You might have noticed that I have a bit of an interest in beer history. All beer history from everywhere. But to keep things vaguely realistic, I've managed - with great difficulty - to limit my researcdh to a few key countries: the UK, Germany and USA. The rest? Well, others will need to take care of that. Not that there have been any takers. Until now.
In Bronzed Brews, Peter Symons takes a close look at the beer brewed in Australia from colonial times to the 1970's. Like my own work, his relies heavily on brewing records. A criminally underused resource, if you ask me. But he doesn't just examine Australian brews, he's also looked at the British beers from which they evolved*. Which makes the book doubly fascinating. And demonstrates one of my main points about beer styles: that they evolve and mutate when moved to a new environment.
The home brewers among you will be pleased to learn that the book includes 40-odd historic Australian recipes. I'm particularly keen on looking at those for Stout.
You can buy the book here:
http://prstemp.wix.com/tritun-books
Disclaimer: I've shared several beers with Peter and I wrote the foreword for the book.
* Peter has been kind enough to share some of his research of British brewing records with me.
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4 comments:
I was lucky to meet both these men in San Diego this past June. Peter and Ron are fascinating in their passion beer brewing history. I plan to support Peter by buying his book to add to my library.
Great stuff. Ordered. Not cheap at $35 AUD but worth supporting.
I'm a Pommy home brewer who has been in Australia for nearly 40 years and have had huge difficulty finding how old brews were made. By the time I got here in the 1970s nearly all the ales had disappeared and Aussie beers were all heading down the path of standardised megaswill lagers.
There were a few stand-outs left such as a couple of brews from Tooths and Reschs, and even from XXXX who used to do a nice darker lager and an interesting "stout" that was more like a porter or strong brown ale. Now both gone.
Really looking forward to receiving this book.
Great fan of Ron as well.
I might pick this up, good primary research in brewing lit is a rare thing.
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