Cool Yule #5(b)! Beer Books for 2011: Brewing in Baltimore

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011
Not a list of the dozen best-of-the-best books about beer of 2011, but, rather, my list of 12, some personal delights, others of unique or deserved merit. Some of the books have been published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts. I was planning to reveal my selections between 20 November and the Winter Solstice New Year's Eve. Now, I'll be posting my final choices in the new year. Delayed, but still valid.

So ... cue Five Go-old Rings.

Cool Yule Beer Book for 2011
#5(b)

Brewing in Baltimore
(Images of America)
Maureen O'Prey
Paperback: 128 pages
Arcadia Publishing, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0738588131

For Cool Yule beer book suggestion #5 (a), I reached out for fellow Virginia beer blogger Eric Delia, who reviewed the book, Richmond Beers. Staying regional, Brewing in Baltimore is a bookend to that.

***************

I recently read a review of George F. Kennan: An American Life, a biography of the creator of the U.S. Cold War containment of the Soviet Union strategy, by Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis. That does not have much to do with the book Brewing in Baltimore, except for this quote from the book concerning Kennan:

He saw what others saw but in different colors. . . . He had a historian’s consciousness of the past, which gave him a visionary’s perspective on the future.” That is as good as any description of an historian.

Author of Brewing in Baltimore, Maureen O'Prey is indeed an historian. She holds a Masters in Historical Studies from the University of Maryland, and is a professor of history at Baltimore City Community College, Maryland. And, she loves a good beer.


Ms. O'Prey began her research with Brewing in Maryland, a self-published book in the mid-1960s by William J. Kelley, a local beer aficionado and amateur historian. Then, serendipitously, Catherine Scott, the archivist of the Baltimore Museum of Industry alerted her to a treasure trove: original documents dating from the late 19th century of Baltimore Gas & Electric, then known as Consolidated Gas & Electric. Why would this be crucial? Because the breweries were among the first industries to switch from producing their own electricity with coal-fired generators to purchasing power. And Consolidated kept detailed records. Addresses, names, brewers, officers, equipment, production, energy requirements, photographs, etc.

From there, she found leather-bound ledgers for early 20th century breweries and one mini-conglomerate in Maryland. The latter failed, in part, because of local consumer antipathy. After repeal in the early 1930s, there were 75 breweries in Maryland; by the late 1980s only one, and that one just outside of Baltimore City. Support for local breweries had become severely diminished.

O'Prey lists the names and tells the stories in the roll of the departed Baltimore breweries: such as Maryland Brewing Company, Gottlieb, Free State, Bauerenschmidt, Globe, Arrow, American, and, of course, National (Natty Boh, hon!). She tells us that the company which almost single-handedly invented bottle enclosures as we know them today —Crown, Cork, and Seal— was a Baltimore company.

Ms. O'Prey has discovered another truly fascinating resource. As Prohibition would loom in the 1910s, the United States Brewers Association published several Anti-Prohibition Manuals. These snapshots into society at the time compared, for example, the relative lesser crime rate in a 'wet' state such as Maryland versus a dry state such as Kansas. Prohibition-backers, such as the Anti-Saloon League, would constantly tout the nirvana that would be achieved if alcohol were banned. These published statistics showed otherwise. Not enough folk listened: a cautionary tale in the face of today's neo-Prohibitionism?

There are no brewery recipes in the book. Ms. O'Prey laments that these may be permanently missing, or may require greater sleuthing to be unearthed. In the UK, brewing historians such as Ron Pattinson and Martyn Cornell have done yeoman work in doing just that. Like a zymurgic Jurassic Park, the recipes they are uncovering literally can be used to bring the efforts of those long-lost breweries back to life.

The publisher of Brewing in Baltimore is Arcadia, South Carolina-based. Its series Images of America consists of pictorial books of American history. The books re all exactly 128 pages, the areas they cover must only be cities or small regions or jurisdictions, and oddly enough, no footnotes or endnotes are permitted. Thus, Ms. O'Prey was limited to only Baltimore, and to a pre-determined format.

Despite the marvelous photographs on almost every page of Brewing in Baltimore, the life of the breweries is sometimes subsumed by the litany of names. Arcadia limits documentation to a bibliography. The format also denies room for more analysis into the reasons for success and ultimate failure. That WWII soldiers —who had been supplied weaker beers made possible by improving technologies such as canning— may have desired those less flavorful beers when they returned from the war-font is insufficient to hang a theory of the demise of smaller breweries making more flavorful beer.

Brewing in Baltimore concludes with a brief look at the brewing renaissance in Baltimore, the almost 25-year old microbrewery scene. (One of the pioneers of that movement, Hugh Sisson —the owner of Heavy Seas Brewing of Baltimore— wrote the forward to the book.)

Brewing in Baltimore is an entertaining and visually fascinating introduction to the rise, and crash, and re-birth of brewing in the city. It's a valuable lesson on what happened there (and elsewhere) and what could happen again, whether via neo-Prohibition or through neglect of local community support in the battle against larger, outside concerns.

The colorful history of brewing in Baltimore serves as both a reminder of the city's strong heritage and a testament to the craft brewing industry's ability to persevere with local support [emphasis mine], despite the odds.

Ms. O'Prey has plans to write a much more exhaustive history of brewing, not just of Baltimore, but of the entire state of Maryland: the full story of Maryland's breweries and brewers, their beers and recipes, and their economic and societal impact and legacy. With a historian's pride, she grins: "There'll be extensive footnotes!"

