Jeff Alworth on The Beer Bible: Second Edition
Portland beer writer Jeff Alworth is back with a new beer book, the second edition of his acclaimed The Beer Bible is now available through Workman Publishing. Billed as the ultimate guide to one of the world’s oldest alcoholic beverages, many people consider it a classic since it’s original published edition in 2015.
In the last six years, a lot has changed. From the continual evolution and dominance of IPA’s and their many iterations, to the explosion of beer tourism and more (less white) cultures embracing small and independent brewing. The Beer Bible 2nd edition aims to be more comprehensive, a reference guide for styles, flavors, stories, laws, landscapes and more of those less talked about aspects that effect beer every single day.
The Beer Bible: Second Edition is the sort of reference book, or nearly all encompassing guide that you can reach for when you have a question about beer, or just want to become an expert yourself. To prep for his new book, we asked Jeff Alworth a few questions about what has changed.
The Beer Bible author Jeff Alworth
Q: How definitive of a tome is the Beer Bible? What does it encompass, and what areas do you leave out of the vast beer world?
Jeff Alworth: I hope it's the most definitive guide in the English language--though of course readers always have the final say. My guiding light was to include any information a general reader might have about beer. No single book can get into the very technical aspects of a topic, but I hoped this would serve newbies as well as professionals looking for the odd forgotten fact. (When did Groll brew the first pilsner? Is wheat ever appropriate in a kolsch? How were historic Dortmund exports made?) The book is arranged in chunks, including a historical overview, a general primer on beer making, ingredients, and flavors. The biggest sections focus on beer styles, and those contain histories of the style, descriptions of the range of beers within it, brewing notes, and the way it's evolving. I also include "Beers to Know," which point readers to classic examples of each style. (That was actually pretty hard since there are so many good ones.) Finally, there's a nice section on travel.
Q: What makes the 2nd edition of the Beer Bible worth buying for someone who already has a copy of the 1st edition?
JA: This is a great question, and one I expected people to ask. I wrote a post on my blog answering it in depth, but briefly, the project was spurred by the changes in IPAs. When I completed the first book in 2013 (the publisher took over two years to publish it) American brewing was in a very different place. The word "hazy," for example, wasn't in circulation. There were still some remnants of that old 80s and 90s first era styles with lots of caramel malt and high bitterness still kicking around as well. I had three chapters dealing with American beer, and the IPA chapter was out of date pretty quickly. I reworked all of that and now have a pretty long chapter addressing the American tradition of hoppy ales.
Some chapters got absorbed into other places as well. Mild and brown ales are now one chapter. Witbier is in the Belgian Ale chapter. I added a longish chapter on sake, one of the world's oldest and most interesting brewing traditions, as well as one on the farmhouse tradition of the Baltics and Scandinavia. (I traveled to Lithuania in preparation for that.) One feature of the book are short chapters that profile a brewery especially associated with a style. So for example, I had Uerige following altbier and Dupont following saison. I swapped a lot of those out for this edition. Traveling to Europe really affected the way I thought about beer, and it all started in the brewhouses of the breweries I profiled. Finally, I added a section on national brewing traditions, which is perhaps the thing I try to emphasize most in the book.
Q: What is the biggest change in the world of beer since you wrote the original?
JA: The way Americans brew hoppy ales. It's actually the biggest story in beer style evolution in 180 years. Not only has it produced hop varieties and beers unlike anything people have ever made/grown before, but it's the first style in a long time that has gone international.
I hope I get a shot at a third edition. If I do, I expect the answer to this question to have a lot more to do with who is making and drinking beer. In one of the most exciting developments in beer, more and more owners and brewers are women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ folks, and they increasingly populate pubs and taprooms. Since beer is a product of culture, this will undoubtedly have profound effects on beer.
Q: Was there anything that you feel like you really missed from the 1st edition that you wanted to include in the 2nd?
JA: Yes, sake. I included it as a subsection in the first edition, but almost immediately I felt bad about that. It's such an ancient and important brewing tradition. It was really fun to research that chapter. Unsurprisingly Oregon and especially Portland are at the center of American interest in sake.
Q: What is the next book in the planning? Could there be a companion book or another spinoff covering a different aspect of beer, or delving deeper into a specific subject in the world of beer?
JA: I actually pitched a book a while back that publishers thought was a bad idea. That wasn't fun! But I have been thinking about working on a book focused on national tradition in brewing and really emphasizing that this is a product of culture--history, events like wars and famines, laws, brewing processes all make beer as different as the helles they drink in Munich and the IPAs we make in Portland. I have a couple other things cooking, but they may not be ripe enough to mention.
BEER BIBLE: SECOND EDITION
by Jeff Alworth
Workman Publishing • September 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5235-1045-0 • $24.95 US