Michael Jackson's Beer Companion: The World's Great Beer Styles, Gastronomy, and Traditions by Michael Jackson

From the Publisher

With more than 50 new, specially commissioned photographs, 60 new labels, and a revised text, Michael Jackson's Beer Companion is a comprehensive guide to the world's finest beers. "White" Wheat Beers, Oatmeal Stouts, "Irish" Reds, India Pale Ales ... the blossoming of beer styles in the stores, pubs, and restaurants of America was inspired by Jacksonn's writings. Now, the world's most influential writer on beer explains the character and uses of each style. What are the most refreshing beers? Which beers are good before meals, or with food? Most important, what are the classic examples of each style? Jackson highlights his favorites, often pitting American microbrews against European classics. Some of his choices will surprise you ... and introduce you to new and outstanding beers. Jackson's verdicts are based on first-hand experience - decades of traveling, tasting, and meeting brewers. Many beers now universally acknowledged as classics were little-known brews when he first highlighted them in the 1970s and 1980s.

Publishers Weekly

``Beer deserves to be treated as a civilized drink; it may even have been the cause of civilization.'' Jackson ( The New World Guide to Beer ) here presents a knowledgeable and civilized survey of the various and sundry beers imbibed around the globe. You'll learn, for example, that Ninkasi was a Sumerian goddess of brewing, and that malt-making may be as much as 4000 years old. He explains what fruit beers are (``A beer made with fruit sounds like a contradiction. Surely it is a wine?''), and defines lagers, ales, porters, wheat beers and more; discusses and rates the beers of assorted nations; and suggests what foods go well with which beers. Jackson is excellent at combining historical detail with current information about the beers and brewers in question; his organization is logical and accessible. Beautifully photographed and designed for sustained browsing as well as authoritative reference, this book will appeal to both beer tyros and more sophisticated tipplers. Photos. (Sept.)

BookList

Rather than rehash his (admittedly splendid) "New World Guide to Beer" (1989), the potentate of potables has rethought, reconceived, and written anew what he knows about brewed barley water. With the globe-trotting (even if armchair-bound) beer-hound in mind, the "Guide" presents beer geographically; the new title, although it includes a small gazetteer, approaches humanity's oldest quaffable creation (beer seems to be the intended outcome of the world's first recipe, found on Sumerian clay tablets) taxonomically. For after the introductory, couldn't-be-clearer "Exploring Beer," which relays beer's general history, current revival, worldwide prevalence, and the whys and wherefores of its constituents, each chapter save the last discriminates a particular style of beer, from lambic (the Belgian variety still fermented in the ancient manner by depending upon wild yeasts) through wheat beers, the many ales, the fewer but widely varying porters and stouts, to the most-familiar-to-the-most-Americans (well, at least in the version from Pilsen, Bohemia) lagers and some specialties, such as steam beer. The concluding chapter, "Beer and Food," has considerable advice on matching brew with chow and some positively drool-inducing recipes.

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