Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: The Craft, Culture, and Ethos of Brewing, Portable Documents

Charles W. Bamforth

FT Press, Aug 26, 2010 - Technology & Engineering - 256 pages

Beer Is Proof God Loves Us is a funny, engaging, and downright joyous examination of the whole world of beer and brewing. Your guide, Charlie Bamforth, may be the world's #1 expert on every aspect of beer. After a worldwide search, he was selected as the first Anheuser-Busch Professor of Brewing Science at the University of California, Davis. Now, he presents the most compelling social history of beer ever written: where it came from, where the brewing business stands now, and what the future holds. In this far-reaching book, he reveals:

· The extraordinary complexity and artistry that can be found in great brewing

· The factors that impact beer quality and wholesomeness

· Centuries-old cultural values embedded in good beer

Bamforth also explains what the rise of new craft breweries means to beer drinkers and what the latest global trends will have on beer consumption. The book concludes with a look to the future, illustrating how environmental issues will change the brewing industry and addressing radical new approaches to brewing, such as Happoshu and malternatives.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - justindtapp - LibraryThing

This book popped up as free for Kindle one day in 2010 and I downloaded it because it reminded me of this Keith Walters post on alcohol and Scripture. I hadn't thought about it much until we were in ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - datrappert - LibraryThing

Getting beyond the off-putting title, this is a rambling but fascinating semi-autobiography of a soccer-obsessed brewing expert who spent several years at Bass in his native England and now teaches ...

Contents

• Global Concerns: 1
• The NotSoSlow Death of a Beer Culture: 23
• Barbican Balls and Beyond: 39
• On The Other Hand The Rebirth of a Beer Ethos: 49
• So What Is Quality?: 65
• Despite the Odds AntiAlcohol Forces: 79
• Societal Issues: 93
• Looks Good Tastes Good and: 101
• Whither Brewing?: 115
• God in a Glass: 123
• Conclusion: 129
• Endnotes: 133
• The Basics of Malting and Brewing: 213
• Types of Beer: 219
• About the Author: 223
• Index: 225

About the author

Charles W. Bamforth has been in the brewing industry for 32 years, including 13 years in research, 11 in academia, and 8 with the famed brewing company Bass. After an international search, he was selected as UC Davis’ first Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences. His Web site gives fuller details of his career and much interesting information about beer and brewing, besides: http://www-foodsci.ucdavis.edu/bamforth/.

Throughout his diverse career, he has embraced every dimension of beer, from raw materials and processing, through quality, to beer’s impact on the body. This makes him unique among “beer people” worldwide. He has published many research papers in the peer-reviewed domain, but also those targeted at the layperson, seeking to engage awareness and debate about beer as a product and as part of social fabric. This is his ninth book on beer (one of his earlier ones is in its third edition), and he is generally considered to be one of the world’s leading writers and speakers on beer, from an authoritative, but also humorous and engaging, perspective. In recent years his major research thrust has been on the wholesomeness and public perception of beer.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: The Craft, Culture, and Ethos of Brewing, Portable Documents; FT Press Science
• Author: Charles W. Bamforth
• Publisher: FT Press, 2010
• ISBN: 0132172992, 9780132172998
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Crafts & Hobbies / General; Technology & Engineering / Food Science / General