The Economics of Beer

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on May 29th, 2013

We all know that craft beer has been growing for years now. The number of breweries and the overall sales of craft beer continues to climb year after year. It’s fascinating to read about but some of us might be looking for more. For those that are looking for really in-depth reading about the beer sales, The Economics Of Beer may be the thing.

The Economics Of Beer is a collection of papers presented at the first annual Beeronomics conference. Papers cover a range of topics about the economies. While the information presented is very informative in many ways, its incredibly dry. This isn’t something for the average craft beer fan or even the dedicated ones but more likely someone working in the beer industry. To be honest, I tried to read each of the essays but wasn’t able to finish any of them as they were just so dry and uninteresting that I moved on to the next only to find myself at the end of the book. Like I said, not a book for most beer fans or even very dedicated ones.

While not for most beer fans, The Economics Of Beer is an informative collection of papers that those working in the beer industry may be interested to read. It presents an in-depth look at the industry and the sales of our favorite beverage. Grab a copy of The Economics Of Beer here on Amazon.

The Great American Ale Trail

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on May 15th, 2013

Seems most craft beer drinkers find themselves wanting to visit breweries where their favorite brews are made. Every trip for every reason seems to see the addition of researching and visiting any brewery or brewpub in the area or along the way. When looking for spots to checkout, there are many resources to look into. Beer sites with reviews and blogs. Those looking for a bit more complete guide should check out The Great American Ale Trail.

The Great American Ale Trail is a guide to brewers, brewpubs, and beer bars across the United States. It features everything from the big name breweries with distribution across much of the US to the small family run operations with brew only available in their small breweries. It features hundreds of entries and is packed with information that should help in planning your next trip. The book includes top ten lists like Best Beer Festivals, Best Beer Cities, and Best Dive Bars for Craft Beer Lovers.

Exploring new spots and enjoying great brews not available back home is part of the fun of the craft beer culture. For those looking to plan their next beer travel stops, The Great American Ale Trail is a great reference to see what is out there and where you may want to stop. Pickup your copy of The Great American Ale Trail right here on Amazon.

Teachings From the Tap: Life Lessons From Our Year in Beer

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on May 10th, 2013

For most that get into craft beer, at some point we have the urge to find out how and where it’s all made.  We visit our favorite local breweries and take a tour.  They show us the brewing process and tell us the history of their brand.  It’s a great educational experience and it brings us closer to our favorite brews.  When we travel we also find ourselves looking for breweries and brewpubs along the way to visit.  Places serving beers we can’t get back home or breweries making our favorite beers.  Beer travel has become a common hobby for many craft beer fans.  With so many breweries in this fine country, it’s become hard to sometimes plan where we should go when we travel.  There are a number of books out there to inform us about great beer locations around the US and Teachings From The Tap: Live Lessons From Our Year In Beer is another collection of information from travels compiled by a craft beer drinker.

While many beer books focus on specific countries or regions, Teachings From The Tap is a collection of travels all over the US, Canada, Western Europe, and Australia.  It gives a wide range of information about a very wide range of breweries and beer spots all over the place. This makes for an interesting enough read but makes it much less useful for someone planning their travels in a specific area and makes things a bit all over the place.  The book was self-published where a book put out through a normal publishing agency may have had an agent that would have helped the author focus more and keep things together a bit better.

The information presented in Teachings From The Tap paints a great picture of beer culture and the wonderful breweries all over.  Those looking to plan their own beer travels may want to check it out as it may aid them on their way.  If you haven’t done any beer traveling, now is the time to pick a destination and start looking for places to visit along the way.  Buy a copy of Teachings From the Tap: Life Lessons From Our Year in Beer here on Amazon.

Craft Beer World By Mark Dredge

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on May 1st, 2013

Anyone that has been in the craft beer world for a while knows about beer reviews and the many beer review sites.  Most of us have likely written a review or 2000.  Writing notes about our beers helps us to break them down and really focus on what they’re all about and what we enjoy about them.  We find flavors we may not have noticed before and aromas we really like.  Reviews are a great way to educate those that are new to craft brew and good for expanding the knowledge of those more seasoned veterans of the drink.  Sometimes we find reading others reviews helpful in finding new and interesting brews that we would like to enjoy ourselves.  Beer judge Mark Drudge has written about over 350 of some of the best beers in the world in his book Craft Beer World.