***************

Cool Yule for 2011, so far:

• #5(a):Richmond Beers
• #6: Under The Influence
• #7: Designing Great Beers
• #8: The Best of American Beer & Food
• #9: Beer & Philosophy
• #10: Evaluating Beer
• #11: Windows on The World
• #12: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent

***************

• Maureen O'Prey will be signing copies of Brewing in Baltimore at Heavy Seas Brewing Company on Saturday, 17 January, between 11am and 5pm. Hugh Sisson will also be present for signing. Registration is required: here.
• Follow more about the book on Twitter: @BrewBalt.
• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.

Cool Yule #5(a)! Beer Books for 2011: Richmond Beers

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011
Not a list of the dozen best-of-the-best books about beer of 2011, but, rather, my list of 12, some personal delights, others of unique or deserved merit. Some of the books have been published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts. I'll reveal my selections between 20 November and the Winter Solstice New Year.

So ... cue Five Go-old Rings.

Cool Yule Beer Book for 2011
#5(a)

Richmond Beers:
A Directory of the Breweries and Bottlers of Richmond, Virginia
Danny Morris and Jeff Johnson
Hardcover: 240 pages
Self-published
Contact the authors at facebook.com/RichmondBeers
ASIN: B001QMPXCG (no apparent ISBN)

For the beer book suggestion at #5, I reached out for fellow Virginia beer blogger Eric Delia. He may write at Relentless Thirst, based in Richmond, Virginia, but he often addresses beer 'issues' of well beyond those borders. In this case, Eric stayed 'in-town', reviewing a book on the history of Richmond Beers while offering reasons as to why even such a regional history has further import. I've labelled the review as #5(a), because I'll be reviewing another regional history —Brewing in Baltimore.

Thank you Eric (and be sure to read his blog)!

***************
At first glance, Richmond Beers may seem like just an extensive collection of breweriana, a tangible vault of bottles, cans, and labels that have been archived in print. Even still, those labels and advertisements can say a lot about the brewing industry through the years. Despite the sometimes unwieldy statistics and timelines that Danny Morris and Jeff Johnson were tasked with putting into written word, the book offers more than just old images on new pages. It provides an insight into Richmond's not-so famous brewing past.

What many may not realize is the impact that immigrants from Germany had on Central Virginia, giving the River City a decidedly Teutonic trait. With names like Rosenegk, Yuengling, Stumpf, Bergner & Engel, even the mighty Anheuser Busch, Richmond was an early East Coast outpost for brewing based in the German tradition.

Not only that, but the interconnectedness of markets becomes evident as brewing giants from Philadelphia tried their hands at satellite breweries and bottling companies in the South. One prominent example is the James River Steam Brewery, opened by none other than Pottsville's own D.G. Yuengling, Jr. with partners from Philadelphia. Another is the introduction of canned beer in the United States by the Krueger Brewing Company of Newark, New Jersey, which first occurred in, you guessed it, the Richmond market.

Outside influence in Richmond was not taken lightly by resident brewers, which led to the formation of the Home Brewing Company. The brewery selected its name not as encouragement for locals to start homebrewing, but to distinguish itself from breweries that came from "away." It was essentially advertising itself as the local brewery in town with emphasis placed on its Richbrau beer, and through several incarnations over the years it lived on as the Richbrau Brewing Company, which ultimately closed its doors in February 2010.

As Morris and Johnson dole out the straight facts, the reader can get a feel for the expansion and contraction of the brewing industry in Richmond as it follows the contours of depression and boom times, then is effectively killed by Prohibition only to be resurrected in the years after the Noble Experiment ended. The authors have compiled records from the distant past to the recent past, highlighting the long history of brewing in Richmond. And they included a lot of visually stunning images to help tell the tale.

I'm not going to lie -if you're not a collector of breweriana, a beer historian, or someone mildly into beer facts- Richmond Beers may not be for you. But, if you've got the slightest interest to take a glimpse into the world of a mid-sized American city and its brewing legacy, it's worth it to take a look.

***************
Cool Yule for 2011, so far:

• #6: Under The Influence
• #7: Designing Great Beers
• #8: The Best of American Beer & Food
• #9: Beer & Philosophy
• #10: Evaluating Beer
• #11: Windows on The World
• #12: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent

***************

• Eric Delia has compiled a comprehensive listing of breweries and brewpubs in Virginia at his site: here. Follow him on Twitter: @relentlssthirst (without an e between 'l' and 's').
• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.

Cool Yule #6! Beer Books for 2011: Under The Influence

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011
Not a list of the dozen best-of-the-best books about beer of 2011, but, rather, my list of 12, some personal delights, others of unique or deserved merit. Some of the books have been published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts. I'll reveal my selections between 20 November and the Winter Solstice New Year.

So ... cue six geese-a-laying.

Cool Yule Beer Book for 2011
#6

Under the Influence:
The Unauthorized Story of the Anheuser-Busch Dynasty
Peter Hernon and Terry Ganey
Hardcover: 461 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (US 1991)
ISBN: 0671690248

The Busch family was dysfunctional: from shootings to philandering to poor decisions making to losing the family jewels. All of us —consumers, distributors, competitors —believed that these guys were on top of the beer world. For quite a while their company, Anheuser-Busch, was indeed. But now, they aren't, and it isn't.

From humble beginnings in the mid-19th century, Anheuser-Busch built itself into an American totem, as American as 'apple pie.' How could America itself, to stretch the point, be sold? But it was, and to a foreign conglomerate, InBev, itself cribbed together from smaller breweries in South America and Europe.

