30 DAYS OPEN PURCHASEThe Beer Bible is the most comprehensive guide to beer available in English, and the only one you can read from cover to cover without it turning into a reference book.
Jeff Alworth writes for All About Beer and has spent decades bringing order to a field that has grown faster than the literature has been able to keep up with. That is also why this second edition exists. A quarter of the content is new compared with the original, which says something about just how much the world of beer managed to change in only a few years.
The book starts with the basics. Four ingredients, namely malt, hops, yeast and water, and what each of them actually does. Why the degree to which the malt is roasted determines whether the beer ends up pale or black. Why hops provide both bitterness and aroma depending on when they are added. And why yeast is the most underestimated of the four.
Then comes the fundamental division between ale and lager, warm top fermentation versus cold bottom fermentation, which explains more about the difference between two beers than any other single piece of information.
The main part of the book then goes through the styles one by one, covering their history, character, production and what to look for. German weissbier, Czech pilsner, British bitter and porter, American IPA, and the Belgian world with its Trappist and sour beer traditions that barely seem to follow any rules at all.
There is also the history of brewing, from monasteries and the German purity law of 1516 through to the modern microbrewery movement, as well as a section on how to actually taste beer rather than simply drink it.
656 pages, and the only beer book you need if you are only going to own one.
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 656
Publisher: Workman
ISBN: 9781523510450
Language: English
First published: 2015, this second edition: 2021
