Around the World in 80 Beers: a journey through time rather than in space
The sub-title of my new book, Around the World in 80 Beers, is “A Global History of Brewing”. I hope this indicates to potential purchasers that the book is considerably more than just another round-up of international beers in the tradition that goes back almost 50 years, to Michael Jackson’s seminal World Beer Guide of 1977.
The idea of ATWI80B – and I believe it’s a unique one – is that each chapter starts by looking at one contemporary beer, across more than 40 different countries, from Norway to New Zealand and China to Brazil, and uses that beer as a springboard to talk about the history of the beer style that beer represents, the history of brewing in that country and the history of that brewery.
Thus a discussion of the Egyptian beer Stella (no relation to, and older than, the better-known Belgian brew) is used as a door into ancient Egyptian brewing, a look at the Taybeh brewery in Palestine introduces the discoveries a few miles away about brewing in the Natufian, 13,000 years
ago, and a study of the brewing history of Shanghai – which has the oldest Western-style brewing tradition in China, going back to the 1860s, several decades older than Harbin or Tsingtao – includes an account of brewing in China in the distant past. So it really is a world beer history, in a way that has never been done before, and not a round-up of contemporary global beers.
The book also covers much more than just the Western barley brewing tradition. Of course, all the major beer styles are covered – pilsner, porter, IPA, and so on – and a fair number of more minor ones, from British mild to Berliner Weisse to Polish grodziskie, including a big slice of the various Belgian specialities. There’s plenty of debunking, including pointing out that Pilsner Urquell was NOT the world’s first pale lager, and that Irish Red Ale is a totally bogus style invented in France. There are chapters on such oddities as oyster stout, heather ale, and peach beer. But ATWI80B also looks at non-Western brewing traditions such as the sorghum-based chibuku of southern Africa, the village brewers of Myanmar, the chicha of Ecuador and the kvass of Chuvashia.
One big problem with writing a book about beer with one foot firmly in the present is that the present is constantly changing. After I submitted the manuscript, it was announced that the Anchor brewery in San Francisco was shutting down. I hesitated for some time over whether to take the chapter on steam beer out, decided it was too interesting a style to ignore, and was saved by the announcement that the brewery had – at the time of writing – found a buyer. Similarly the chapter on Gale’s Prize Old Ale had to be rewritten twice, first after the closure of the Dark Star brewery, where POA was revived, and then after the closure of the Meantime brewery, where the brewing of POA was transferred. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that POA will continue, but again it was far too fascinating a beer style to leave out.
I confess I’m extremely proud of ATWI80B, I would like to guarantee that no matter how much you think you know about beer, however much of a beer expert you are, you’ll find dozens of facts within its covers that you never knew. I’m very grateful to Pen and Sword, the publisher, for coming to me with the concept, and the title (though I had actually been thinking of writing a book along the lines of ATWI80B for some time) and very grateful to all the people at Pen and Sword for all their help in getting the book out. If you buy one beer book this year, make it ATWI80B – you won’t regret it. Order it here.
Related
