. It also looks like a gorgeous book.