World's Best Beers

1000 Unmissable Brews from Portland to Prague
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The kind folks over at Jacqui Small asked me to have a gander at the new edition of World’s Best Beers: 1000 Unmissable Brews from Portland to Prague. Since Jacqui Small has put out a few books from Pete Brown and Mikkeller, I couldn’t say no. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that JS is a part of the Quarto Group, whose published books from Boak & Bailey and Sam Calagione. So from the get go I’m anticipating this book to be worthwhile.

The Authors
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​The Thinking Drinkers is a duo columnist/comedy group that put out articles in multiple publications, like The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator and The Guardian. Ben McFarland is an awarded beer writer (three time winner of the Best Beer Writer award in Britain) and Tom Sandham was the editor of CLASS, a cocktail magazine, and lectures on spirits for the Wine & Spirits Education Trust.

Alright well the credentials are impressive enough, let’s jump in!

Appearance
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Full disclosure: I’m a sucker for hardback, and this one is rather nice. Plus they have a few of my favorite beers on the cover. Bonus points: having Blind Pig on the cover instead of Pliny the Elder. For those who are unaware, Blind Pig is the predecessor to the White-whale Pliny, and honestly a bit better.

The photography in this book is also quite nice, so even if you’d buy this book for a friend, at least you have the pictures to interest you.

Layout
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After the typical introduction of ‘tired of macro-lager, we discovered craft beer and sought the world over for the best brews’, the book surprisingly has a section dedicated to the history of beer. Thankfully too, they don’t have any misquotes, misconseptions, or false statements. The book offers a good gist of what it’s all about without going into too much detail, so I applaud them for that. 

The book then gives an overview of the basics: ingredients, how the stuff is made, how to properly store it, pour it, and drink it, and the right glassware. They then group styles into families (if I may be allowed to borrow from biological taxonomy). These are: 

• Grains ( porters, stouts, saisons, etc.), 
• Hops (Ambers, IPAs, Pales, etc.), 
• Lager (Bocks, Pilsners, Schwarzbiers, etc.),
• Quench (Altbier, bitters koelschs etc)
• Sippers (Imperial stouts, barley wine, belgians etc.)
• Wild & Wood (Flemish Red, Gose, Gueze, etc)

Using these to categorize how they taste beer, they jump into the meat of this book: the best 1000 beers of the world. 
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Beers
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​I will reserve my judgements only to those countries and regions that I’ve had experience in, as it would be completely unfair for me to review or criticize South African beers, as to my knowledge, I’ve never had one. 

Still, looking into the countries I know (CH, DE, PL, US, UK) I am surprised that it’s all in there. Really. All the major influential beers have a dedicated spot. The well known, and even the rare beers are all highlighted in this book. Flipping through, there are a few where I think a brewery deserved a shout out but that's just a personal choice. What’s most impressive is there are breweries that opened up in 2015/2016 that are in the book. So the list is undoubtedly a great source for anyone looking to travel somewhere for beer.
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Food
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The book ends with a chapter on food pairings. This isn’t my forte, as I drink porters and stouts year round. Chances are, I’m more concentrating on the beer than I am with my food. Still, there is a section on beer and cheese, and beer + cheese always wins.

The Good
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Personally I think this is a great book for those just starting to get into craft beer. Not only does this book list plenty of good beers, but also the beers that started something. It educates on what’s been going on these past years in the world of beer, and why people should pay attention. 

There’s shout outs to craft beer scenes that deserve recognition. I’m totally stoked that the lesser known places who have good beer are on the list. I’ll definitely use this book if I can ever get over to Argentina, Peru, or even Cambodia.

Also, hats off to the style guidelines. For those who aren’t to keen or are too intimidated by the overreaching amount of beer styles out there, I think categorizing beers into what they focus on (so grain, hop, sipping, or quenching) is a great idea. One I hope that gets adopted elsewhere.

The authors rightly acknowledge that had someone else come up with a list, it would look totally different. This attitude highlights that this isn’t supposed to be taken as dogma, but to be used to excite people about beer. There’s a whole world out there, so get drinking!

The Bad
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Ok, I have three major beefs with this book. 

First off, early on they list the top ten beer towns of the world. In a book with recommendations of 1000s beers, this isn’t a simple task. But they chose Portland over San Diego as the West Coast spot, and that I cannot abide by.

In the section of West Coast beers, there are more California breweries listed than Portland, and the two West Coast brewery profiles are Californian. I don’t know why Portland always gets listed above San Diego, but I don’t find it to be deserved. Portland’s beer scene rules, and I’ll always call a black IPA a Cascadian dark ale, but San Diego first and foremost.

Second, Bamberg is on that list. I’ve never been more ‘meh’ about a beer scene. If you’re into cranky Germans who don’t like foreigners though, by all means.

Third, Switzerland. The world seems to like to ignore Switzerland, and in the book’s section about der Schweiz, it references a cuckoo clock. This is a tired old adage which I just don't understand. Cuckoo clocks are German, not Swiss. They then say Appenzell (a town in Eastern Switzerland) is a spot where cows outnumber people 15,000 to 1. I know this is a lighthearted book, but that’s just silly. Most importantly though, of a country that has over 800 active breweries, 36 brewpubs, and 42 gypsy breweries, only featuring six is a bit of a let down.

​I know Switzerland isn’t a major destination, but it deserves more than that. But the profiled brewery of Switzerland, Brauerei Locher, is a surprisingly good traditional brewery. So there’s that, at least.
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Overall
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​This book isn’t for me, or at least I’d be damned surprised if I was the target audience. But I think it would be a great book for those just starting out, or for those who have a mild curiosity about what all this beer stuff is about. There has been some very thorough research into the country profiles, and I am impressed that they were able to get it so right for so many places. Reading the UK list of beers had me wanting to move back, and seeing the Amsterdam list gave me full on vacation flashbacks. 

As the author’s acknowledge in the beginning though, this is all just opinions. My opinion is that it’s worth a buy, so long as you know what you’re going to get: a list of some of the best beers in the world.