Gift-Giving Season
The Beer Bible features cool graphics. They look better in your hand!
‘Tis the season, and I would be remiss if I didn’t encourage you to give the gift of words. Good, old-fashioned books make a handsome gift—tactile and immersive, a weight as they rest in your hands. Given all the effort it takes to produce a single volume, they’re a steal as well. And they fit as well under trees as in your roomier gift stockings.
I still have a modest stash of most of my books, including The Beer Bible, second edition (I think I even have first edition copies, for the completists out there). Please peruse my titles. Not only do your dollars buy a beautiful volume, they support a lowly writer’s work. If you act fast and have a Venmo account, I am even happy to sign a copy and send it your way ($25 + $10 shipping). Email, DM, or contact me via telepathy to make the arrangements.
If you’re not a big reader, consider buying an attractive objet d’art for your home such as this wonderful two-color, hand-printed beer glass poster, a brand new offering for 2023 from Dave Selden and 33 Books (with a collab assist by me). I wrote about his fascinating process here. It’s a mere thirty bucks, or if you want an especially swanky version that is framed in the staves of old barrel, $125. Buy your copy here—and while you’re on the site, have a look around for other gift opportunities.
I don’t mean to be overly greedy or solipsistic here. There are many wonderful books out there by fantastic writers. Two I’d strongly recommend from the past year:
Ted Mack and America’s First Black-owned Brewery. English professor Clint Lanier does a masterful job of using Mack’s remarkable story to reflect on race in America—in beer, in business, and in society. It’s a lot more than a beer book or brewery biography. $39.95 at Amazon.
Bavarian Brewing in the 19th Century: A Reference Guide. Our roving historian Andreas Krennmair details the brewing and malting methods of Bavaria in the century that little lager-brewing backwater became the center of the beer world. I have ordered but not yet red the book—but I can vouch for Andreas’ impeccable research. This is going to be a good one. $13.99 on Amazon.
I’m also trying to figure out how to track down copies in America of Des de Moor’s Cask and David Jesudason’s Desi Pubs. The later I’m more familiar with because of David’s Substack—but both look fantastic for those of you who can buy these in the U.K.
Those are, of course, just the books from this year. We have had an incredible wealth of exception beery literature of late, so don’t feel bound by a recency bias. But if you want to make an old blogger happy, go buy some book and support your local writer. Whomever receives it will be so happy you did.