Craft Beer World takes more than 350 beers and breaks them down into 50 categories then breaks down each of those brews.  These reviews aren’t just some amateur stuff on some internet site.  This author really knowns his stuff.  His writings have been good enough to earn him British Guild of Beer Writers awards in 2009, 2010, and 2011.  It’s a nice reference for those that are new to craft beer, looking to explore new beers and find out a bit more about them before they run out and start buying a bunch of beer that may not be exactly what they’d been looking for.  While it’s awesome to try new things and explore new flavors, sometimes people want to know what they’re getting ahead of time.  This book helps the reader do just that.

Exploring the world of craftbeer is an fun filled journey.  While many of us like to jump right in and form our own opinions by trying everything we can get our hands on, some like to know a bit more about what they’re getting into.  This book is a great read for those who look to know more about what they’re jumping into but also for those that are looking to learn a bit more about many of the great beers out there.  This read will leave neither party disappointed.  Buy Craft Beer World by Mark Dredge here on Amazon now.

Fundamentals of Beer Brewing Illustrated

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on March 20th, 2013

For many craft beer fans, the natural next step once they’ve come to love craft beer, is to brew their own beer. Homebrewing is a hobby shared by many beer lover and one anyone can do (unless you live in one of the 2 states where homebrewing still hasn’t been legalized). The question for many is how they get started. Fundamentals Of Beer Brewing Illustrated offers a nice guide to getting into homebrewing.

Reading through Fundamentals Of Beer Brewing Illustrated, you first find a nice little history of beer and brewing. It’s quick and simple but offers some interesting facts about how our preferred beverage came to be and grew around the world. After that short history, we jump right into how to homebrew. The guide is pretty basic with some decent pictures showing the steps involved in making your own brew. Things don’t get overly detailed as they do in many homebrew books but they do a good job of covering most of the basics. Using the information provided, one will be able to brew up their first batch of brew with little problems.

While Fundamentals Of Beer Brewing Illustrated doesn’t offer the detail and all the best techniques that books like The Complete Joy Of Homebrewing and others may have, it covers everyone one needs to get started and figure out if they’re interested in continuing to homebrew. At it’s low price, it a nice guide to getting started. Grab your copy of Fundamentals Of Beer Brewing Illustrated for the Kindle here on Amazon.

The Prince Of Beers

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on January 30th, 2013

The story of the Busch family and the rise and fall of the Anheuser-Busch brewery is an interesting one. Covered in great detail in both Dethroning The King and Bitter Brew, this story is one that many know parts of but the personal details are less public than simply the stories of the sale of the US’ largest brewer to the international buyer InBev. While Dethroning The King and Bitter Brew focus on the whole story of both the Anheuser-Busch brewery and the family behind the icon, The Prince Of Beers is a picture of what happened to August Busch IV after the sale of his family’s brewery and his role as CEO of the company at the time.

The Fourth never had a chance. He was only in the CEO seat for a short time and it seems every move he tried to make was blocked by his father who still resided on Budweiser’s board after his retirement from the CEO spot. The Prince of Beers looks at what happened to The Fourth after the sale of the company and the fall into nothingness from one of the best known icons in the country. This book is short and lacks the detail found in other books on the Busch family but being published more recently than the others, it shows where things have ended up now, years after the companies sale. A man that most believe has gotten away with 2 murders in his lifetime and had plenty of free passes thanks to a family fortune has been left with little to live for.

While those looking for a history focusing more on the company itself will enjoy Dethroning The King and those looking for a history of the company with more focus on the family will find Bitter Brew a good choice, anyone looking for a quick tale of how this once mighty family has fallen should checkout The Prince Of Beers. Many of the details found in this read aren’t present in the other two books although those details are ones that came along after the publishing of both of the other books. For it’s small cost, this book offers an interesting look at where The Fourth is now and what happened after the hostile takeover of Anheuser-Busch. Buy The Prince Of Beers now, here on Amazon (free for Amazon Prime members).

A Brewer’s Guide to Opening a Nano Brewery

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on October 12th, 2012

We all enjoy craft beer and many of us homebrew but how many of us have really thought about starting their own brewery?  OK a lot of us but what about those that are looking to go beyond just the thought and actually looking to make it happen?  Figuring out where to start is always challenging.  Thats why Dan Woodske of Beaver Brewing Company has written A Brewer’s Guide To Opening A Nano Brewery.  This book covers the basics of opening your own nano brewery and should help point you in a good starting direction to get your brewery dreams off the ground and started on your way to becoming the next Sierra Nevada or Sam Adams (you gotta dream big right?).

