Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great gift for beer drinkers of all levels of experience!, January 28, 2011
This review is from: Great American Craft Beer: A Guide to the Nation's Finest Beers and Breweries (Hardcover)
I found this to be a very useful tasting guide to many great beers that I've either already tried or now would like to try.
My favorite part is that the tasting notes are arranged by flavor and not by style, as with my other beer books. For a long time I've written off certain entire styles, thinking I just didn't like stouts or porters. This book helped me define what it is specifically that I don't care for (yuck, roasted flavors!) and helped me pick out beers within those styles that I actually quite enjoy. The section with the tasting notes is large and you might not need to read it all in one sitting from start to finish, but I found it useful to just pick out whatever flavor I happen to have a taste for and use it one section at a time.
I like that it includes breweries from all over the USA and not just large brands that every beer enthusiast with a passing interest has already had. Although you might be sad if your personal favorite wasn't included, this book has inspired me to try some brands I hadn't ever heard of before, to my pleasant surprise. I'd always thought that since I live in an area that gets so many great beer brands, if I hadn't heard of it, it must not be good. Wrong! After reading some of the reviews that sounded like a particular beer might be right up my alley I've had a fun time seeking out those beers while traveling elsewhere or at beer festivals. I liked that this book showed me new things to try, and didn't just tell me that what I already think is awesome is awesome.
I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but look forward to cooking up my own beer cuisine soon. I've heard good things about the chefs who came up with them, and the recipes look promising.
This book is a good addition to my beer library, and also a good gift for folks who are already beer fans as well as those who might be just getting their feet wet. I've given it to several people of varied levels of beer interest, and they've all enjoyed it.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AWESOME Beer Book!, February 5, 2011
This review is from: Great American Craft Beer: A Guide to the Nation's Finest Beers and Breweries (Hardcover)
I couldn't wait to get my hands on this new beer book; my shelves are lined with plenty of them. But this one sticks out as slightly atypical of other books. Its main draw for me were all of the flavor descriptors the author uses; "fresh oranges", "smoked meats", and "toasted caramel" are all indicative of the in depth portrayal given of the flavor profiles for the beers in this book. I think by beer style, is a great way to organize a book, but not all ipa's taste the same, for example. This book will allow you to find the citrusy/orangey ipa you crave, and stay away from the excessively bitter one you don't. Often times, especially for craft beer novices, help in the description of the flavors of what we drink is what we need most. This book hits the mark, and all the extra history, cooking tips, proper glassware recommendation, and the range of well-known to obscure breweries does as well!
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4 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Terrible beer book, January 27, 2011
This review is from: Great American Craft Beer: A Guide to the Nation's Finest Beers and Breweries (Hardcover)
This is really a bad book. I was very excited to get it as I've been working my way through every beer I can get my hands on for the past couple years.
In addition to having not heard of most of the beers he discusses, I've not heard of the majority of the breweries either.
That's all well and good, but his write ups for each beer is simply awful. Far too many adjectives to describe the beer.
Each beer has its own page and then starts off by listing the brewey, website, ABV, what kind of glassware to drink the beer with, and when it's available. After that, it's a short paragraph describing the look, smell, taste, and feel of each beer.
Basically, if you've read one entry, you can put the book down because they're all the same; each written using three times as many words as necessary.
By the time I'd finished each entry, I had no idea what was being described.
I love books about beer as I've got a small shelf full of them. But this is the worst I've come across.
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