Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: The Craft, Culture, And Ethos Of Brewing, Portable Documents (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
I heard Charlie Bamforth speak at the PARC Forum a few years ago & found him to be engaging, passionate & witty, so now that I've been getting into craft beer, I enthusiastically sought out this book thinking it would get me up to speed on the subject. What a disappointment. First off, the book is about half body and half footnotes with the latter being gathered in the second half of pages. This is a mere inconvenience when reading an ebook since you can hyperlink back and forth. But with a hard copy, this would be a real pain in the ass. Secondly, Bamforth himself admits in the footnotes that he's not particularly passionate about beer, considering it merely a vocation. The last book I want to read on a given subject is by an author who isn't passionate about it. The result is a disjointed and not particularly of interest to someone who prefers esoteric small-production beers that push the envelope of the brewer's art. Bamforth is a faculty member at UC Davis, who seem to regard beer as they do wine, churning out graduates poised to mass-produce squeaky-clean, safe and consistent fodder for the masses. The final nail in the coffin is that the poor deluded bastard likes his steaks well-done. The main part of this book consisted of 112 pages about beer: the evolution of the business, the elements of high quality beer, psychology of taste, health impacts, and social forces affecting beer drinking. And then there were 65 pages of end notes, some expanding on themes in the main text, and many running off on tangents about anecdotes from the author's life. I read this on a Nook, and was profoundly grateful for the hyperlinks that let me bounce back and forth between the end notes and the main text. But I enjoyed both parts, as well as the shorter appendices detailing the brewing process and different beer styles.
What do You think about Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: The Craft, Culture, And Ethos Of Brewing, Portable Documents (2010)?
More than half of this book was end notes, what the hell? Read on Kindle on my phone at work.
—Pia
this was well written but I was unable to finish - not quite what I was expecting it to be
—celeste
Scritto veramente male. Difficile superare il problema
—ash_savage
