For millennia, beer has been a staple beverage in cultures across the globe. After water and tea, it is the most popular drink in the world, and it is at the centre centre of an over $450 billion industry. With the emergence of craft brewing and homebrewing, beer is experiencing a renaissance that is expanding the reach of the beer culture even further, bringing the art of brewing into homes and widening the interest in beer as an important cultural item. The Oxford Companion to Beer is the first reference work to fully investigate the history and vast scope of beer, from the agricultural makeup of various beers to the technical elements of the brewing process, local effects of brewing on regions around the world, and social and political implications of sharing a beer. Entries not only define terms such as 'spent grain' and 'wort', but give fascinating details about how these and other ingredients affect a beer's taste, texture, and popularity. Cultural entries on such topics as drinking songs or beer gardens offer vivid accounts of how our drinking traditions have shifted through history, and how these traditions vary in different parts of the world, from Japan to Mexico, New Zealand, and Brazil, among many other countries. The pioneers of beer-making are the subjects of biographical entries; the legacies they left behind, in the forms of the world's most popular beers and breweries, are recurrent themes throughout the book. Collectively the Companion has over 1,100 entries -written by 150 of the world's most prominent beer experts -as well as a foreword by renowned chef Tom Colicchio (star of television's Top Chef), thorough appendices, conversion tables, images throughout, and an index. Flipping through the book, readers will discover everything from why beer was first taxed to how drinkers throughout history have overcome temperance movements and how an 'ale conner' determined the quality of a beer in the thirteenth century. (It involved sitting in a puddle of beer.) The Companion is comprehensive, unprecedented, and of great value to anyone who has ever had a curiosity or appetite for beer. brewing and homebrewing, beer is experiencing a renaissance that is expanding the reach of the beer culture even further, bringing the art of brewing into homes and widening the interest in beer as an important cultural item. The Companion is comprehensive, unprecedented, and of great value to anyone who has ever had a curiosity or appetite for beer.

About the Author
Garrett Oliver is the Brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery and author of The Brewmaster's Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food (HarperCollins, 2003). He has won many awards for his beers, is a frequent judge for international beer competitions, and has made numerous radio and television appearances as a spokesperson for craft brewing.

Reviews
a useful reference, and a source of serendipitious pleasure * Engineering and Technology *
This book contains everything you might want to know about the world's most popular drink. * The Field *
epic...blockbuster that would satisfy any hardcore enthusiast. It's edited by Brooklyn Brewery's ridiculously talented brewmaster Garrett Oliver, a man who writes as well as he brews. Which is annoyingly well. * The Guardian *
anyone with more than a passing interest in malt and hops should find something to interest them between the pages of this hefty book. * The Independent *
satisfyingly comprehensive * The Independent *
an extremely informative read for any beer lover. * Suffolk & Norfolk Life *
A comprehensive biography * Maxim *


Awards
Winner of Winner of the 2012 Gourmand Award for Best in the World in the Beer category. Winner of the 2011 Andre Simon Book Award in the Drinks Category.



Book Information
ISBN 9780195367133
Author Garrett Oliver
Format Hardback
Page Count 960
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 1717g
Dimensions(mm) 255mm * 190mm * 50mm