Looking For a Good Book

Well OF COURSE I’m going to want to look at this book!  “Beer wench.”  “Beer.”  What’s not appealing about this?

I enjoy a good beer, but I am not by any means a beer snob.  However, I know people who are.  In fact, I will sometimes have a beer with beer snobs.  So my reading this book is entirely out of selfish desire to be able to talk intelligently with my beer-snob friends.  And what I like so much about this book is that it is precisely what it says it is, including the sub-title “An Unpretentious Guide to Craft Beer.”

This book provides a VERY detailed look at a wide variety of beers and beer types.  And what’s more, it provides a great reference as to what the types of beer are right away in chapter one: “Breaking Down Beer Styles.”  Then the book goes in to more detail enlightening the reader on “The Lightest of Light” and “The Darker Side of Light” to “The IPA and Its Emerging Subcategories” and so on.

I was very happy to understand what it is about the beers that I tend to like as opposed to those that some of my friends tend to prefer.  We do have different tastes, but I like that the Beer Wench doesn’t demean any of the types of beer but finds positive aspects about them all.

After this nice description of the different types of beer, the next section of the book looks at the process of brewing and the ingredients in beers, and then how to evaluate beers.

This would be enough for most books, but the Beer Wench goes further and includes a section on pairing the different beers with different foods.  (She’s also given suggestions all along on what to substitute the different beers for – “drink instead of dry red wine” or “drink instead of scotch whiskey.”)

This book feels very thorough and I’ve created a wonderful list of beers that I want to look for and test.  This book is packed full of information but is also very easy to read (and I’ve already purchased a copy to give as a gift).

Looking for a good book? Clink glasses and call out “Cheers!” because The Beer Wench’s Guide to Beer by Ashley Routson is an all-around winner.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

* * * * * *

The Beer Wench’s Guide to Beer: An Unpretentious Guide to Craft Beer

author: Ashley V. Routson

publisher: Voyageur Press

ISBN: 0760347301

paperback, 256 pages