The Oxford Companion to Beer

Posted on 17. Oct, 2011 by Robert Gale in Books

There is no shortage of books about beer from books that rate beers, books that review pubs and books that provide a history of beer or brewing. There have also been a handful of encyclopedias but none have even come close to matching the quality of this book.

The Oxford Companion to Beer is a truly groundbreaking book and is the result of many years hard work. Consisting entirely of original content, it features the contributions of over 160 of the finest beer writers, brewers and industry specialists from a dozen countries around the world.

Edited by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver, who also contributed articles on craft brewing, chocolate and glassware, the book features a detailed entry on IPA by Pete Brown, everything you could want to know about drinking vessels by Tim Hampson and Charles M. Bamforth reveals a rather large amount of information about foam!

With a total of 1100+ entries over almost 1000 pages, practically everything you could ever want to know about beer, ingredients, the brewing process and more is contained within the book. Many of the entries are many thousands of words long and some subjects have never been covered in such detail before.

The list below outlines the main subjects featured in the book.

A selection of breweries from around the world
Profiles of all Trappist breweries
Every beer style imaginable
Descriptions of important regions and countries
Information about the world’s mot popular beer festivals
Biographies
Information about how different foods can be used in the brewing process
The characteristics of beer
Descriptions of all brewing equipment
How beer is brewed (entries on each individual process)
Very detailed information about chemistry, measurement, bacteria and viruses.
Everything you would ever need to know about hops, hop varieties and hop regions.

This book is perfect for everyone with an interest in beer, whether you simply like drinking beer, brewing beer or if you think you know everything there is to know about beer. It’s perfect for both looking up something specific or simply opening and reading a random entry.

Purchase the Book

The book is published by the Oxford University Press on October 27th, 2011 and the RRP is £35. However, you can save around 40% by purchasing on Amazon.

Robert Gale (Twitter: @awv)

Beer Taster, Pub Attendee, Photo Taker

Robert Gale likes beer, pubs and beer festivals. He also likes to take photos of beer, pubs and beer festivals. Most weekends of the year you can find him travelling around the UK (and sometimes beyond) photographing and reviewing good quality pubs and beer festivals. He also has a day job in the form of a web developer for Ozum.