So, you’re in a bar that prides itself on craft beers, and you notice a bottle on the shelf with a label reading Smuttynose Old Brown Dog. If you carry Jeff Alworth’s hefty tome in your backpack, The Beer Bible, you could flip through it and learn that this Portsmouth, N.H., brown ale “has lots of malt depth, with showcase nuttiness getting support from toast, caramel, and cocoa flavors.”
Aside from his encyclopedic descriptions of hundreds of beers, Alworth includes essays on beer history, the proper ways of storing and serving the beverage, beer tourism, how beer is made (ingredients are key), the craft beer revival and even how to sip (“Swish the beer around your mouth so the aromas warm and unfold”). Alworth identifies a hero in the revival of quality beer, Charlie Papazian, who, back in the ’70s, helped launch the homebrew movement that fed into the explosion of craft beer.
The Beer Bible makes a great holiday gift for any beer fanatic.