Have beer guidebooks had their day?

By Phil Mellows

Beer bloggers Boak & Bailey, among the best in the business to my mind, have set us a challenge here at British Beer Breaks. Their latest Substack newsletter is headed ‘The problem with beer guides’ and goes on to argue that, in a fast-changing world, printed guidebooks can’t beat the speed and accuracy of online equivalents.

“The fundamental problem with pub guides,” say Jessica and Ray, “is that they go out of date between writing and printing.”

Having just finished writing our upcoming book Beer Breaks in Britain, my co-author, Kate, and I are well aware of this problem. If there’s one thing we can be sure of it’s that by the time we hit the shelves in February 2025 there will be pubs, bars and taprooms listed that have gone out of business or significantly altered. The same goes for the other attractions in our destinations, chosen by Kate.

We have tried to minimise the risk. Between us we have almost 80 years of experience in our respective trades and we like to think we can spot a sound operation with longevity. But nothing is certain in these turbulent times. As a safety net, we shall be updating the guide on a continuous basis using this newsletter.

There is still a compelling argument to be made in favour of printed books, though. We are, of course, encouraged by the fact that a publisher like Bloomsbury has made the commercial decision to invest in our project, and it’s important that Beer Breaks in Britain is not just a beer guide. Including ‘other things to see and do’ makes it unique, we believe.

Nor is it simply a listing. As Kate says: “It’s not good enough any more to say this is here and this is there. A guidebook needs to be about telling stories, pursuing angles, giving something of a personal take. Then it’s worth reading in conjunction with the latest online facts. In fact, we’ve gone one further by marrying two types of guide, double the value I’d say.”

Boak & Bailey make a similar point themselves when mentioning Matthew Curtis’s excellent printed guide Manchester’s Best Beer Pubs and Bars: “We found it most interesting as a record of one person’s impression of a city at a moment in time.”

The fact is, people are still buying guidebooks. But that’s because they tell stories that can inspire travel, exploration, not just tell you where to go.

Reading a printed book is a different experience to reading information online, too. While researching Beer Breaks in Britain, I made great use of the Campaign for Real Ale’s WhatPub guide. It’s essentially The Good Beer Guide online, plus opening times. Not always completely accurate but at least you’ve got someone on the ground updating it from time to time.

When  planning a trip, though, I still use the print Good Beer Guide to get an overview of which pubs might be worth visiting. That’s hard to do with the fragmented WhatPub, where you can only see one pub at a time. You really need to know where you’re going first.

To put it simply, it’s online for information, print for inspiration.

Books are also nice things to have, to hold. Years ago, when it looked like screens were going to entirely replace the printed word, defenders of print used to point out that you couldn’t read a Kindle in the bath. The truth is you probably could, but it makes me wonder whether there might be a parallel here with baths and showers. Both get you washed but showers are more functional. Baths are for luxuriating in, taking your time, losing yourself in reverie, dreaming of distant places and good beer.

So when, as we hope, you take your copy of Beer Breaks in Britain from the shelf, just think of it as a soak in a warm aromatic bath – with the advantage that you don’t come out of it all dripping and wrinkly.