30 DAYS OPEN PURCHASEThe Brewmaster's Table is not about brewing beer but about drinking it with food, and it is the only beer book that truly belongs in a kitchen.
Garrett Oliver has been brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery since 1994 and is regarded as one of America's most influential figures in beer. He has received a James Beard Award and later served as editor of The Oxford Companion to Beer.
The book's argument is simple and persistent. Wine is made from a single ingredient. Beer is made from four, namely malt, hops, yeast and water, and on top of that there are the degree of roasting, fermentation temperature and ageing. Its range of flavours is therefore broader than wine's, while carbonation and bitterness also do things at the table that wine cannot. They cut through fat, cleanse the palate of salt and stand up to heat without collapsing.
That is precisely why beer often works better with cheese than wine does, one of the book's most debated and most convincing points.
The book is organised around beer styles. Weissbier, saison, pale ale, IPA, porter, stout, lambic, dubbel and tripel, and for each style, what it does with different kinds of food and why. There are recipes, but they are secondary to the reasoning.
Oliver is, of course, biased. He is a brewmaster and he is arguing his case. But he does so with enough precision to change the mind of anyone who has never considered beer at the table, and to give those who already have the words to explain why.
The book received the IACP award for best book on beer, wine or spirits.
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780060005719
Language: English
First published: 2003