Under the Influence follows the story from the progenitor, Adolphus Busch, a German emigre to St. Louis, Missouri, who, in 1861, married the daughter of Eberhard Anheuser, a wealthy brewer, and thus entered the brewing business. Even with his quickly growing success, however, Busch

preferred wine to his own beer, which, according to one published account, he called "dot schlop."

Under the Influence ends with the stewardship of August Busch III, who in the 1970s into the early 1990s, achieved the dream of controlling the majority of U.S. beer sales. Anheuser-Busch achieved a 52% market share. That was its pinnacle. The loss of independence would come rapidly.

BeerBooks.com points out:

Since its release in 1991, this New York Times Best Seller has become increasingly popular among beer enthusiasts, and has become very difficult to find as it has gone out of print despite ongoing demand.

But if you can find it, it's a valuable read.

At a recent seminar on the state of the craft beer business in Washington, D.C., one person asked the panel why the American mainstream breweries became non-viable, and then, with Anheuser-Busch's sale in 2008, lost any American ownership. There were the usual tropes offered: lack of flavor, lack of quality, etc. The questioner was dissatisfied, and persisted with a followup question. "But if they had been so successful, why did they fail?" Find some of the answers, in this book.

Midwestern breweries, such as Anheuser-Busch, eventually eclipsed the larger East Coast breweries, because, in part, the Midwesterners were forced to ship greater distances and open more breweries. Population was concentrated in the large cities on the East Coast; breweries there did not have to be as aggressive for a customer base. Anheuser-Busch just was more ruthless in its marketing and sales than its competitors ... and luckier.

The level of family dysfunction, of profligacy, of seemingly arbitrary decisions at home and work is a shock to read about and often flies in the face of the company's ruthless success. But Anheuser-Busch did manage to market itself amazingly well. The brewery became the beer brand of America. Budweiser was an icon of he nation recognized throughout the world.

As to the quality of the beer, so often derided by 'craft' beer makers and drinkers?

The science and technology of modern breweries was developed by the large breweries, and especially so, after Prohibition, when under-capitalized breweries couldn't keep up. To deny the quality of the mainstream breweries —whether one likes the flavor (or lack thereof) or not— disregards the technology and business of beer. And small breweries today ignore quality control and sales to their peril.

For the story afterward —the seemingly doomed leadership of August Busch IV and the consequent buy-out of the brewery by InBev, a Belgian-Brazilian conglomerate, in 2008— read Dethroning the King: The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon, by Julie McIntosh, a reporter for the Financial Times. It's available from BeerBooks.com and as a Kindle eBook.

Dethroning the King:
The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon
Julie McIntosh
Hardcover: 408 pages
Publisher: Wiley (2010)
ISBN-13: 978-0470592700

The sale of AB occured during a perfect storm of business circumstance. In 2008, the financial situation in the U.S. had begun to seriously crash, but the contagion had not spread completely: InBev was able to secure the 50 billion plus dollars in financing it needed.

Despite controlling 52% of all beer sold in the U.S., Anheuser-Busch was experiencing declining sales by 2008. The real growth was in foreign beer markets, and in the U.S., craft beer, although that, at 5% of the market, was small beer, so to speak. The company had just begun to conduct serious cost-cutting and to investigate foreign mergers and acquisitions, but it was too little too late.

There are two real shockers to this story. The Busch family only owned 3% of the shares. Thus, when InBev tendered its offer of $65 per share, CEO Auggie Busch IV and his retired father could not put up a stock fight.

The second shock is that A-B had actually devised a plan to remain independent. A-B owned 50% of Modelo in Mexico. They offered to purchase the remaining 50% of the stock with A-B stock, and install Carlos Fenandez Gonzales, CEO of Modelo, as the new CEO of a re-christened Anheuser-Busch Modelo, headquartered in St. Louis. August Busch IV wold have been forced out, although still on the board.

But ... AB's board rejected the plan, even after asking for it, and even after the closely-held Modelo board had agreed to it. Ms. Martin's implication is that the fix was in. Some anonymous sources suggest that several AB board members privately signalled to Carlos Brito of InBev that $70 per share would cinch the deal. InBev quickly agreed, and Anheuser-busch was American owned no more. InBev recognized the power of the Budweiser brand name however. It attached the name to the new company —Anheuser-Busch Inbev— and kept brewing operations and headquarters in St. Louis (even though some offices and managerial positions were moved to New York City.

The book concludes with Auggie Busch IV's sad personal decline after the sale.

None of the former great names of American brewing exist as brewing entities or as American-owned breweries. Coors is owned by Molson. Miller is owned by South African Breweries. Pabst is a marketing company, most of tis beers brewed by SAB/Miller. There is no more Schlitz, Shaefer, Stroh's, National Brewing. And, as of 2008, Anheuser-Busch InBev was (and still is) the world's largest brewery. That means that Yuengling —the oldest brewery in the United States (1829) and still family owned— is now the largest American-owned brewery in the United States, or it's Boston Beer, the publicly-owned maker of Sam Adams. That depends on what stats you're looking at.

A man walks into a bar. "Do you have any Belgian beers," he asks? "Sure do," the bartender replies. "How about a nice cold Bud Light?"

***************
Cool Yule for 2011, so far:

• #7: Designing Great Beers
• #8: The Best of American Beer & Food
• #9: Beer & Philosophy
• #10: Evaluating Beer
• #11: Windows on The World
• #12: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent

***************

• The statistic on brewery ranking comes from the Beer Association: Top 50 Overall Brewing Overall Brewing Companies. At No.1 is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Belgium. No.2 is MilleCoors, a US-only cooperation between SABMiller, based in England, and Molson/Coors, based in Canada. Pabst is at #3.
• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.

