Stephen Beaumont has two loves: beer and writing about it. [I am ignoring his family life here, I realize.] His beer tomes include:
Best Beers: The Indispensable Guide to the World’s Best Beers
The World Atlas of Beer
Stephen Beaumont’s Brewpub Cookbook
The Beer and Food Companion
Pocket Beer Guide
Beerbistro Cookbook
Premium Beer Drinker’s Guide
Some of these he has penned alone, sometime with a partner. For over twenty-five years, he has entertained and educated us. Now comes an exciting new book: Will Travel for Beer, 101 Remarkable Journey Every Beer Lover Should Experience. The book will be on store shelves on May 1, but you can of course pre-order now.
You might just want to do that. Canadian by birth, Stephen has traveled the world. Traveling for beer? In his introduction, Stephen explains why: the joy of discovery, the social engagement, the education you receive by drinking on the spot, and naturally the beer itself.
The beer excursions are divided into four chapters:
- United Kingdom and Ireland [43 pages]
- Continental Europe [63 pages]
- The United States and Canada [also 63 pages, highly diplomatic]
- The Rest of the World [39 pages]
The 101 destinations are not all pubs or breweries. The very first stop he suggests is the Great British Beer Festival held in London. Stephen gives you a strategy for navigating, and imbibing, in an impossibly immense beer landscape. He suggests tasting by region or by style. He warns you that tasting everything is simply beyond human capabilities. If you like beer, or love it, Stephen says you must make this pilgrimage at least once in your lifetime.
His British section includes, of course, The White Horse in London. There is the Beermondsey Beer Mile, actually a two-mile stretch with a half dozen not-to-be-missed pubs. Farther afield, there are recommendations for Manchester, Suffolk, Bristol, Leeds, and many other cities and villages across Britain, Wales, Scotland and Ireland both North and South. If you are touring there, if you have this book in your pocket, you are ever far from British Isles greatness.
For the Continental section, Stephen begins with — what else — a homage to Beirgartens. He notes you need to do some city-by-city research for there are far more of these places than he can describe and they can easily be missed as you walk through an unfamiliar city. You need to slow down, turn your head, and watch for signs of people and beer. Octoberfest, he explains, is about much more than beer: it is a cultural festival. But the beer is still darn good. There are recommendations for Germany, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, Austria, Poland, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, and Iceland. Not all European countries make wine, let along good wine. They all produce wonderful beers and, on your journeys, you surely should take advantage to sample the best of these local beers.
If you are child of the 1950s or 1960s or probably even the 1970s, American beer meant Milwaukee and Colorado. Not any more. Pabst is still around but now surrounded. Microbreweries abound in the US. If you live in any major city, the chances are that some abandoned warehouse, five years ago, now is a hive of activity with millennials placing orders for hops and petitioning the City Council to protect the water supply.
The biggest beer festival in the world? Germany? England? No, Denver, the Great American Beer Festival. The core of the US beer renaissance is the city I grew up in: Portland, Oregon. Stephen calls it Beervana and offers tasting ideas if you are lucky enough to visit there. Beyond Portland, California Wine Country, San Diego, Anchorage, Dallas, Nashville, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Asheville, St. Louis, Chicago, and of course Milwaukee are all mentioned, and suggestions for imbibing are presented. There really is a Kalamazoo and two spots there are recommended: Eccentric Café & General Store and Arcadia Ales. Even the “small” places here have quality for your enjoyment.
Canada has fewer cities, fewer people, fewer breweries and equal quality. There is a suggested bicycle tour of breweries and wineries near Niagara. That’s a journey to make in the summer, not January.
The Rest of the World chapter will convince you that beer is quite the universal beverage. Ideas sprout from Brazil, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Chile [Terra del Fuego no less!], Japan, China, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Who in their right mind would go into a Japanese restaurant and order Coors when you enjoy that slightly accented Japanese brand. Around the world, the chemistry and brewing arts in each nation have been tuned to match the foods of the land. The herbs and spices, the particular chili peppers common to the dishes, have over the centuries impacted the recipes followed by brewers. Using Stephen’s guide, you can find the very best of those carefully crafted, if not tuned, beverages.
I don’t suppose I’ll get to all 101 destinations in Will Travel for Beer. But, I’m inspired to try more than a few. There is lovely picture in the book of a harbor filled with fishing and cargo ships. Beyond the harbor, a massive, snow-covered triangle of a mountain soars thousands of feet up. It’s Chile, Terra del Fuego, and I think the terroir of that water must be spectacular. Someday, perhaps, someday.
And in the meantime, Stephen has told me about a half dozen places to go right here in New York City. I’m off.