Cioletti - Beer FAQ: All Thats Left to Know About The Worlds Most Celebrated Adult Beverage

Copyright 2016 by Jeff Cioletti

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2016 by Backbeat Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

All images are from the auathors collection unless otherwise noted.

The FAQ series was conceived by Robert Rodriguez and developed with Stuart Shea.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Snow Creative

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cioletti, Jeff, author.

Title: Beer FAQ : all thats left to know about the worlds most popular adult beverage / Jeff Cioletti.

Description: Milwaukee, WI : Backbeat, an imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016013887 | ISBN 9781617136115 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: BeerMiscellanea.

Classification: LCC TP577 .C526 2016 | DDC 641.2/3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016013887

www.backbeatbooks.com

To my wife, Craige,
wholl always be my No. 1 drinking buddy

Contents

A few years back, I watched Jeff Cioletti cut a line of people to jump on the back of a mechanical bull. We were standing in the parking lot of the Karl Strauss Brewing Co. in San Diego after a long day of touring breweries and attending seminars as part of the annual Craft Brewers Conference.

Im not saying beer was involved in his decision to get on the robotic beast, but in that moment I gained even more admiration for the man. You see, Jeff is a serious guy. Hes a journalist. He cares about facts and getting the story right. He sweats the small details along with the big. Hes a drinker who carefully examines every glass put in front of him and after a long career can offer accurate feedback to a brewer and helpful advice to a fellow drinker.

Jeff has traveled the world on a mission to uncover stories, to ask questions, and to chronicle one of the planets most fascinating industries. What you hold now in your hand is his hard work and expert opinion.

Now, youve likely walked into a bar or bottle shop recently to check out the beer selection. It can be a daunting scene of color and styles and alphabet soup like IPA, ESB, IBU, ABV. Unless youve had a beer before, theres no telling what youll get when you plunk down your hard-earned coin and bring a bottle home; its rolling the dice.

The same might be true for when youre out at a restaurant and want to find the right beer to pair with dinner. Or when your social media feed is full of options for beer festivals both local and far flung, and you dont know which one or more to visit.

The beer world is full of questions, and Jeff is here to answer them. And in a time where the geeks have the loudest voice and increasingly, disappointingly look down on those just discovering the worlds most popular beverage, having a thoughtful, intelligent, and yes, fun-loving journalist as your guide is a great thing.

Contained in the pages to come is all you need to be a better drinker (aside from an actual beer, so nows a good time to go get one). From the processes to the silly bits, to food, fun, and the people themselves, Jeff has brought us all with him to the front of the line, and now its time to strap in.

John Holl, editor of All About Beer Magazine

Though Ive evolved into more of a cross-drinker these days, beer will always be my first love. The process of writing this book has been akin to drafting a long-form love letter to this majestic beverage. And such an undertaking would not have been possible without the support and contributions of so many individuals.

First off, Id like to thank my editor, Marybeth Keating, and the entire team at Hal Leonard for entrusting me with this massive project. Additionally, Id like to give a hearty prost! to my agent, John Willig, who continues to help keep me sane throughout the insanity that is book publishing.

And speaking of Johns, a hearty slainte! to my friend, trusted advisor, and frequent writing-work-giver, John Holl. His position at the forefront of beer experts is well-earned. I include the rest of the All About Beer gang in that toast as wellespecially Chris Rice, Jon Page, Daniel Hartis, Ken Weaver, and last but certainly not least, Daniel Bradford. Cheers to another one of the editors who continues to graciously allow my byline to appear in her magazine, Erika Rietz of Draft Magazine, as well as Drafts beer editor, Kate Bernot. It all comes full circle as those same publications appear quite frequently in my bibliography.

There are so many with whom Ive crossed paths over the years who must be acknowledged. Those include, but are definitely not limited to, Brewers Association folk like Julia Herz, Charlie Papazian, Paul Gatza, Andy Sparhawk, Bob Pease, Nancy Johnson, and Barbara Fusco; the National Beer Wholesalers Associations Craig Purser, Rebecca Spicer, Kathleen Joyce, David Christman, Lester Jones, and Paul Pisano; and craft brewing icons like Jim Koch, Ken Grossman, Steve Hindy, Garrett Oliver, Gary Fish, Sam Calagione, Greg Koch, Kim Jordan, Dale Katechis, Irene Firmat, Jamie Emmerson, Jeremy Cowan, Augie Carton, Brock Wagner, Brett Joyce, and the late, truly great Jack Joyce.

And there have been so many people with whom Ive shared a pint over the years: industry friends, fellow writers and editors, and generally folks with a similar passion for this frothy beverage (many with even more so): John Kleinchester, Natasha Bahrs, Don Tse, Chris OLeary, Clare Goggin Sivits, Adam Sivits, Christopher Shepard, Brian Yaeger, Jeff Alworth, Jay R. Brooks, Ruth Berman, Mary Izett, Chris Cuzme, Lisa Zimmer, Larry Bennett, Allison Capozza, Sarah and Giancarlo Annese, Josh Bernstein, Karen Auerbach, Jeff and Joanna Bauman, and Jim and Lisa Flynn. Im probably absentmindedly leaving a few people out, but please know it wasnt intentional!

Finally, I want to give a shout-out to the best bar-crawling companion in the world, my wife, Craige Moore. Its fitting that our shared beer journey essentially started the same freezing weekend in Montreal when I proposed to you back in 2003. We fell in love with La Fin du Monde at a tiny (now defunct) TinTin-themed bar in the Vieux Port. It may have been called La Fin but it was really Le dbut of an amazing adventure together, in beer and in life.

Introduction:
Sit Down, Stay a While, and Have a Beer

There has never been, in the history of the world, a better time to drink a beer. That may seem a little too absolutist, not to mention hyperbolic, but its 100 percent true. There has never been a single point throughout earths existence when there was as much consumer choice as there is at this very moment.

If one were to make such a statement forty years ago, that person would have been laughed right out of the room. The number of American producers had sunk to the mere double digits. And as for the ones that were still producing, they all were pretty much making the same beer: pale, fizzy, industrial lager that was not only light in color but doubly light in flavor. To be sure, the handful that remained were doing quite well, having put small, regional brewers out of business or having absorbed them into their own snowballing operations. The big got bigger and the small... well, they just vanished.