The stories beer can tell

Around the World in 80 Beers (Martyn Cornell, Pen & Sword £25). The Meaning of Beer (Jonny Garrett, Allen & Unwin £16.99)

By Phil Mellows

Beer is never just beer. Submerged in that delightful frothy liquid are a thousand stories that beer writers strive to bring to the surface.

Martyn Cornell’s new book, Around the World in 80 Beers, is a remarkable collection of tales, the veteran historian of brewing tapping into his brain to pour out the fascinating facts that have accumulated there, taking us on a global expedition to discover a proliferation of beer styles and brands.

There is no introduction. Cornell simply dives in and gets on with it, starting in England with the story of porter. It’s a style you see quite a lot of these days. Most craft brewers have a take on it, and it’s a surprise to be reminded that it disappeared for nearly 40 years before being revived by the wave of microbrewers that sprang up the 1980s. Fuller’s London Porter is the chosen example, revived by the brewer only in 1996 after a gap of half-a-century.

Then Cornell moves straight on to another of his favourite topics, India Pale Ale, and the story of Bass before heading north to take in another classic, Newcastle Brown Ale, which, we discover, is derived from the ‘audit ales’ brewed at Oxford and Cambridge universities. American craft brewer Lagunitas now makes its own version, jazzed up with US hops.

Mild is another style that has been threatened with extinction but is now attracting interest from a new generation of brewers. Cornell turns to Holt’s of Manchester, though, for a mild that’s stayed true to its roots.

In Yorkshire they have they own brewing system based on ‘Yorkshire Square’ fermentation vessels, which gives the author something else to get his teeth into, with an explanation of how the technique produces a smoother beer with a tight, creamy head. It’s represented by a relatively modern ale, Black Sheep Best Bitter, which has its own tangled story to tell.

Then it’s back down south for a taste of Hop Back Summer Lightning, pioneer in the 1980s of a new golden ale style that was to sweep the country, and Gale’s Prize Old Ale, a unique blend of aged and fresh beers kept alive in the past couple of years thanks in large part to former Dark Star head brewer Henry Kirk, now experimenting with heritage beers under the name Sunken Knave.

We’ll wave off Martyn Cornell at this point, brimming with education even before we’ve left these shores, and join Jonny Garrett on his travels in search of The Meaning of Beer.

Garrett, one of a more recent generation of beer writers most famous for his video series the Craft Beer Channel, takes a more leisurely, reflective approach, visiting in person significant sites that tell stories of how beer has, over millennia, shaped the world we live in.

Reports of his trips to Egypt, Belgium, Bavaria, Ireland, the Arctic wastes of Svalbard, China, Sweden and, um, Southall have a tangible of place as he meets the people behind the beers and explores what brewing has meant for science, politics and culture.

We are left wondering where we’d be without beer before shaking off that chilling thought and taking our own little journey to the local to check it’s still there.