1st Place Winner of the 2012 Gourmand Award for Best in the World in the Beer category.

For millennia, beer has been a favorite beverage in cultures across the globe. After water and tea, it is the most popular drink in the world, and it is at the center of a $450 billion industry.

The first major reference work to investigate the history and vast scope of beer, The Oxford Companion to Beer features more than 1,100 A-Z entries written by 166 of the world's most prominent beer experts. Attractively illustrated with over 140 images, the book covers everything from the agricultural makeup of various beers to the technical elements of the brewing process, local effects of brewing on regions around the world, and the social and political implications of sharing a beer. Entries not only define terms such as "dry hopping" and "cask conditioning" but give fascinating details about how these and other techniques affect a beer's taste, texture, and popularity. Cultural entries shed light on such topics as pub games, food pairings and the development of beer styles. Readers will enjoy vivid accounts of how our drinking traditions have changed throughout history, and how these traditions vary in different parts of the world, from Japan to Mexico, New Zealand, and Brazil, among many other countries. The pioneers of beer-making are the subjects of biographical entries, and the legacies these pioneers have left behind, in the form of the world's most popular beers and breweries, are recurrent themes throughout the book.

Packed with information, this comprehensive resource also includes thorough appendices (covering beer festivals, beer magazines, and more), conversion tables, and an index. Featuring a foreword by Tom Colicchio, this book is the perfect shelf-mate to Oxford's renowned Companion to Wine and an absolutely indispensable volume for everyone who loves beer as well as all beverage professionals, including home brewers, restaurateurs, journalists, cooking school instructors, beer importers, distributors, and retailers, and a host of others.

Features

• Attendees of beer festivals (e.g., the Great British Beer Festival and Great American Beer Festival) would want copies of the book, as would members of the various beer organizations, including the American Hombrewers Association.
• Selling point: Most comprehensive reference work on beer ever published
• Selling point: Over 1,100 entries by renowned beer experts across the globe
• Selling point: Entries on every aspect of beer, including chemical, technical, social, cultural, and linguistic
• Selling point: Editor-in-Chief Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery, is the foremost authority on beer in the United States
• Selling point: Ideal resource for both practical information and engaging beer anecdotes
• Selling point: Foreword by Top Chef head judge Tom Colicchio