Cool Yule #7! Beer Books for 2011: Designing Great Beers

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011
Not a list of the dozen best-of-the-best books about beer of 2011, but, rather, my list of 12, some personal delights, others of unique or deserved merit. Some of the books have been published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts.

Between 20 November and the Winter Solstice, I'll reveal my selections.

Then, on Christmas Day: put your feet up, pour yourself a good beer, and read a good book. Or, better yet: give a friend the gift of a beer and a book. December 22nd may be too late to arrange shipping by Christmas (unless available as an e-book), but it's time sufficient to pay a visit to your local brick and mortar —and book— store.

So ... cue seven swans-a-swimming.

Cool Yule Beer Book for 2011:
#7

Designing Great Beers
The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles

Ray Daniels
paperback: 404 pages
Publisher: Brewers Publications (US, 1996)
ISBN: 0937381500

My previous selection, The Best of American Beer & Food, was a cookbook. Cool Yule #7 is a recipe book as well ... of beers.

Designing Great Beers was written by Ray Daniels, highly regarded as the brains behind the Cicerone Program, a certification for restaurant servers on beer knowledge, just as sommelier programs train servers of wine. But Mr. Daniels has quite the extensive resume in the furtherment of good beer. From his website:

• Author, editor and publisher of more than a dozen books on brewing and beer
• Diploma graduate and senior faculty member at the Siebel Institute of Technology
• Internationally known beer judge
• Organizer of scores of beer tasting events including Chicago’s Real Ale Festival (1996-2003)
• Experienced beer marketer, past director of the Brewers Association Craft Beer Marketing Program

His Craft Beer Institute was and is integral to education on real ale. From one of his "Perfect Pint" sessions in the 1990s, I still have a pencil packed away from an even earlier run of his for Chicago-land political office. That unsuccessful campaign was good beer's gain!

Designing Great Beers is divided into two sections. The first is recipe formulation. This is not a how-to for brewing step-by-step. There are other books for that. But, even for beginners, these chapters will reveal the reasons why they are following those simpler steps and procedures. Daniels provides formaulae and charts for determining extract, water adjustment, hop bitterness, yeast attenuation, etc. I would wager that even professional 'craft' brewers have used these chapters for reference.

There's one quite valuable formula that Daniels has created just for the book —the BU:GU. Technically, it's the ratio of bittering units of the hops used to the gravity units (the amount of fermentable sugar present before fermentation). In plain English, it's the perception of the bitterness of a beer. Simply because a beer contains a lot of hops doesn't mean it will taste bitter; just because a beer is not of high alcoholic strength doesn't mean it won't pack a hoppy punch. It's the perception of bitterness —the balance between malt and hops— that the BU:GU addresses. Great stuff, and useful for those reductive "How many IBUs?" conversations about beer.

The second part of Designing Great Beers is about brewing to 'style.' Daniels' definition of 'beer style' is one of the better I've read.

A beer style comes into being when several brewers, often in close geographic proximity to each other, create beers that share a similar set of distinctive traits. These traits include body, alcohol content, bitterness, color, and profile. In the end, the traits of a style incorporate the variation seen from brewer to brewer [emphasis mine] while still defining a formulation that is generally distinguishable from other styles of beer.

Perhaps the most important function of style is beer flavor. <...> This shorthand is very useful for communication between brewers, retailers, and consumers. It allows brewers to tell others what they have brewed without long, drawn-out explanations.

In today's milieu run amok of 140 or so 'styles,' it's quaintly refreshing (pun intended) to find only 14 chapters of styles. That the book was published in 1996 in very little way outdates its style information. Quite the contrary!

Daniels started with published guidelines as a baseline, but rather than relying on them unquestioned, he researched actual historical commercial records and homebrew competitions, identifying and quantifing style parameters. Daniels' work predates and anticipates, by more than decade, much of the current style revisionism of such historians as Martyn Cornell and Ron Pattinson.

As valuable as this book might be for brewers of avocation or profession, the wealth of information in Designing Great Beers will help anyone —even a non-brewer— appreciate the flavors in beer and more easily identify them. For a proto-brewer, Designing Great Beers can help provide a practical understanding of brewing; for a beer consumer, the skill involved. For all, it can provide an historical understanding of styles, and why and where they developed. By gaining an understanding of all of this, the reader will better enjoy the next well-made beer she brews or drinks. And the next.

And, after reading, consider taking the next step, by becoming accredited as a Beer Cicerone.

Anyone can call themselves an expert on beer. [Emphasis mine.] But when consumers want great beer they need help from a server who really knows beer flavors, styles and brands. They also want to buy from a place that understands proper storage and serving so the beer they drink will be of the highest quality. Too often great beer is harmed by improper service practices.

The website is: www.cicerone.org. You can follow Ray Daniels on Twitter @Cicerone_org.

***************
Cool Yule for 2011, so far:

• #8: The Best of American Beer & Food
• #9: Beer & Philosophy
• #10: Evaluating Beer
• #11: Windows on The World
• #12: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent

***************

• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.

Cool Yule #8! Beer Books for 2011: The Best of American Beer & Food

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011
Not a list of the dozen best-of-the-best books about beer of 2011, but, rather, my list of 12, some personal delights, others of unique or deserved merit. Some of the books have been published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts.

Between 20 November and the Winter Solstice, I'll reveal my selections. Then, on Christmas Day: put your feet up, pour yourself a good beer, and read a good book. Or, better yet: give a friend the gift of a beer and a book. December 22nd may be too late to arrange shipping by Christmas (unless available as an e-book), but it's time sufficient to pay a visit to your local brick and mortar —and book— store.

