Beer: Domestic, Imported, and Home Brewed

Ms. Adamson has taken on the rather large task of describing a world full of beer and trying to condense it into a readable and usable format. I think that she did a very nice job at this. The book breaks down beer so that even the lay person might understand the basic components and techniques used to make beer. Differences between lagers and ales, along with differences in beer styles are explained quite nicely so that you would reasonably know what you are buying/ordering when you take that first visit to a beer bar/beer store. The main body of the book consists of a regional/country breakdown with styles listed, a description of the style and finally a fairly good list of beers representitive of the style. Ms. Adamson did her homework, probably to the chagrin of her liver. The list of beers is about as up to date as I have seen. While not every beer of that style is listed, the examples she gives should be fairly easy to find. Overall, this is a nice little book for someone who has gotten an interest in beer and would like to know a good deal more about the world of beer.