Okay, here’s one: you’re on a deserted island and can only have five beers with you. What would they be? A book coming out may do little more than frustrate you with your choices, but it also could be a helpful reference: 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die by Adrian Tierney-Jones
We can’t decide if the title is urging you to try all these beers while you’ve got the time or assuring you that you won’t die until you’ve tried them all. (“Well, Zatec Xantho was number 1001, so…goodnight folks.”) Regardless, the book is an astounding collection of beers from all over the world. Each entry has similar aspects, presenting the name of the beer, the brewery, and (very helpful) the brewery’s website. It then moves into the country of origin, when the beer was first brewed, what its abv is, and the proper serving temperature. Most entries have, if not a full shot of the bottle and the beer in its appropriate glassware, at least an image of the label.
This is where the beer porn aspect of the book comes in. Just perusing the individual entries will make you salivate, but then there’s the other images: old photos from the Okocim brewery, a tower of Castle Lager packs from South Africa, barley on the vine, vintage Carlsberg label art.
More beers after the jump!
The text of the entries with each beer isn’t uniform, as may be expected when there is a team of over forty beer-experts writing, but the ones we read were fascinating. For example, the text for Arrogant Bastard Ale tells the story of the mistake that brought the beer into existence at Stone Brewery. Beerlao’s entry explains the origins of its unique taste (rice, of course). The history of the berliner beer style is illuminated in the Berliner Kindl Weisse section.
The organization of the book was a bit difficult to maneuver. It’s divided by style of beer: amber, blond, white, dark, specialty (you may or may not agree with their definitions of these styles, explained in the introduction). Then it’s alphabetized by beer name within those sections. If you want to find all the beers from a particular brewery you have to use a brewery glossary in the back.
That aside, the book presents interesting little portraits of some of the world’s most historied, famous, and best tasting beers. It’s a great gift for your favorite beer lover or for yourself to peruse with your favorite brew in hand.
1001 Beers will be available in bookstores March 23.
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