******************************

So ... cue eight maids a-milking

Cool Yule Beer Book for 2011: #8

The Best of American Beer & Food
Pairing and Cooking with Craft Beer
Lucy Saunders
paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Brewers Publications (US, 2007)
ISBN: 0937381918


Lucy Saunders —the BeerCook— released The Best of American Beer & Food in 2007. It's just as fresh today.

The book is divided into roughly two sections. The first reminds me of Real Beer And Good Eats by Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly. Ms. Saunders interviews chefs, restaurant owners, and other beer celebrities. As well, Ms. Saunders writes several extended essays on beer styles, matching beer with food, on beer and cheese, and beer and chocolate).

Please don't dismiss Pilseners as being unworthy of being served at the table with lighter or simpler fare, as many craft-brewers are restoring the brightness and luster to a style that suffered commercial debasement in the last century. A bready yet crisp Pilsener tastes outstanding with a freshly grilled burger - it's simple and very good.

That said, some of the recipes included in this book are far from simple and could only be termed ambitious. These time-consuming recipes show that craft beer can pair with complex foods just as well as with burgers, sausages, and pizza.

Lucy Saunders indeed knows food ... and beer.

The second section features recipes from those chefs and celebrities, reminding me of a similar format in Cooking & Eating with Beer by Peter LaFrance. Some of the recipes include beer as an ingredient; others suggest appropriate pairings. Considering that many of these recipes come from brewpubs, those pairings make great sense: they have worked well and repeatedly. A partial listing of the folk featured includes Carol Stoudt, Diane Alexander, Lisa Morrison, Tom Peters, Garrett Oliver, Chuck Skypeck, Brewchef Tim Schafer, Larry Bell, Rob Tod, Natalie and Vinnie Cirluzo, Dan Gordon and Dean Biersch, Charles and Rose Ann Finkel, Jim Koch, Tomme Arthur, and Barton Seaver.

Lucy gives props to some Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, area restaurants (home to this blog): The Brewers Art, Brasserie Beck, Restaurant Nora, Birreria Paradiso, Rustico, R.F.D./Brickskeller, Tuscarora Mill, and Royal Mile Pub.

There are two recipes from Diane Alexander of R.F.D., including Chicken and Artichoke Hearts in Anchor Steam Beer. Chef Patrick Dinh of Tuscarora Mill contributed his Asiago Soup with Smoked Ham. Royal Mile Pub's past owner/chef Ian Morrison provided his recipe for Lemon Thai Basil Sorbet.

Saunders offers a recipe from Chef Barton Seaver, well known for his work for sustainable seafood. It's not seafood, but Grilled Lamb Top Round Steaks with Caramelized Tomato Risotto, which he prepared for a Clipper City Beer Dinner several years ago when he was chef at Washington, D.C.'s Cafe Saint-Ex.

When the book was first released, some reviewers complained about the complexity of the recipes. These aren't as simple as bratwurst boiled in beer, one seemed to grouse. Yes, that's true. The Best of American Food & Beer is not a cookbook about technique. It's about, what else, beer with food, and about beer in food. But too complicated? If one is even a fair at-home-kitchen cook, most of the recipes are well within that skill set. Take this one, for example, which Ms. Saunders prepared for a Washington, D.C. morning news broadcast.

Creamy Cavatappi with Fresh Corn, Fennel and Wild Mushrooms p.106
Chef Bruce Paton of the Cathedral Hill Hotel, San Francisco, CA, pairs this warm creamy pasta salad with the Twist of Fate Bitter from Moonlight Brewing of Santa Rosa, CA. You could pair it with your favorite ESB.

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 bulbs fennel, trimmed and sliced very thin
• 2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 6 ears)
• 1 cup shiitake mushrooms, trimmed and diced
• 1 cup cremini or chanterelle mushrooms, trimmed and diced
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fennel
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 cups light cream
• 1 pound cavatappi pasta, cooked al dente
• 1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and minced

• 1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, add crushed pepper and garlic and cook, stirring often, two minutes. Add corn and diced fennel, stir well and cook 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, ground fennel, salt and pepper and cook until tender, about 5 minutes
• 2. Add cream and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Drain pasta and toss with vegetables and cream. Garnish with red bell pepper and freshly ground black pepper
• Makes 4 to 6 servings.

The Best of American Beer & Food is a special and usable cookbook, very usable: I've prepared several of the recipes. But therein lies its only demerit. The binding for this 'hard' paperback is not good: it falls apart after only a few uses. I hope that Brewers Publications releases a second edition in better condition.

Ms. Saunders maintains a website at beercook.com (with links to her other cookbooks: Cooking With Beer and Grilling with Beer. Follow her on Twitter @LucyBeerCook. And, cook with this book!

Cool Yule for 2011, so far:

• #9: Beer & Philosophy
• #10: Evaluating Beer
• #11: Windows on The World
• #12: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent

***************

• This review has been plagiarized. I admit it. I've cribbed it from ... MY earlier review, written in 2007, when the book was first released.
• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.

Cool Yule #9! Beer Books for 2011: Beer & Philosophy

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011
Not a list of the dozen best-of-the-best books about beer of 2011, but, rather, my list of 12, some personal delights, others of unique or deserved merit. Some of the books have been published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts.

Between 20 November and the Winter Solstice, I'll reveal my selections. Then, on Christmas Day: put your feet up, pour yourself a good beer, and read a good book. Or, better yet: give a friend the gift of a beer and a book. December 22nd may be too late to arrange shipping by Christmas (unless available as an e-book), but it's time sufficient to pay a visit to your local brick and mortar —and book— store.

