{"id":2471,"date":"2009-11-23T19:54:04","date_gmt":"2009-11-24T01:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/?p=2471"},"modified":"2010-08-19T19:07:18","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T01:07:18","slug":"book-review-naked-pint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/book-review-naked-pint\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Naked Pint"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Alan McLeod totally nailed it<\/a> with his review of The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer,<\/em><\/a>\"\" answering the two biggest questions I had while reading the book.<\/p>\n

– First,<\/strong> why are there homebrew recipes in this book? Can’t even a book for beginners be a bit specialized or must every introduction to craft beer tell us a little bit about everything? Look, I’m not exactly complaining because (disclaimer alert) they recommend Brew Like a Monk<\/em><\/a> and it’s a good thing when a book that is going to rank ahead of yours at Amazon.com says nice things about it.<\/p>\n

I like the analogy that Alan draws to The Yachtsman’s Week-end Book<\/em>, writing that Naked Pint<\/em> “harkens to a day when a book could purport to be an omnibus filled with everything you practically need to know to get from novice to pretty well capable.”<\/p>\n

– Second,<\/strong> were you to give this book as a present who would you give it to? Again, quoting Alan, “This is a book for beer nerds to give their friends. It will tell the nerds a lot about good beer but it will also tell them a lot about their beer nerd pal.”<\/p>\n

Indeed. Any copy coming from me would come complete with Post-it notes correcting a variety of niggling errors. I can’t help myself. I’ve already whined about “candi sugar,”<\/a> though because almost everybody seems to get that crooked I’m giving them a pass. However you wonder who was in charge of editing when you see the phrase “bottom-fermenting ales.” Or why on page 130 they get it right in explaining misconceptions about dubbels<\/em> and tripels<\/em> after getting it wrong on page 23. <\/p>\n

So you probably aren’t going to use this book to study for the Cicerone exam<\/a>. But it’s easy to like. Authors Hallie Beaune and Christina Perozzi write in a breezy and sometimes brassy manner. (“A 5% ABV beer can make you friendly; an 8% ABV beer can make you French kiss a tree.”)<\/p>\n

They consistently explain things about beer that can seem overwhelming at the outset. Consider their approach to presenting styles. They always begin with an easy-to-read blurb. Like this:<\/p>\n

Bitter, but Not Angry: Bitters<\/p>\n

This beer’s for you if you like: being surly but not mean, long discussions about Shakespearean themes. Notes of toffee. Staying on your stool. Evenings at the pub.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Far more interesting than any<\/em> style guidelines you’ve ever read.<\/p>\n

Alan got it perfect, but before you give it to your friends ready for a bit of beer education read it over yourself. You might find yourself better prepared to talk with them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alan McLeod totally nailed it with his review of The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer, answering the two biggest questions I had while reading the book. – First, why are there homebrew recipes in this book? Can’t even a book for beginners be a bit specialized or must every introduction to craft … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-DR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4621,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions\/4621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}