Customer Reviews

The New World Guide to Beer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To a beer fan, this is a truly beautiful book. It is filled with striking pictures of breweries, pubs and their beers. It stands above the average coffee table book by giving an encyclopedic treatment of beer styles and beer culture from around the world. The information is reliable and has been obtained at first hand by an author who has done more traveling in search of good beer than any other writer.

An excellent book, although I'd suggest his "Beer Companion" for a first buy. Ignore ANY review that starsts with "Michael Jackson is not Bob Klein." That's like writing "John Lennon is not Michael Bolton..." Don't buy the hype; Michael Jackson (as he introduces himself, "not the pedorast") is the Man.

I like to travel and I like beer. I have been one of the earlier Fanatics in the brewing renaissance, since the early 1980's. This book helped get me going. Michael Jackson is every bit as adept a writer as his musical counterpart is a singer. Not only does this book discuss beer but it has marvelous pictures, fascinating glimpses of history and also serves as an indispenable travel guide. If you want to drink the original Czech beer serving as the prototype for Budweiser in Ceske Budejovice this book can get you there. If you want to understand why Guiness Stout is Guiness Stout this book can do it. If you want to find 500 year old pubs in Prague, fantastic beer bars in Belgium, or world class brewers in America, this book is the best available and reads like a Clavell novel. Each time I travel I read about the area I am going to, copy down the name of some of the bars and restaurants, and I have made friends for 20 years as a result.

Jackson's informative prose and comprehensive knowledge of beer in all its wondrous variety makes this book a must-have for brewers and beer enthusiasts. Its size and beautiful layout designates it as a coffee table book, but you'll want to keep it out for guests who are enthusiastic about the American microbrewery revolution of the past twenty years, or even better for those who "don't like beer" because they've never drunk a good one. This book will make you want to purchase airline tickets to Europe to visit the breweries and towns Jackson writes so lovingly about.

Jackson is no Bob Klein, but no beer writer can be. However, this book is not bad as long as one doesn't expect too much. Hardly the authoritative resource it purports to be and tends to be pretentious.