******************************

So ... cue nine ladies dancing

Cool Yule Beer Book for 2011: #9

Beer & Philosophy
The Unexamined Beer Isn't Worth Drinking
Various; Stephen D. Hales, editor
Paperback: 248 pages
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (US, 2007)
ISBN: 978-1405154307

Three philosophers walk into a bar. What beer do they order? The eponymous choice from Ommegang, of course, says Stephen D. Hales —Professor of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania— in his book, Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn't Worth Drinking.

My brother has an ice cream theory of happiness. For true pleasure, should a person commonly consume daily gobs of low-fat, low flavor ice cream? Or should she instead occasionally go for the fullest-flavor all-the-fat real ice cream and all of its satiating gustatory pleasure?

Joe Six-Pack, otherwise known as Joe Russell, beer columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, put it this way in a column of a few years ago:

IF YOU HAD $30 to spend on beer, would you be better off spending it on a single case of Pilsner Urquell or two cases of Miller Lite?

Ah, that is a question for the ages - to enjoy a little of something that brings you great pleasure, or more of something that is not quite so fine.

According to Steven D. Hales ... there's really only one person a beer drinker should turn to for advice on this topic.

No, not your bartender. It's John Stuart Mill, the 19th-century British philosopher and formulator of the "greatest happiness" principle.

Bringing Mill's stricture down to a mundane level (as if Miller Lite or low-fat ice cream hadn't done that already), the greatest happiness principle could easily be a tool for a personal diet. Eat flavorful things, but in smaller portions. That's the essence of Mireille Guiliano's delightful book French Women Don't Get Fat. She says, "Savor great food and wine [in moderation]".

John Stuart Mill, as seanced through Stephen Hales might riposte, "Enjoy great food and beer ... in moderation." Hales' book Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn't Worth Drinking is a collection of essays on that and other philosophical topics, as seen, so to speak, through a beer glass.

As editor, Hales divides 15 essays by 15 academics, professionals, and brewers among four chapters: The Art of the Beer, The Ethics of Beer, The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Beer, and Beer in the History of Philosophy. Brewers Sam Calagione and Garrett Oliver, among others, contribute to the first more beer-oriented chapter.

It's in the essays of last three chapters that the book really entertains, such as the piece by Canadian beer blogger Alan McLeod of A Good Beer Blog. In Beer and Autonomy. McLeod, a lawyer, addresses the Canadian government's limitation and control of alcohol. The contradiction of those actions with the Canadian constitution's declaration of personal liberty could be thought of as a mirror to the United States, where the 21st Amendment codifies a like contradiction.

There is a message underlying the taxation of and restrictions on beer movement. It is that the individual in a way doesn't really fully own beer like one owns a hammer or a loaf of bread. <...> One might question the vision the state has of its own citizenry. The law of beer is used to redefine the marketplace, control communication, restrict mobility, and even dispossess the population in its relation to the otherwise commonplace product that is beer. And, to what end? In large part it would appear only to sustain government control and the source of revenue it represents.

Neil Manson —an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mississippi— has written a somewhat whimsical Socratic dialog between three characters wondering if the fact that beer exists might be an indication of Intelligent Design. Whimsical, but enjoyable.

Editor Stephen Hales, in addition to writing the book's introduction, contributes a chapter on Immanuel Kant, Transcendental Idealism, and ... Beer Goggles. Is it beer-fueled illusion or reality when that person at the end of the bar becomes more attractive in the wee hours of the morning?

"We ordinarily distinguish quite well between that which is ... valid for every human sense in general, and that which ... is valid ... only for a particular situation or organization of this or that sense."

[Hales brings Kant, quoted above, to the example of Fiona and Dwayne who meet at a bar late one evening, and find themselves, together, the next morning.]

What would Fiona conclude when she realizes that Dwayne's added attractiveness comes and goes with beer goggles? ... Yet if you are true to holding that the beer-goggles enhanced attractiveness is a real quality of Dwayne, you might be inclined to argue that Fiona's morning-after realization should instead lead her to a more practical conclusion, such as it's time for another pint of Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout! Well, who could argue with that?

And, of course, there's that chapter on John Stuart Mill and epicurean utilitarianism.

Finally (or should that be, initially) the Forward was written by beer author Michael Jackson. It's an essay that could easily have been a literate stream-of-consciousness conversation over beers at a bar.

Among the gifts of the Greeks were translations of the Christian gospels from the original Aramaic scrolls. The Greeks interpreted "strong drink" as "wine." I wonder, did they think Jesus turned water into Retsina or Riesling?

The Saxons were in no doubt. Their version of the miracle is much more exciting: "Suddenly, the room was filled with barrels of beer." Lest you suspect my own theological agenda, I should make clear that the translation from the Saxon was provided by a Jesuit priest, Ron Murphy, who was at the time Dean of Georgetown University and Head of its Department of Germanic Languages. Ron and I have a pint of Salvator together now and then, but I am sure my certainties have not influenced his verities.

Do we have the Greeks to blame for the elevation of wine and the subjugation of beer? It seems to me that they started it, but the Romans followed; Tacitus said that the Germanic peoples drank beer, and that it made their breath smell. I don't suppose he ever rode the Paris metro.

Gloriously witty: possibly some of the final words written by this since-deceased writer.

Professor Hales inscribed the following on the title page of my edition: "May your beer never go flat." In the spirit of this entertaining book, I might add: figuratively and literally.

Cool Yule for 2011, so far:

• #10: Evaluating Beer
• #11: Windows on The World
• #12: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent

***************

• I've cribbed my review from another —mine— which I posted in December of 2007.
  
• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The entire list of Cool Yule Beer Books for 2011: here.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.

Cool Yule #10! Beer Books for 2011: Evaluating Beer

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011
Not a list of the dozen best-of-the-best books about beer of 2011, but, rather, my list of a dozen choices, some personal delights, others of unique or deserved merit. Some of the books were published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts.

Between 20 November and the Winter Solstice, I'll reveal my recommendations. On Christmas Day, put your feet up, pour yourself a good beer, and read a good book. Or, better yet, give a friend the gift of a beer and a book. December 22nd may be too late to arrange shipping by Christmas (unless the book is available as an e-book), but it's time sufficient to pay a visit to your local brick and mortar —and book— store.

******************************

And, so ... cue ten lords, a-leaping.

Cool Yule Beer Book for 2011: #10

Evaluating Beer
various authors
Brewers Publications, US: 1998
ISBN: 0937381373

Several years ago, a friend of mine, who had been in the in the business of selling beer and wine for over a quarter of a century, was struck by a moving vehicle. He suffered a fractured skull and spine. Over an 18 month period, he recovered his health and most of his mobility. Other than the pain of physical therapy, what vexed him most, he told me, was his loss of his sense of smell.

Here he was, in the business of beer and wine, and he was unable to taste the very things he was describing to his customers. The few aromas he could sense were inappropriate to the beverages. He knew what Bordeaux wines should taste like; yet, when he sipped them now, they tasted like liquid plastic bandages. He knew that American IPAs were hoppy; when he tasted them now, they smelled like, ahem, fecal matter. But over the course of his recovery — knowing from 25 years years professional experience what things were supposed to taste like— he was able to figuratively re-train his mind to recognize flavors as they should be. He is 99.9% back to normal. A Beautiful Nose, if you will.

Under 'normal' circumstances, I believe most people have good palates, that is, the ability to sense taste and aromas. What they need is the vocabulary to describe those sensations. A book such as Evaluating Beer can help begin that development.

The book is a series of short essays by numerous experts in the fields of beer, brewing, and flavor complied by the Brewers Publications, an arm of the Brewers Association (a lobbying and advocacy organization for U.S. breweries producing fewer than six million barrel of beer annually). As homebrew guru (and BA founder) Charlie Papazian puts it in the first chapter, "beer tasting is a learned skill." The 17 chapters go on to discuss flavor profiles, sensory evaluation, training methods for tasting, sources of flavors, identifying flavors in a real-time brewing environment, etc.

Three chapters were written by instructors at the Siebel Institute of Technology, in Chicago, Illinois Flavor Profiles by Ilse Shelton Origins of Normal and Abnormal Flavor by Ted Konis: '101' classes in the flavors that should or shouldn't be in beer. Ron Siebel's chapter is a how-to on creating taste panels for evaluating beers for quality, rather than for style.

I was fortunate enough to have studied under them in the early 1990s (and still have voluminous notes). Ron Siebel, and his brother Bill, are great-grandsons of the German brewer who founded the school in the 19th century. They have since sold the school.

Two chapter are contributions by food and brewing scientist Morton Meilegard, the lead creator of the famous Beer Flavor Wheel. One of those is a very useful primer on setting up consumer tasting panels.

Charlie Papazian ties it all together and discusses the 50-point scale that is used by the American Homebrewers Association (and the Brewers Association) to judge beers according to style designation.

I recommend Evaluating Beer to anyone who wants to increase their enjoyment of beer, or who wants to sell or make beer —for fun or profit, or both. It's a valuable introductory reference with a useful list of other source materials. Although some chemical and biochemical terms are used, none of the chapters are too technical in scope for a non-scientific layman.

The next step would be to apply the discussed principles while actually tasting beer. More than that, one could take courses on beer flavors offered by various beer schools and educational institutions. One such is the Siebel Institute, which I mentioned earlier [pronounced SEE bull]. Others include the zymurgy department at Cal-Davis and the American Brewers Guild. Online coursework is available.

Another route would be through the Cicerone Certification Program [pronounced SIS sir rone], run by Ray Daniels, as beer server training and accreditation. The syllabus includes the study of beer flavor: 'normal' flavors —and their derivation— and 'off' flavors —what they are, how they occur, and how to prevent them.

Evaluating, while drinking. Tough studies, wouldn't you say?

Cool Yule 2011: so far.

• #11: Windows on The World
  
• #12: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent

***************

• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.

Cool Yule #11! Beer Books for 2011: Windows on the World

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011
Not a list of the dozen best-of-the-best books about beer of 2011, but, rather, my list of 12, some personal delights, others of unique or deserved merit. Some of the books have been published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts.

Between 20 November and the Winter Solstice, I'll reveal my selections.

Then, on Christmas Day: put your feet up, pour yourself a good beer, and read a good book. Or, better yet: give a friend the gift of a beer and a book. December 22nd may be too late to arrange shipping by Christmas (unless available as an e-book), but it's time sufficient to pay a visit to your local brick and mortar —and book— store.

So ... cue eleven pipers piping.

******************************
Cool Yule Beer Book for 2011:
#11

Windows on the World Complete Wine Course: 25th Anniversary Edition
Kevin Zraly
Sterling Publishing, US: 2009
ISBN: 1402767676

Well, okay, this isn't a book about beer. But for a determined beer lover to pretend that things other than grains cannot be fermented to good effect would be self-delusional. For flavor, history, sales and economic impact, and influence, that 'other' good fermentable would be wine. Fermented grapes.

