A Man Walks Into a Pub...

[mmmBeer...]

...A Sociable History of Beer

Has anyone else read this book? I got it for Christmas and am really enjoying it! I have only read about 30 pages, but so far it has been both informative and funny! I would highly recommend it to anyone.

The author is Pete Brown.

[steveh]

Couldn't find it on Amazon and they usually list any book published, out of print or not. Any suggestions?

S.

[guzzler67]

Do not have the book - yet. But there is a good review of it in the Dec/Jan 94 edition of the Mid Atlantic Brewing News. Publisher is Macmillan.

[guzzler67]

That's the 04 edition not the 94. Sorry.

[mmmBeer...]

It seems that it is not available in the US yet...I have the latest edition (updated this year). However Chapters website states that the new edition is not available yet...very confusing!

I looked at the back of the book and it lists a Canadian price and a British price...but no US price.

[Martyartie]

Pete's book is very good on the current state of the brewing and beer/pub scene in the UK, he makes some excellent points, and he is an amusing and entertaining writer. However, if you want a book on the history of brewing, Beer: The Story of the Pint published in the UK in August last year (but also not yet available in the US) by Martyn Cornell, who won the British Beer Writer of the Year award in December, is much better.

But then, I would say that - for I am the author ...

[mmmBeer...]

I am about half way through it, and really enjoying the mixture of humour with history. I like his conversational writing approach.

Martyn, it looks like your book is available in Canada…I might just have to pick it up after I finish this one :)

[Martyartie]

If you do get hold of my book, you'll find Pete and I disagree (sometimes widely) on quite a lot of the history of beer ... but as the botanist D Gay Wilson wrote in 1975 in an article on the history of hops, "Beer is a popular subject, and the literature abounds in unsupported statements, misleading or inaccurate quotations and inaccurate references." Funnily enough, I met Pete a couple of years back at a conference on the UK pub trade, and we had a long chat about beer, without either of us realising that we were both in the middle of writing a book on the same topic.

[chazwicke]

Welcome to the board. I am certain we will call on your expertise many times here. When your book is available here we will probably need autographed copies. :)