THE SESSION #115— BEER BLOGGING FRIDAY
The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry.
Date: September 2, 2016
Host: Joan Villar-i-Martí at Birraire Blog
Topic: The Role of Beer Books
The Beer Geek Handbook
The Beer Geek Handbook: Living a Life Ruled By Beer. This was a book with many great gems if you whether you are already a full-fledged beer geek or someone just getting started on that path. Wherever you are on the path of beer geekdom, this is a fun and clever road map. It is full of pithy life lessons, beery vocabulary, and warnings of pitfalls that anyone who chooses to walk this path will benefit from.
I first discovered Patrick Dawson from my desire to learn more about aging beer. His book Vintage Beer: A Taster's Guide to Brews That Improve Over Time is highly rated on Amazon and I've purchased the paperback as well as the digital versions. I then discovered from engaging him personally that his second book would be released later in the year, so I preordered it.
Six Chapters
Without going into the details of the book, I offer a glimpse inside. Here are the six chapters:
- Beer Geeks: An Introduction
- Beer: The Root of All Beer Geekery
- Breweries: The Exclusive Club
- Procurement: The Beer and Other Geeky Goods
- Drinking: Where & How
- The Beercation: Seeking the Source
“It is for this sole reason that the beer guy must be befriended, because after all, he holds the key to the elusive beery castle.”
As I was reading through the book, I couldn't help but place myself somewhere on the beer geek continuum—how do I rank? As I think you will find, on some subjects I think I would rank well, on some others I have some ways to go. One of the things the book did help me with was to answer some of the questions I've had (like all of us) but were afraid to ask. I mean, no one wants to expose himself/herself as not knowing something that you secretly think everyone else knows. Here was one of my favorite parts of the book, the beer guy.
Liquor Stores and Beer Guys — In this chapter, Patrick goes into his explanation of the various types of guys you may encounter when you visit a beer shop. I read this section with special attention because for the past eight years, that has been me. I have my own opinions of the "beer guy" from both sides of the counter. Its funny because I used that term to describe myself before reading this book. It just seems to fit. According to the author, here are five things every good "beer guy" should know:
- Anything and everything about every beer on the shelves
- New breweries arriving on the scene
- What the upcoming limited releases are
- How many cases of each offering are coming in
- How quickly a particular beer will sell
Summary
This is a fun and engaging read. I took my time, first reading through some of what I thought would be the most interesting sections, then going back from the beginning taking it all in. Sometimes I would laugh out loud, then others scream about something I would disagree with. Anyway, if you are a beer geek, you'll find the book enjoyable. If you are just wondering into the beer geek world, then it is a must read. Hey, you're likely to save yourself from some beer brotherhood/sisterhood embarrassment and you may even win friends and influence people with your new found beer knowledge.