A lot of beer folk seem to have a love/hate relationship with wine. They say they don't like wine, or its perceived haughtiness, yet they often compare their beers, falsely, to it. Better to understand wine —its flavors, processes, fermentation science, and marketing— and take what you can from it. Or, try it, and actually like it.

Sommelier Marne Old and Sam Calagione, charismatic owner of Dogfish Head Brewery, have a book out called He Said Beer, She Said Wine. It's a breezy set of arguments about pairing beer and wine with food that reads almost like ad copy. Cal-Davis beer professor Charles Bamforth's Grape vs. Grain is a much more informative comparison between the two beverages.

But for a real introduction to what wine is, and isn't, choose Windows on the World. The nearly 350 page book is a tremendously useful and educational introduction to the flavors, regions, styles, grapes, traditions, wineries, and, yes, brands of wine. It's told in a bullet-point manner but without bullet-points, with full sentences and paragraphs. A reader could do much worse than Kevin Zraly, the author, as his wine instructor.

Zraly was the wine director for the Windows on the World Restaurant for 25 years until 11 September 2001, when the restaurant, on the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, was destroyed when terrorists brought down the building and its twin, murdering thousands. Zraly was not at work that day; many employees and breakfast patrons were. He pays tribute to them in his book and at the wine school of the same name, which he re-opened elsewhere. In May of 2011, Zraly was awarded a James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award.

The chapter on the Physiology of Tasting Wine ("You smell more than you think!") is one that anyone —cork-dork, Epicurean, or beer geek— can learn from and apply. It moves from specific to poetic.

No two people are alike in either how they smell or the smells they perceive. It is deeply personal and experiential. Wendy [Dubit of The Senses Bureau] says Puligny to herself, simply because she loves the word nearly as much as the wine. It serves as homing signal that brings her to self and center —to a time and place and a wine she loves, and to the kind of bonds that endure.

Kevin goes out on his porch with a glass of some favorite special vintage and looks into the night sky. Embodied in every sip is all that he treasures and honors about Windows on the World, and a reason to look up at stars.

Sounds like beer, sounds like life, doesn't it?

***************

• #12: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent
  
• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.

Cool Yule #12! Beer Books for 2011: The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent

Around this time of year in 2009, I compiled a list of 12 Beer Books for Christmas. Here's how I described the project:

This is not a Top 12 list. It is my list of 12 beer books, personal delights. On Christmas Day: put your feet up, pour yourself a good beer, and read a good book. Better yet: give a friend the gift of a beer and a book.

I would still recommend any of those books, but I have created a new list this year, with different choices (including a guest blogger's selection). Some of the books have been published this year, while others are worthy chestnuts. I'll announce my choice for this year's #1 Cool Yule Beer Book on the Winter Solstice, 22 December 2011. That's time too brief to arrange shipping by Christmas (unless available as an e-book), but time sufficient to pay a visit to your local brick and mortar, and book, store.

And, so, to begin ... cue 12 drummers, drumming.

***************

Cool Yule! 12 Beer Books for 2011: #12

The Story of Brewing in Burton on Trent
Roger Protz
The History Press, UK: 2011
ISBN: 0752460633

When beer writer Michael Jackson was still with us, his fellow countryman Roger Protz was often thought of as 'that other' British beer writer, prolific and well-spoken, not really an historian but more of a reporter. He's taken some bashing recently for misstatements of beer history, which were the result of repeating stories from non-original source materials. Something we all do, from time-to-time.

The story of brewing in the small Midland, England, town of Burton-on-Trent truly is in the water. From the time of St. Modwen, who noticed the curative aspect of the waters and would later save the future Alfred the Great from scurvy, to the time of Pale Ales for India —ales of pale color, great hop-infused flavor, and clarity— the town of Burton-on-Trent, Protz writes, was known for its water, rich in dissolved sulfates.

He tells the story of the town's rise to a brewing metropolis in the 19th century, small in population, but giant in industrial influence, to its demise, in the 20th century as a brewing behemoth, and finally, to the 21st century, when a few remnants of its brewing heritage are thriving and a small-scale revival has begun.

At Marston's, they call the union rooms ["nothing to do with trade unions"], with due reverence, the 'Cathedrals of Brewing'. It's the last brewery to use a system that singled out Burton in the nineteenth century as the citadel of pale ale. The unions cleanse fermenting beers of yeast but, along with the Trent Valley's singular waters, also help create a unique aroma and flavour: a powerful waft of sulfur that gives way to a complex palate of biscuity malt, spicy hops, and a hint of tart fruit. While Bass' old union sets now languish in a car park alongside the National Brewery Centre, Marston's remains true to a method of fermentation that it believes is critical to producing true Burton pale ale. The unions survive at Marston's not for reasons of nostalgia —they are expensive to maintain, requiring top-quality oak and resident coopers to repair the casks— but because they create fine beer and give the brewery its now iconic status.

Protz repeats some tropes, but generally adheres to recent beer-history scholarship. As one example of error: hops are not grown in the US Pacific northwest because the climate is wet, as Protz writes, but because it is dry, providing an inhospitable environment for hop-hurting micro-pests.

But, these are only quibbles. Protz writes in a straight-forward, non breathless manner, telling a good story. Re-read his paragraph above on Marston's in Burton. It gives you history and description. As good beer writing should do, it makes you thirsty for the beer.

Cool Yule 2011: the full list.

***************

• For on-line purchasing, I link to the Brewers Association book store, or to the marvelous resource, BeerBooks.com. When not available there, or if published as an ebook, I link to Amazon.com.
  
• The 12 Books for Christmas 2009: here.