Craft beer fans – how many pounds and inches do you think you’ve added due to your passion for brew? Wouldn’t it be great if you could continue to drink beer and not gain weight? Wow! When I cracked open Gary Greenberg’s “The Beer Diet: How to Drink Beer and Not again Weight” I was very excited to find the answer!
Are the answers all here? Of course not – each beer drinker is an individual with a myriad of unique health conditions; a boilerplate approach would not work for everyone. But the information Greenberg provides is definitely food for thought – exercise, eating habits, mental health, and your approach to the intake of your favorite malt beverage all can work together to decrease its negative health effects.
The Beer Diet is an easy read and encourages us craft beer fanatics to really think about our choices – so that we can hopefully continue to enjoy beer for a long time to come! The Beer Diet is available on Amazon in Kindle format, and paperback will be released soon.
Brewers Publications, the leading publisher of contemporary and relevant brewing literature for today’s craft brewers, homebrewers, and beer enthusiasts, will be releasing “Quality Labs for Small Brewers: Building A Foundation for Great Beer” on August 3, 2020. Written by Merritt Waldron, author and Quality Director at Baxter Brewing Co. in Lewiston, Maine, this is a how-to guide for establishing a brewery’s quality program. I’m looking forward to digging into it and posting my review in the Brewholder’s Library!
Here is the full press release:
Brewers Publications Presents: Quality Labs for Small Brewers: Building a Foundation for Great Beer
A how-to guide for establishing a brewery’s quality program
Boulder, Colo. • July 14, 2020 — Quality Labs for Small Brewers: Building a Foundation for Great Beer, the latest release from Brewers Publications®, emphasizes the importance of establishing a quality program for every brewery, no matter the size. Merritt Waldron, author and Quality Director at Baxter Brewing Co. in Lewiston, Maine, walks readers through a step-by-step process on how to execute a quality program at any brewery.
As many breweries across the country reopen following restrictions due to the global health pandemic, implementing policies, procedures, and specifications to directly influence the consistent production of safe, quality beer is more relevant than ever.
“Quality beer is essential to the success of any great brewery. This book ensures that only quality beer reaches the consumer, time after time,” said Waldron. “With the programs outlined in this book, breweries at any scale will be able to dive beyond the numbers and help pinpoint any risks or areas of improvement in their beer.”
Author: Merritt Waldron ISBN: 9781938469633 EISBN: 9781938469640 Size: 8.5 x 11 inches, 296 pp Format: Paperback Cover Price: $95 Publication Date: August 3, 2020 Member Pre-sale July 14 – July 21, 2020: Brewers Association and American Homebrewers Association members receive a 30% discount.
With more than 60 titles to choose from, Brewers Publications is the leading publisher of contemporary and relevant brewing literature for today’s craft brewers, homebrewers, and beer enthusiasts. Brewers Publications supports the mission of the Brewers Association by publishing books of enduring value for amateur and professional brewers, as well as titles that promote understanding and appreciation of American craft beer.
Historical Brewing Techniques – The Lost Art of Farmhouse Brewing by Lars Marius Garshol is a historical adventure much like Jurassic Park; but rather than amber, history is re-discovered in creamy foam and bowls of unfiltered beer. His adventure began in 2014, when Garshol, a native of Norway, homebrewer, software engineer and blogger, set out to explore the brewing traditions of farms in northern Europe. This was no easy feat considering that farm brewing has all but been pushed to extinction due to many factors, including the rise of industry and the decrease of traditional agriculture, the lingering effects of World War II and the Cold War, and the commercialization of beer.
One of his goals was to get to the bottom of the mysterious strain of yeast that the commercial brewing industry is fascinated with – kveik. To understand kveik and other historical farmhouse brewing methods, Garshol visited those who are still brewing the old-fashioned way – the descendants of farm brewers. Tucked away in the farthest reaches of Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia, Garshol sought out and brewed with farm brewers who more often than not did not have a written recipe, they simply cut nearby juniper branches for infusions and relied on the feel of the liquid for pitching the yeast – when it is “the temperature of warm milk.”
During his brew sessions, Garshol attempted to apply science to these methods and logged data when possible (including temperatures, weight of ingredients, and original/final gravities). He provides written recipes for them in Chapter Nine, but warns, “When brewing farmhouse ale, a good tip is to take a deep breath, lower your shoulders, and relax a bit. Try to forget all the things you think you know and instead let the tradition guide you. Feel free to take the numbers seriously, but allow yourself some latitude.”
Historical Brewing Techniques is a fantastic read for those who are interested in learning from the brewing past. Garshol’s hands-on research into traditional farmhouse brewing is truly a major anthropological project, and his efforts to publicize these techniques is significant from a historical standpoint. Garshol’s documentation of the science and history of farmhouse brewing is excellent, but luckily it does not read like a textbook because it is filled with his personal experiences – many humorous – with the brewers and their unique perspectives on brewing, and frankly, their lack of concern for meeting style guidelines.