To start, this book is a barebones bare-minimum manual for what it might take to start your own brewery.  It’s a fairly short read at just 102 pages and while it does cover many of the important topics, it does not cover any of them in enough depth that one could take just the information presented and open their own successful operation.  Each section is fairly small, making up a couple pages at the most.  Someone interested in starting their own brewery will want to research much more on each of the topics covered as there is a lot more to things than what is covered in the few pages dedicated to each topic here.

This book covers the topics of starting a nano brewery from the business side.  It does not talk at all about how to brew. Right away the author makes it known that this isn’t a book on brewing and if that’s what you’re looking for, pickup another book first. One should know how to brew before starting a brewery (although as he also mentions, he has met a number of people looking to open their own brewery that have zero experience brewing).

The section on finance is really lacking. It basically says sell your stuff and take out a 2nd mortgage on your house in addition to hitting up family for money but thats the only way to get money. Getting a bank loan isn’t an option in the author’s mind. While that may be true for some, if you’ve raised enough money to fund a good part of things, a bank will give you a loan to fund anything as long as the terms are safe in their favor.  A number of people I know have recently gotten bank loans for their microbrewer startups so it is doable.  There are also plenty of spelling and punctuation errors that make things hard to read and understand at times. A simple proof reading would have helped greatly.  Some items are presented as fact with the author telling the reader that they must do this or must not do that. In some cases they may have been something he chose not to do with his own brewery but work very well for other brewers.  Don’t take everything written as gospel as this is just one nano brewers experiences and opinions.

Before brewing you’ll want to read much more than just this short book. Books like Beer School by Brooklyn Brewery founders Steve Hindy and Tom Potter offer a much more detailed view of many of the things involved with starting your own brewery. Even with this book and that, you’ll need much more information from sources like brewery owners, business owners, ProBrewer.com and many others to get a much better picture of what will be required to succeed in opening your own spot.

Overall this book gives a good overview of what it might take to get your brewery dreams off the ground.  It’s not a one stop guide to starting your own operation but it does offer plenty of good advise and is a good place to start if you’re thinking about going into the beer business on your own.  Grab your copy of A Brewer’s Guide to Opening a Nano Brewery here on Amazon.  Kindle users can also download a free copy of the book here.

Dethroning The King: The Hostile Takeover Of Anheuser-Busch

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on November 15th, 2011

Think you know the story of how the InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch happened?  Chances are, you don’t know the half of it.  In a super detailed account of the entire event with lots of insider commentary, learn what really went down on both sides in the largest all-cash acquisition in history and the last giant merger inked before the global financial markets imploded.

The level of detail in this book is amazing.  Through countless interviews with executives, board members and others at both Anheuser-Busch and InBev, you feel like you’re there working to ward off the largest brewery acquisition in history.  You get a very detailed view of how things were run inside.  Interesting items like:

• The Air Bud fleet of Dassault Falcon corporate jets meant that even the wives of strategy committee members hadn’t flown commercial for years and was managed by a team of 20 pilots plus mechanics and others to keep their private hanger at Spirit Of St. Louis Airport running.
• August III enjoyed making hop teas at brewery meetings.
• August III preferred to fly his helicopter to work each morning from his farm in St. Peters, 40 miles east of St. Louis.  He had a phobia of elevators and flying to the office meant he only had to come down one flight of stairs instead of taking the elevator up from the ground level.

While at times the amount of information given about each blow in the bid of AB can be a bit much, it doesn’t leave anything out.  The business that went on behind the scenes, out of the media spotlight on the merger is really captured for the reader and makes for a much more interesting read than that which we saw play out on the news.  Grab your own copy of Dethroning the King: The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon, here.

Beer: A Genuine Collection of Cans

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on August 17th, 2011

This is a pretty cool book.  The co-authors found a collection of vintage beer cans in one of their step-father’s basement in the midwest.  All 500 or so pictures in the book are shot against a white background making focusing on the cans themselves easy.  Each can has the brewery and time period listed below it along with some extra information for many of them.  It’s interesting to see the design and advertising of our great beverage over the years.  Seems cans of yesterday were much cooler looking than many of them we have today although the craft beer cans have been well done.  You can buy the book Beer: A Genuine Collection of Cans, here on Amazon.