Melissa Cole - The Little Book of Craft Beer: A Guide to Over 100 of the Worlds Finest Brews

But the wayinnovation in the beer world has gone means that some fabulous breweries rarely,if ever in the case of some of those mentioned, repeat their beers.This makes it impossible to write an accessible book, send it for editing, then toprint, and then six months later have anyone find the beer Im talking about! Itsnot that I dont love what these yeast-wrangling maniacs are doing, I do, its justthey live in a different and rarefied atmosphere from the one Im sharing here.All I hoped to do was create a great gateway guide, something that includes beersthat you may have to seek out and ones that you will increasingly see on the shelvesof your local stores as they catch on to the global zeitgeist that is craft beer.Beyond the drinking side, Im also a passionate advocate of beer and food pairingand cooking with beer, which Ive been doing seriously for about eight years now.My philosophy about cooking with beer is that I dont use a beer just because; ithas to lend something to the dish. It has to earn its keep. I dont subscribe to just using beer because your recipe needs a liquid. I wouldrather drink it and appreciate it than dump it in a pot for no good reason, whichis why each section has its own specific, simple recipe.Ive also, just for fun, included a cocktail for most sections, which can be a greatway of getting friends into beer who might not necessarily try it, or to use a secondbottle of beer that you didnt really care for by itself, or just because youvehad a crappy day at the office and feel like dancing around in your pyjamas withsomething a bit fancy.All of these are perfectly valid reasons to gussy up your brew. So whether, asaresult of reading this book, you just try a different lager, hoover more hops thanyou ever have done before, single out the sours or just embrace your dark side, Illbe thrilled. Oh, and be sure to come and find me on to let me know howyour journey is going. No, Im not sure what really is or isnt craft beer.

All Im going to say is thatafter 12 years of writing about beer, 10 years of judging it internationally and9 years of occasional brewing, Id like to think I know a quality brew when I tasteit, regardless of ownership, and I would never, ever mislead others into trying somethingI didnt personally rate. I take beer very seriously, so you dont have to (plusI have that being raised a Catholic guilt thing too!) The soul of any beer is its raw ingredients and every single one has a vital partto play.In todays hop-obsessed beer market, you could be forgiven for thinking that nothingelse matters, but just as its often the unsung ingredient, like perfect seasoning,that makes all the difference to a fantastic plate of food, so it is with beers.Brews that are carefully constructed for all the ingredients to work in harmony areoften the best; its a bit like a great band: just because one member will occasionallystep forward for a solo doesnt mean the rest of the band isnt still there backingthem up! GRAINS The structure on which every beer stands is its malt base, but what is malt exactly?To put it really simply, its a grain, normally barley, thats been fooled into thinkingits springtime to start germination, and then stopped in its tracks by a carefuldrying and toasting process.The level to which you toast the grains in the malting process gives you not onlylots of accessible starches and active enzymes in the grains the latter of whichwill convert the starches into sugars for the yeast to munch on and produce alcohol but also accounts for colour and flavour in your beer.