One of my other passions (weakness, really) is books. I love them and I read them voraciously. Borders and Book Crossing are places I never mind going. My browser is on a first-name basis with Amazon.com.
And now my wallet is whimpering, because Jay Brooks just posted his Top Ten Beer Books:
I took a look through my own library of beer books and decided to pick my ten favorites. I also decided to not include guidebooks, fiction or homebrewing books in the list. That essentially leaves reference books and history, which is what I tend to gravitate toward. Some I felt I had to include because of their influence on me once upon a time, even if they’ve become dated over time. So by top ten, I simply mean the ones I like best or find most useful on a regular basis, and not including several popular type of beer books. And of course, I don’t own every beer book, though I do have quite a few. So the list is hardly scientific. You probably won’t agree with my choices, but that’s okay.
10. The Essentials of Beer Styles by Fred Eckhardt. It’s hard to believe that Fred’s little book is only 20 years old, but it cataloged beer styles in a brand new way, one that’s been picked up by everybody since, from the BA to the BJCP.
9. Great Beers of Belgium by Michael Jackson. Most of us have a soft spot for the beers of Belgium, and Michael’s book bring them to life in a way no other book has managed.
8. Ambitious Brew by Maureen Ogle. From the Golden Age to the Silver Age, Maureen’s thoroughly researched history eschewed mythology for fact and remains one of the few records of the early days of craft beer.
7. Tasting Beer by Randy Mosher. A brand new book, Randy’s book was one that needed to be written, to replace Evaluating Beer, a book with much good information but disjointed and hard to use because of the format and multiple authors. Tasting Beer pulls it all together in one easy-to-use book.
6. Amber, Gold & Black by Martyn Cornell. Martyn’s pdf-only book takes on many sacred cows of the beer canon and shows us their true history.
Head on over to Jay’s place for the rest, including a large list of honorable mentions.
p.s. I made sure that as many as possible, including the honorable mentions, are available in the Hop Talk Store.
by Chris Wright (not so much a book to read as a book to record the beers I try. My beer geekiness is complete. In my defense, though, there’s a lot of information about tasting beer and beer styles.)
by Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie (I felt that as a native New Jerseyan that this is a book I needed to have.)
by Maureen Ogle (I read lots of positive reviews about this book.)
by Garrett Oliver (Pairing beer and food is the new nirvana.)